This needed to be addressed. Good for you, Kent. And thank you for the heads up on your article. I will get over there to read it and consider further action.

Kent-Everything you've said makes sense, but what troubles me is the hint of greener pastures for you. If we lose all our good writers, we'll not be a writer's site, hell we won't even be a reader's site. We'll be a fancy place for whining about our lives on not so private PMs.

I'm off to read your submission. Good post, Kent, thank you. R

I read it..SO excellent.

Kathy, thanks for stopping in and for the support.

junk1, I'm straddling various opportunities these days. I probably won't “leave” but I could find myself scaling back if it turns out not to be productive here. For now, I'm trying to help make this place work. But I'm also pointing out that I hear all the time about good people cutting the cord in some ways. The situation can't be left untended.

Satori1, thanks for clicking through to read. I'm glad you liked it.

Some really nice sites Kent, thank you for the links. I have been on OS for almost two years I guess, the slow loading and amount of spam is daunting and frustrating. Thanks for addressing this, I just wanted to add my support.

Gee, was it something I said?? I just got here and everyone is leaving...
I did like it and I shared the site and piece on FB. And LC..I will miss you. Not that I know you well, but still.

Kent,
Good writing is nice, but I "be" attracted more to good thinking. When I see both-- even better. The one thing OS has over the website you mention is it's also a spot to find a few representative Rwingers to unload upon. It's nice to have that as well.
Sometimes you feel like a nut...sometimes you don't.

I'll visit that new website, and have been previously informed it exists. But be careful about saying too much or the spammers will follow you home.

the spam and technical issues are problems. i've noticed a change in some of what's been on the cover in the last two months, and not in a good way. i still write here and still read many good writers who do, but i'm hearing a message that it's the *subject* and not the quality of the piece that mgmt is looking for and the more controversial, the better. that's both unfortunate and disappointing.

I appreciate a good writer anywhere and came across some great new ones here recently. Thank you for the links, I'm on my way to read your piece after a pm to you.
♥

Paul, if the spammers have to register, they can easily be kept at bay, so I doubt they'll follow. But I take your point about the choice of audience—I watched Fox News nightly for years before giving up on it, but when I watched it was for the reasons you say. It's interesting to hear other points of view. I really am not advocating they lock this place down. But I don't see any reason for them not to considerably slow the arrival of outsiders (still allowing proportions of all kinds of participants—I don't want to see right wing folks, as long as they're civil, locked out).

Jane, when I drafted the first draft it was over 1500 words with a 500 word limit. There was just no room to go into all the cases. I somewhat agree with you on the compassion front, but the original challenge I was asked to write to was to answer why I had asserted that even those who are callous enough to think they'll do it only if it's in their logical interest should care, for reasons other than compassion. That doesn't mean there can't be additional reasons, but the point was to dodge the complicated discussion of what individuals need and turn it around to talk about what society needs. I think similar arguments can be made for other cases, but I didn't have the time to lay them all out. It's a busy weekend. Another time I'll do the longer version and maybe post it here at OS, where people are used to me running on yet somehow kindly tolerate it.

femme, I'm mixed on that, but it's hard to be objective. I have gone through times when it was terribly difficult to get featured even on important topics. There are some topics I don't care if I'm on the cover about at all, as I don't think they are issues involving time-critical politics. There are other issues that I feel like if they're not raised at that moment, the time spent making the post is almost wasted because it's intended as part of a larger public discussion. And sometimes I get in, which I appreciate. If I weren't getting in, I'd probably be slipping off to post elsewhere much more often. But I really think there are lots of people still struggling way too much and that this needs to be more consistent. My goal is not to get me featured and then suddenly rest, but rather to get enough good people featured that Open Salon becomes the go-to place for discussion on certain topics.

