One At A Time Please! »
Posted By tdrapeau 10 months, 2 weeks ago in Science & TechnologyIn our continuing quest to better the quality of content on the Propeller home page, we are experimenting with a new twist to the ranking algorithm. A member can only have one story post on the home page at any given time. This we hope...
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Submitted By:
tdrapeau
Tom Drapeau is the Director of Propeller social news. Although it is the job he always dreamed he'd have, he's had a pretty ...
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heresusie10 months, 2 weeks ago
Hey did anyone notice that Propeller system still has many bugs and error.
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I think i found out that tags page don not work for a month.
and i'm stil get 500 error page.
If anyone found out any bugs please report to all so we know what's wrong.
Please Fix all in hurry Admin.
it annoying all the time when something that should work, not work -
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Klarissa10 months, 2 weeks ago
I wish we could neg a story to express our feelings that the story is unimportant.
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I think that most of us Prop a story if we thing that it is relevant, even though we disagree with it.
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AlphaGnosisComment removed: User banned.12 Replies
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TheVisionary10 months, 2 weeks ago
Definitely sounds fair. My name is Anthony Perez and I approve this message.
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heresusieComment removed: Spam
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mesodude10 months, 2 weeks ago
Another excellent idea. I don't care all that much that I've never had a front page story (even though I've mentioned it twice in this thread, don't read anything into it) but I do sometimes feel like the last guy getting picked for dodgeball when others get their stories posted regularly and my stories are left on the shelf looking pitiful like leftover greasy fast food. Well...Actually, that never happened to me because I rocked at dodgeball. In fact, whenever I got to pick, I would deliberately NOT pick those other people who were actually fairly good first. Why, you ask? Because they thought they were all that and a bag of chips with their designer nikes and their perfect hair and I would say to myself someone is going to take him or her down, so why not me? But I digress...
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What I was gonna say is that I'm just mightily p'Od that someone can get themselves banned and can later rejoin with a different or cuter atavar (it's almost as if they're saying, "I'm back and I'm reformed. Anyone can see that because I have this perky fun cheerful and plucky avatar now and I'm as lovable as a lovable fluffy lil yellow baby easter chick...blah blah"---then, blammo...when your guard is down their lil baby chick feet morph into buzzard claws, ready to tear your throat out...disconcerting, to be sure) all their past clownish behavior and opinions are expunged (instead of just the offending post which got them booted in the first place). My philosophy is why purge their records if they're gonna be allowed to rejoin and pollute the boards again until they get banned the next time. ;-( -
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libsRfunny10 months, 2 weeks ago
"If you would like some input on developing a system that would exclude some people from ever getting a story on the front page. I'd be more than happy to provide you with a list along with their sockpuppet aliases."
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You should learn basic grammar, first. Interesting to see the extremely intolerant lefties here advocating censorship, per usual. -
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Endoscopy10 months, 2 weeks ago
There goes the liberal Fairness Doctrine of censorship again. Can't compete with the ideas then shut them down.
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davidhallstromComment removed: User banned.2 Replies
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populist10 months, 2 weeks ago
Eh. I'll be one to dissent on this one. Personally, I thought the algorithm that had been developed here had some very positive ideas. But, people found holes in it quickly - by multi-refreshing, and increasing the number of "reads" ......
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My thoughts are that I think that concept was good....as long as the algorithm would recognize such activity, it shouldn't matter who submitted the article. Seems like a pretty easy fix to me. Adjust the algo so that it doesn't keep awarding more "points" for hundreds of reads coming from the same ip.....
and...also, I don't really care who submits the articles on the front page. The point is that the front page is supposed to represent what the community wants there. The goal and the whole point of the algorithm is to figure out what that means.
If Jovial, or Stoners, or TechExpert or AG or anyone else submits 3 or 4 great stories, I don't see any reason why all those stories shouldn't be on the home page at the same time.
To me, the "one at a time" method is more of a knee-jerk reaction rather than an improvement.
Tom, does this mean your team has been unable to filter out gaming methods (especially the # of reads, or a few people loading up with dozens of comments) that spammers are using?
A more robust algorithm should be able to counter all these issues, and give a better representation of what the community wants to see...