My key problem is best illustrated by an observation I was forced to make long ago when some news story preempted the soap opera I was watching. I tried to figure out when it was and wasn't OK to preempt such a show. Obviously, if there is local news that affects me now (like they've closed local schools and I need to go pick up my kid), then that is news I need now, not at 6pm. But knowing that Joe Lieberman switched parties (let's say, just for example) is something I can wait to the evening news for. I'm not going to rush out and sell shares of stock or something critical. My complaint to them was that they wanted to be both a news station and a soaps station. I pointed out that broadcast TV was dying because it refuses to brand. No one tunes to a channel to see soaps-interrupted-by-news. If they want news, they will be on CNN and they expect to be interrupted only for true emergencies. Broadcast TV is like the old “variety show” with a little of everything for people who have only one channel to watch. But the world is not built that way any more. And OS is trying to follow in the success pattern of broadcast TV, offering a little of everything for people who want all kinds of things. That isn't what readers want. There are political junkies that want politics, food junkies that want food, etc. It's fine to have multiple sections, but giving me a page that insists I must want food or nudity or charlie sheen with my politics mistakes my interest. And, in fact, this site is NSFW (not safe for work), so if anyone tunes in from work it's at their own peril. That's sad, too, because it means government people who don't want to be later embarrassed are not going to read. And I want them to read. It needs to take a stand and be about something, or else it's about nothing.

Sorry for running on. But thanks for asking the question.

After reading Mishima's post, I referenced it in an email to Ed I Tor's "private" address. Also to Emily and Kerry, for what that's worth. It's hard to fathom that there could ever be any reasonable explanation for the ongoing failure to address the issues Mishima presents.

OS members have offered so many, MANY different ways to deal with this SPAM SITE that is host to a few die hard bloggers.

People, we don't begin to grasp the magnitude of a problem that daily threatens to sink this ship we call OS. Do yourself a favor and click on the links in the body of Kent's post, in particular -- Mishimas.

It's the very openness of this place that makes it attractive to a seemingly ever growing membership and which is why I prefer Open Salon to any other site I have come across. I do like Nikki's site, which is relatively "open" compared with many others that I've visited, but, unless you count the comment threads, there is still a cloistered feel to it.

The rough and tumble nature of OS, which can be distracting to the reader who is looking only for refinement, also allows undeveloped talent to emerge and be recognized and, most importantly, develop with the encouragement of fellow writers.

We seem to be in a bull market right now for new writers, some of them have quickly established themselves as original and interesting voices that are attracting readers. There are so many newcomers, in fact, that I've given up trying to find them myself, as I have all I can do to keep up with the extablished blogs I regularly visit - and I constantly fall short of that aim. I do stumble upon a new and interesting voice now and again and have found others who were referred by someone whose taste and judgment I respect.

Altho I've begun wondering if the unusual influx of new members is contributing to the OS software slowdowns, I'm still of a mind that the more we have the merrier and the more our community benefits from the new blood.

As to the cover, I consider it something so out of reach, with such whimsical, inscrutable criteria for its makeup that I can't help but wonder if Emily feels as overwhelmed as I do just trying to keep my personal reading current. It's always a delight to see something I've posted has gotten the extra exposure of being on the cover, but to harbor expectations that something I post should be displayed there is foolish.

Finally, whenever a discussion develops about writing quality I have to take deep breaths to control the suspicion that ever lurks way down at the roots my egalitarian heritage. I am tolerant when someone to whom I may submit a piece for publication wishes to discuss the quality of my writing with me, so long as it is done with respect. But when someone blithely tosses off insinuations that his or her judgment of the craft is superior - even if I suspect it to be true - I grit my teeth. Arrogance, no matter how softly the cat's feet upon which it enters, I have always found to have about it the stink of entitlement.

Fusun, I appreciate good writers too, when I have the time. I hope nothing I'm saying sounds snobby or elitist. Problem is, I have only finite time and there seem to be an infinite number of writers—with sadly many being spammers, which complicates finding the others. Thanks weeding through them all and stopping in to read and comment, and for the PM tip about the typo I needed to fix.

Kent the spam was terrible today. I would delete it if I could!! Thanks for writing about your concerns I think that we are all in agreement. I will check out your post~r

I don't know, Kent. You may be right but I find incredibly powerful writing here, writing that reaches deep inside, that touches and fills my soul. I am thinking of today and yesterday and just the day before. Writing that I find here calls my name as do those who share their words, their music and their art. Here.