That's my rant.-
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mesodude10 months, 2 weeks ago
Wow...Thanks for this heads up. I learned something new today, I had no idea it was possible to pump up the "reads" in that manner. I know this flaw can be fixed because I've visted enough polling sites where attempting to vote multiple times from the same domain is impossible.
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Having said that, I want to believe that most of the artificial "reads" are innocent (like when I refresh a page or duplicate a window sometimes repeatedly in order to confirm that my changes have taken place). -
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tdrapeau10 months, 2 weeks ago
Fair points, good discussion all around. We actually did fix the issue that allowed multiple reads from the same person earlier this week.
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Its not a knee-jerk reaction, we have taken in a lot of member feedback and thought this was something that might help promote diversity on the home page. We thought it might encourage members who may not think the homepage is "for them", because they are always seeing the same few member names there, to submit that gem of a story.
We are also looking at moving back to our previous setup, where we limit the number of stories per category on the home page. -
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TimALoftis10 months, 2 weeks ago
Generally speaking... I like the idea. I am all for whatever it takes to both increase the overall quality of the front page and the diversity of its content. One thing about the old Propeller that I miss is the 'Recommended' section. This allowed the Propeller Editors to promote a submission that might have otherwise been totally overlooked. I would love to see a 'Propeller Pick of the Day' module added that would consist of one to three story submissions that is perceived by the Propeller editorial staff to contain high quality content and/or community interest. This will help to allow for new or inexperienced users to see their quality submissions make it to the front page. The module would also perhaps allow for a very popular story with numerous comments have a little more shelf life vs. falling off the front page after 24 hours. Our problem is that when a popular story falls off the front page after 24 hours all activity/comments seems to come to a dead stop
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jovial10 months, 2 weeks ago
Tom you made some good points as well, but the Obama story I submitted the other day kept recieving comments even after it fell off the front page. It had about 300 comments when it left the front page and now it has over 550! A lot of comments made by what seem to be new members. Of course this is probably not the norm, but it is worth noting.
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populist10 months, 2 weeks ago
Tim:
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Some interesting comments. I too, enjoy the recommendations that we had at the top.
But, the essential question is this - is diversity and quality improved by this change?
Or, would doing something like increasing the number of categories, and then balancing the categories on the home page be more effective?
TechExpert is a great example of someone who submits a ton of good quality articles from all over the spectrum. He'll often have a highly rated post on tech, politics, and business at the same time.
Should we prevent the community from seeing these articles en masse, just because one person submitted them?
How about using some of that valuable sidebar space to highlight some of "yesterdays hot stories" rather than using it for listing articles that are currently on the home page? Might be a better use of the space and a way to give some of those pages a little longer shelf life... -
AlphaGnosisComment removed: User banned.2 Replies
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davidhallstromComment removed: User banned.1 Reply
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willottica10 months, 2 weeks ago
I think it's an artificial solution to the problem. Merit of the article should be the number one concern, and multiple meritorious articles could come from the same source on the same day.
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What I have noticed, are artificially high page reads on some articles that receive very few props.
I have made the suggestion before that the reads to props ratio should be given more weight. If people continue to read an article and don't prop it, that article should go down, because the readers don't think it has merit.
Another possible solution is to only count the reads from logged-in users, and only once per user. This encourages site membership, and discourages refreshing (accidental, intentional, or incidental) from artificially propping an article.
A third solution is changing where the 'read' counter is updated. Number of comments is already a factor in the ranking, so reading comments shouldn't be considered a 'read'. Make sure that the 'reads' are only increased when someone clicks through to read the story. This means that rather than links to the story on the front page and comment page, there should be a button which acts as a link AND an incrementer. The same person may still click it several times, but unless they're intentionally abusing the system, this would probably mean that they thought the article was worth reading a second or third time. -
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guppythefish10 months, 2 weeks ago
Anything dat has 2 do with"Al Gore Rhythym" eye am fore it!
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populist10 months, 2 weeks ago
Eagle Eye - that's just what I'm getting at in comments above as well. I wouldn't recommend restricting WHO has an article on the front page to improve some diversity of stories, but rather, some kind of method of increasing the TYPES of articles promoted there.
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It seems pretty simple to me - broaden up the categories a bit, and ensure that a wide range of them (not necessarily all) are on the front page.
then, they can also work on improving the algorithm to help prevent gaming the system, and things will be great by me!
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mesodude10 months, 2 weeks ago
It's a start. As it stands, the front page is being used as a propaganda tool. One of the reasons Yahoo eliminated it's old discussion board format was because not everyone had an equal chance of sharing in the discussion. For instance, those with high speed connections apparently could post more frequently than those with dialup.
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What I find most distateful about my experience on Propeller is the idea that one person here (and we all know who she is) can simply get a clique together and dominate the front page for days on end with her agenda. I don't think anyone should be able to do it (whether I agree with them ideologically or not). I've seen many many substantial stories start to gather steam before immediately being whisked off the front page by the right wing sleaze brigade. It's disconcerting to continually see serious, weighty, stories which could generate thoughtful discussion be quickly flushed off the front page by a fringe story about what someone heard their best friend's sister's pet chihuahua's groomer who works with one of Obama's estranged cousins (not even if it's Cheney) told him or her about who called someone "whitey".
I see nothing wrong with people propping the stories of their friends (and in that regard, one could argue that everyone has an agenda) but even if I was popular enough here to orchestrate matters so that my stories were always front and center, that isn't something I would do. I think the front page should be a reflection of *what* is popular and not *who* is popular or slicker at working with their operatives to spread an agenda and crowd out stories they don't like or agree with.
Finally, I miss the feature which helped cut down on duplicate stories. It would be great if there was a more sophisticated engine in the works for this (?). In other words, seeing how a conservative publication and a liberal publication cover the same story (or don't cover it) is useful to see but I don't see the value of having multiple conservative or liberal stories when the content of the stories varies by *maybe* a sentence or even a few words. C-SPAN does this on the Washington Journal each day by reading from a selection of left of center and right of center publications but they don't waste airtime reading from two different conservative or liberal publications when the content only differs by a word or two. That would be boring to no end. C-SPAN, btw perfectly captures the spirit of the Fairness Doctrine. When liberals and conservatives are accusing them of being biased, I know they're doing a great job.-
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Nixie10 months, 2 weeks ago
In the past week, a certain person (and we all know who she is) has posted 10 stories.
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McCain: "Today We're All Georgians" which had 67 props, 290 comments
Chinese gymnasts take gold, Americans hint of cheating which had 38 props and 18 comments
SEX, MORE LIES & VIDEOTAPE which had 52 props and 111 comments
What we can learn from China's fake Olympic fireworks which had 55 props and 67 comments
Tonight: McCain, Obama to face off with popular pastor which had 69 props and 452 comments
Barack Obama fails to shine alongside John McCain which had 83 props and 474 comments
Letter to NBC: McCain protests NBC coverage which had 66 props and 270 comments
Reuters Poll: McCain takes 5-point lead over Obama which had 45 props and 57 comments
Barack Obama chooses Kathleen Sebelius for Vice President which had 112 props and 430 comments
Constitutional Scholar Obama Questions Legality of Slavery Ban which has 28 props and 59 comments as of this post.
The average prop score for this poster's stories is 61.5
Now lets take a look at the articles on the current home page:
McCain Unsure How Many Houses He Owns submitted by TimALoftis, 75 props, 227 comments
Optimus Prime Fuels His Rage Against Poor MPG submitted by jkustalicious, 105 props, 29 comments
First Time: McCain Leads Obama in Electoral College submitted by Spinward, 45 props, 73 comments
Up to 225 days of White House e-mail lost submitted by ameliog, 74 props, 39 comments
No Matter What Spin Our Politicians Put On It China Is Still Our Enemy submitted by davidhallstrom, 49 props, 59 comments
One At A Time Please! submitted by tdrapdeau, 54 props, 37 comments
Does Birth Control Pills = Abortion??? submitted by hurr1, 47 props, 44 comments
Constitutional Scholar Obama Questions Legality of Slavery Ban submitted by AlphaGnosis, 29 props, 60 comments
Debunking anti-Obama e-mails submitted by jovial, 47 props, 31 comments
Solar Cells - Made In a Pizza Oven submitted by idyll, 24 props, 1 comment
The average prop score is 54.9 And this is a slow day.
Ind06 has averaged 95.9 props this last week. Do you think he should be silenced too? Do you think he has an unfair advantage? Is he too popular?