Stellaa, I don't think we're in disagreement. I'm not criticizing the writers, I'm saying that if you don't stop and start to create a predictable brand where readers can come anf find useful stuff and refer friends, it's hard to do. I could refer a friend to here, but there'd be no way to guess if they'd see what I see, if you get what I mean. They're going to just see a sea of unpredictable stuff and I really don't know what I'm directing them to or how to even hope they have the same experience as me. Contrast that with referring someone to HuffPo or to the NYT opinion page or even CNN. People might see different stories but there is a definite sense that you are not randomizing a friend by directing them there. I don't think there's any brand consistency here.

LC Neal wrote,"The stability and user-friendliness we demand is available in all sorts of other places..." ...where is that?
...and LC, I miss reading your posts already, not nearly enough of them lately.
There seems to be a tone of "I'm not getting enough ratings/readers" here from many people...
Personally, I find only one type of topic: serious, political, anti-whatever, ponderous...not really what OS is about, unless I'm looking specifically for that type of article to read. Then, truthfully, there are many other sites I'd go to first.
I like that OS writers mix it up, you don't know what you might find.
On the other hand, the spam and loading time here is dreadful, the cover seems to be the place where no one notices the articles, and some of the writing here seriously needs editing (maybe mine!)...but so what? OS is different that way, and thank goodness.

Inter

Abby, thanks for the support! I agree that Mishima's post is more important to click through than my own if people have time to do only one...

Matt, I don't claim the rough and tumble nature of the place, as you describe it, has no positive effects. But on balance I think the effects are not enough. My understanding is that OS is bleeding money and in severe financial difficulty. OS probably does not play into that except as a financial drain, or that's my guess. But it seems a lost opportunity to get readers, and I don't think you attract readers by saying “if you come here, it will be hard at first, but if you're the sort to persevere, you'll get something great out of it.” If you want to do that pitch, you should expect few takers, and you should charge a nice fee at the gate for those people to be part of an elite community. I'm OK if they want to do that, though I'm not suggesting it. What I'm saying is that if you don't create a look and a content model that is something people want to come back to daily and want to refer their friends to, then you don't have a formula to win. I post here a lot. I really invest a lot of time in my posts. But I cannot refer friends here in good conscience other than to read my specific posts. It's not that there's not good stuff, it's that I don't know that they'd find it. They'd probably just think I'd sent them on a fool's mission, or that I had no consideration for the value of their time.

Susie, yeah, you can delete only the stuff on your own threads, which is definitely a disadvantage. Sometimes I bother to "flag" it. But I don't know if that does any good.

Anna, I'm not dissing the writing here. I'm saying the presentation model from the front page does not contribute to easily finding it or keeping new users. It's fine once people get settled in, but I bet it does not convert one-time visitors to regular visitors at a very high rate. Just a hunch.

Just Thinking, I disagree with some of what you said but not in a way that makes me want to tell you why you're wrong. I think my sensibilities are just different. I sometimes do like writing about other than politics, but I have to say sometimes I end up having to put spin on things I don't want to put onto it just to get visibility on issues I think should be featured anyway. It bothers me. But it doesn't just bother me personally. I would consider it a complete win if OS started to feature the content in the way I wanted but I was locked out. Because at least I'd have something I could regularly read and get good ideas from and that was covering the issues I want. The problem for me is that there are two me's, the me who has something to say and the me who wants a place to go read. And the me who wants to go read would never go read at a place like this to get the messages that the me who wants to write is putting out. The bandwidth is just too low. I know who I want to talk to and they know who they are. And we could just have a little cover of our own and be happy as can be even if hardly anyone saw us and you could stop in as much or as little as you wanted. But after years we still don't have that, totally easy as it would be. We could just have a page that was nothing but politics and that featured only things marked "politics", for example. But for some reason that's out of reach and our only option is to have "friends"/"favorites". That's no good because while I like talking to these other people, the audience I really want to reach are the advisors to famous people. I want Open Salon, like Salon, to be on the daily must-read list of political people. But they're not going to paw through all the junk to ever find anything here, they're not going to evolve a friends list. They are too busy. And so we're invisible to them. When we could in ten minutes have a politics.open.salon.com that was not that. It's not rocket science. It's just not something they have gotten to doing.