The fact is, those stories get traffic because they are things people want to talk about, whether they agree or disagree. The reason they get on the homepage has more to do with the discussion generated than her "clique".
The average number of comments on the current home page: 42
The average number of comments in a thread by the person who shall remain nameless: 222.8
Her articles have some of the largest numbers of different commentors on this site. You even make an appearance...on just about every one of them. -
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Wolfie200710 months, 2 weeks ago
Meso
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Waaa, waaa, cry baby, sounds like you and Jovial are experiencing a visit from the old green eyed monsters of envy and jealously. Also, you are not required to read every story and this is not C-SPAN but Propeller. As for the Fairness Doctrine it was designed by your liberal democrats buddies in Congress to gag conservative talk radio. It has nothing to do with fairness. -
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MajJohn10 months, 2 weeks ago
I also miss the feature that cut back on duplicate postings. Nothing more annoying than having a post go nowhere and then someone else posting the same thing a couple hours later and it goes right to the front page. I think the ability to neg a story was valuable also if nothing more than to vent.
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mesodude10 months, 2 weeks ago
Ohh...I know this isn't the wish list thread (is it?) but I have one other feature request. I would like more user configurability (like on yahoo). I mean, it's fine if I have to read ads because I realize my posts don't pay Propeller's bills. But I would love the ability to be able to hide, say...my ratings field from my personal view...I almost never read my messages either and as nice as it is to have my posts validated (even if my story submissions aren't appreciated at all--not that I"m bitter. please...we're past that), I sometimes worry that it can become a kneejerk thing for some people to pos or neg something without even reading it. So in that regard, it's hard to argue the feedback is meaningful. I'm fine with allowing people the satisfaction of seeing that they pos'd or negged me but I mostly find that distracting. I know who writes well and who is earnest and decent and who has a good heart and when someone's been good or bad (for goodness sakes, people!) but I actually think it would be cool to have the option of *not* seeing that feedback (again, everyone else could still neg me or pos me or high five me virtually or stick a pin in a voodoo doll of me or request that I be banned or whatever they're in the mood for that day) because I wonder if it gets in the way of my actually *considering* the person's post independently of either my personal affection or death wishes for them as the case may be. Just a thought... ;-i
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bluetexasvalley10 months, 2 weeks ago
I know you don't read your messages. I've had two to you for two weeks with no reply!
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Candida10 months, 2 weeks ago
I have no objection to making the display of ratings optional, but I would not only like to see the ratings but would also like to see who gave the ratings. It helps me to assess where the other members stand and when I need to express my ideas more clearly.
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Propeller is definitely improving, but while we are at wishes, could we see the source of the articles as we used to? Some publications I trust and some I don't. It's a waste of time to go to a site that I don't trust in the first place.
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Eagle_Eye10 months, 2 weeks ago
Heres my analogy of what I feel has happened.
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A large Corporation has bought up a town. They have developed the entire area into neighborhoods, (i.e., "Groups"), these groups have their members who are all like minded.
They have also put out of business the family stores "Categories" (mom and pop places of community gatherings)replacing them with a few Wal-Marts, Targets, K-Marts, etc. get my drift?
The over development of the once harmonic community of friends and foes (that all interacted together) is now scattered about in different "catagories" (also the "Groups") keeping to themselves. This has caused an effect of the entire towns newspaper being monopolized by certain "Groups" i.e., Business's, etc.
This large corporate investment into the development of this once thriving community has succeeded in over saturation thus killing off it's community spirit. IMHO
Do I make sense? To me Propeller has lost that community "Spirit" and being.
Meanwhile I continue to lose my position in the community because some one is stealing my comments, well over a thousand of them have disappeared.....eagle sigh-
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ind0610 months, 2 weeks ago
Well EE, I can't vouch for all of your vanishing comments but I know for a fact that I went over 1,000 posts well before Prop 2.0 came along and was, if memory serves, slightly over 1,100 on D-Day, now my submissions are listed as 960, so any comment you made on those 140 submissions of mine would have disappeared along with them.
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If I'm losing my submissions undoubtedly others are as well.
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slate10 months, 2 weeks ago
Another site I’m on let’s the people decide, as you post to a story it moves to the top until it’s replaced by others that are posted to more often. If someone wants to post in it at a later date because of interest it will move to the front again. You don’t have to vote for it. The vote is posting. You don’t have to wonder if a thread makes the front page because of ‘connects’ to staff or merely from being staff that submits threads. It just makes the most sense to me.