I just recently discovered DTMS and found a number of very fine writers there who I use to read here on Open Salon all the time. I was quite surprised when the moderators of that site actually allowed me to join, considering the talent of those already a member there.
Now, as for the rest...you seem to be saying that a site such as OS should take special care of its really "good" writers instead of aggressively adding so many new writers that the "good" ones get lost in the noise. Is that how you feel, really?
Well I am one of those you refer to as the "new writers", hell I've only been here two years now, but I tell you a little secret.....some of those noisy types who are new arrivals, are pretty damn good writers and it is a shame that you and some of your friends feel like you have been overlooked.

As for the issue of slowness...well I have said this in a number of blogs, but I will say it again; I have yet to experience that issue on anything more than a short-term basis.

I don't know what the answer to your problem is, maybe OS should devote three days a week to highlighting those writers who were here from the beginning...the really good writers...then give the rest of us a day or two, between cartoons. I don't know what to do about the spam, I just know that, for me, it hasn't reached the level as a problem, that would make me want to leave the site.

I’m sure this idea has come up before but having specific political, cultural, arts, life, fiction and poetry sections (etc.) like many magazines could direct people where they want to go for what they want to read. The creation of feature categories might be positive for both critical readers and writers alike.

yep. agreed. Important post! THanks!

Kent writes: " . . . but giving me a page that insists I must want food or nudity or charlie sheen with my politics mistakes my interest."

I think part of the problem is that OS lacks the most basic elements of customer service. I have been around here for almost three years, and in that time I don't recall a single customer opinion survey. Changes made to the site are done in the absence of systematic customer input.

For example, when OS came out with the "tips" program, it took everyone by surprise. It was a feature that no one asked for, and that, as I recall, most members actually disliked. Since the inception of that program I don't know a single person who has either "tipped" or received a "tip." Nonetheless, every post still has a "tip jar" on it.

As you say, OS "mistakes your interest." But how can they know your interest -- our interests -- if they don't ask for it? I'm not saying that OS managers have to be slaves to customer opinions, but you'd think that they would proactively want to know what we think about the site, other than just getting complaints.

Kent, you're comparing mixed fruits to pit OS against HuffPo of NYT or other professional online news magazines. Salon, yes, but we're not the brand. We're not even the minors. We're the sandlotters, the walk-ons. People I refer to OS know I'm recommending a relaxed site where they can blog and find a potpourri of writing styles and skills. More frequently I give them links to particular posts I think they'll like.

As to someone saying "the critical readers" left OS a year ago, I'd ask that person to please name at least three besides yourself.

Torman, I see the potential for offense, but I hope you don't take any. I myself am a late-comer, and you may regard all of my remarks offered neutrally as to whether I am on one side or the other of that line. It's OK with me if OS doesn't feature me, I'd just like to know—are they committed to me or not. I just cannot tell some days, and I'm leaning increasingly toward saying I've paid my dues and if they are still on the fence, it's time to shop for another place. I want a place where someone looks at my writing and says “wow, we're happy to give you a spot and advertise you and be proud that you are a reason people come to the site.”

But also, I'm not suggesting that the line is between good writers and not good writers. I don't mean good ones came early and bad ones later. I'm saying that there is a constant density of good and bad. But if there are only a certain number of slots in the front page anyway and if the slots are always filled by the people who are there already, then the only thing that adding more writers can do is to make the people who are already there show up less often. And it's not like you as a new writer have anything better to look forward to. Suppose I'm one of the ones occupying that spot and I leave and you get my spot. If all you can look forward to is having more people arrive, then you are at the pinnacle of your career now and have only diminishing audience to look forward to. Contrast that with a model in which they pick you (I'm fine with them picking any fixed set, whether or not it includes me) and they really promote you. Then they have finally taken a stand and people can start to understand what the site is about.