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vidman0410 months, 2 weeks ago
Well, maybe this might be a good thing. It might cut down the number of Bush bashing and McCain name-calling stories from all of them to 1 or 2. Also, most of you are so full of it. You bash one member (we all know who), and then go on to state how you feel like you are the victim, that people say bad things to you (boo, hoo)...that somehow life's just not fair, and you're going to stomp your foot and pout...you all have about ran off most decent people and most (not all) that are left are of the same ilk....having one-sided conversations among yourselves bashing the right makes you all feel superior, does it not? Yore ding dang leader seems to have gotten some "book lurning" and can now spell half way decent, but it doesn't stop him from posted his usual BS and bashing other members....ban me if you like, I'm about done here...
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jovial10 months, 2 weeks ago
Did you complain about the public hanging they did on that governor of Kansas yesterday? What's so bad about it is she isn't even going to be the VP. Or do you feel that was wrong as well?
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memestryker10 months, 2 weeks ago
No matter what system you devise, someone always figures out how to work it.
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thoughtforsale10 months, 2 weeks ago
I think, a restriction of the number of postings could make sense, but to allow only one at a time, seems a bit hard to me. Perhaps it would be better to give a kind of "free space" to every user, which can be used or not.
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Spadecaller10 months, 2 weeks ago
I remain undecided and reticent about this change in the rules. While it does not affect me personally as I only post one story in any given day, and despite my disapproval of stories that are mere rumor mongering character assassinations, over management of this site has already caused enough damage to Propeller.
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For that reason I remain firm in the belief that the criteria used to qualify for a front page position was still superior before the Mr. Spinhead took over, though the old format failed to address the pushers of depilatories and wrinkle removing concoctions from taking up valuable space on the front page, which could be dealt with effectively by modifying the algorithm. Apparently that was postponed because of Propeller 2.
More importantly, there are many members who post stories that have significant value and interest and should we all be deprived of the opportunities that the front page offers these gems should it be a second post? I think not.
I think policies that are designed to cater to the virtues of our community are better for us all than those that are designed to limit activity and the efforts of the more industrious among us.
In reviewing the recent changes that have occurred at Propeller since this new format was installed, over management of the site has already done enough to thwart fluid communication and easy navigation; I suspect this proposal will only do more of the same and we will all lose more than we gain. -
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tdrapeau10 months, 2 weeks ago
For those who want to see the real effects of this change, compare the stories on the home page to the stories on the Top Stories page:
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http://www.propeller.com/top/1 -
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Bkumm10 months, 2 weeks ago
I don't think this is a bad deal at all. There was one 24 hour period on the old Propeller that I remember where only five members dominated the Front Page. Now, it made me feel pretty "cool" that I had five stories on the Front Page, but was that fair to others? Probably not.
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I do miss having the top two stories out of every category show up on the Front Page though. Of course, we don't have those categories anymore either. So it goes.
And hey, what happened to 1,500 of my comments? LOL>>>-
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Mdiar10 months, 2 weeks ago
When the Clinton's snuck in and stole the e-mails from the White House in the dead of night, they also stole 1,500 of your comments.
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Bill refused to comment on why he did this. -
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Wolfie200710 months, 2 weeks ago
I disagree with a system of limiting who or what can be on the front page. I think that the best should always come to the top. If an article garners the most props and other criteria to put it on the front page then it should be on the front page. This idea of letting everyone get a chance to have a story on the front page is silliness right out of kindergarten and we're all supposed to be adults. I've never had a story on the front page, guess what, my life has not been diminished because of never having this dubious honor. I don't understand this first page competition anyway, is there money or perks involved?
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mesodude10 months, 2 weeks ago
FYI, they're still there I think (hope). When you get that page that says "comments will return shortly" or whatever, just clip off the last part of the URL (in the URL for this page, for example, you'd delete everything after the word "please") and you will get to the original discussion page for that story. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear (for the moment) that (GASP!) ratings were retained but it could be part of the...er, core biorhythmic relational database matrix or whatever that term was somebody used here that they're working on to reset everyone's statistics. ;-0
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