I'm saying a site that is about everything or everyone is about nothing and no one. And I don't find that any different than just getting my news off of google, frankly. There's a lot of good writing there, too.

I have some wonderful friends here, but as much as I really really like them, I could not justify my time here based on seeing them. I don't have that much social time. I justify the time I spend here, and sometimes not hanging out with my family, to whom I owe a great deal of time, too, by saying and believing that this site is a place where I have a chance to catch the ear of the world and to really make a change. If this is just a social club, fun as that is, my claim to my family is false and I might as well just shut down my account. Seriously.

Scarlett, it's come up before yes. For example (and this is not the only example), my joint post with Mishima666: Reaching for the Open Sky. And Kerry has even sounded like something like this might be coming. I just don't know when. And the timetable matters.

Muse, thanks for the support.

Matt, the site used to have a different character. That Saturn Smith could not be acknowledged as a regular and had to every time scrap for position bothered me. It was obvious she was prefered by the editors, and for good reason, yet no one could just come out and say anything as simple as “She represents us. We will commit to feature her. She is promoted to Guest Contributor and we will feature her when she rights.” bothered me. Because instead we saw a process that appeared to be a lottery, a daily test of who wrote the best. And it was not that. Some days people wrote better and were not featured. They really favored her and I think it's fine to do that. They just couldn't say it. I think there could not be a more clearcut case of lack of commitment. I'm sure Paul Krugman writes some bad pieces, but mostly he doesn't and it's worth it to the NYT to give him space and call him one of theirs. After a while, one tires of the treadmill of it all. If Saturn was unable to make it, clearly no one else was going to either. I could name others, but it would get into a game of whether this or that person deserved it. Saturn deserved it. She committed one time to write a piece daily for 100 days. That was a truckload of work. I somehow bet no one sent her a thank you.

Bonnie, I'm sure that's so. I don't expect any site to make sense all the time. Commentary sites have to take risks. I'm OK with Open Salon taking risks. I'd just like to know how to judge how well the risks are doing. I don't know what they're trying to achieve.

Hi Kent,

I find you to be an extremely talented writer. I make it a point to read what you've written, if I'm around here, which I seldom am these days. However, it seems to me that you've stepped into the very quagmire that you're criticizing. This piece is receiving a lot of play because it is contentious. We love a good fight around here and you've thrown the first punch.

There's no contest between DTMS and OS. This can be the training ground for more serious pieces there, for example. Or, someone can write for both.

I also find that the quality of people I've met here has more than compensated me for my time on this site. I can't tell you the wealth of friends I've accumulated and how much I've learned from them.

I wonder how many DTMS applicants the powers that be there have rejected?

I do appreciate that trollism, or nasty personal fights, are not allowed there, or at least that's my sense anyway.

Kent, I don't think merit weighs as much here as fashion. It's a delight when the two come together, but I think if you have two pieces, one a brilliant artfully crafted essay on Millard Fillmore's Existential Awakening and the other a mildly entertaining piece on Turning Moldy Grapes into Superior Sherry, complete with really good photos, is there any doubt which one is more likely to make cover? And I can even see the reasoning behind that choice. That's where a little abject blogpimping comes in handy. Unfortunately some of the finer writers here are willing to sacrifice readers for dignity.

I agree.

Matt, that's fine. But if OS doesn't want my kind of writing and doesn't want to serve my need, it should say so. Instead it keeps promising that it's about to change the way it does things to be more responsive. And then it doesn't. I'm just saying I'm tired.

Patricia, thanks. :)

Ah Kent, I think you have put your finger on the difference between you and I and the difference between my type of writer and yours when you say you blog here for a chance to "catch the ear of the world". I do not.

I don't care for the "ear of the world", I am simply one of those peculiar creatures that are moved to write down their thoughts and feelings and throw them out there in the void for anyone who passes by to read. It isn't even social for me, I just sometimes have to write the words....does that make sense?

Oh and I took no offence in what you wrote. It did come off as a bit elitist, but hell, I've dealt with that sort of thing all my life and stopped being insulted a long time ago.

Now you take DTMS for instance.....great site. I was allowed to join but I joined only because one must be a member to comment. I read and maybe comment from time to time. I would never think of writing anything on that site cause the writers there are all professional writers of great talent and I know when I'm out classed. No, I go there to read selections and I come here to write my words.
Bottom line; Open Salon serves me very well and would even if I never made the cover again (I've been there four times in two years). I certainly understand though, your own dissatisfaction with them at the moment.

denese, DTMS is just an example. There are other sites people are going to. I get recommendations from people from time to time telling me I should move away to this or that different one.

But it is a competition. None of us has infinite time. And so spending time on something for another site distracts from this one. And OS should care. It has no reason not to be a good place for all the various needs I've described. It seems simple disinterest. (Incompetence is also a possible theory, but I like not to think that. I try to just blindly assume they have competent people, which is why I don't understand how this could be hard.)

You may not have implemented web sites, I don't know. I have. Putting in multiple covers is not a huge project. Theoretically an afternoon's work. These things have a way of being more complicated in the details, so let's say a week or two's work. But it's not rocket science if you organize the site right. Making a new domain takes basically no time. They already have modules for showing recent and top rated posts. They could easily tune them to use a filter and show "Top-Rated Political Last 4 Hours", etc. I don't even care if a person manages the middle, though making it so that any middle story that makes it onto the cover falls through to the politics cover if it has a "political" tag is again not rocket science. You can link the sections from the front page as statically wired pages. that's easy. And then you're done. You can embellish it later, but the basics are straightforward. Yet they don't do it. I just plain don't understand why. Kerry has sounded for ages like it was coming, but I just don't get when.

You're right Kent. It's worrisome if some of the better writers are plying their craft elsewhere due unfixed fixable problems here. If spam is the culprit then I'll support any remedy. If that means an annual fee, so be it. It it's anywhere close to the $5 mentioned elsewhere, I'm happy to pay up and cover the fees of some hard up OSers.

Torman, for what it's worth, posts like mine today I deliberately post on weekends when the editors are not around so as not to have them accidentally end up on the cover. Probably today's wouldn't anyway, but I mean my non-political posts. I put them up on weekends. I don't care if any but my friends see them. Then I'm writing for just socialness maybe, or at least to broaden audience appeal. But my political posts in particular I come here because the Salon name has a particular media visibility. It is not a credential to be wasted. Yet it is wasted, IMO. People could still do all the things they still do. They could just manage the cover better, and have more than one cover.

But yes, I agree, there are different goals. And sadly, they don't really acknowledge it, and they pretend the present system can satisfy both. It can't. For one thing, if you're trying to get word of mouth, you can't have it be to a page which you could get fired for downloading. There is content unsuitable for work on the cover. Some companies have Big Brother programs that monitor net traffic trying to find workers who are looking at porn, etc., and it's easy to imagine Open Salon being mistaken for such an inappropriate site. The failure to acknowledge the real world danger (not just difficulty, but risks to peopel's livelihoods) posed just by that one fact is really troubling to me.

Thanks for saying this.

This place stopped being a writer's forum a long time ago, actually. It also seriously lacks political balance. Sure, it can be an obvious tilt one way or another, but RESPECTFUL acknowledgment of differing viewpoints absent talking point hostility would be nice. Shoveling against the tide is about as effective as raking leaves in a hurricane.

Abrawang, I bought a Salon Premium account a couple years ago just to have a reason to send them some money. I don't tend to frequent Salon, so I didn't need it. But I didn't renew the account when they couldn't even be bothered to fix the cookie problems. It still kept getting pop-ups that treated me like an outsider, making me watch a video to see the site. It's not that I mind sending them money, but I do want the money spent on things I care about. I'd send additional money if I thought it would help the causes I care about. But I don't want to pay to have the site not be responsive to me. I agree with your basic point, though, that it's worth investing in. I'm here, and that's an investment. But if I refuse to say it matters, and I say I'll tolerate anything just because it's free, that fails to acknowledge that I am paying in terms of my time and energy and ability to draw at least some audience.

I don't mean to be issuing ultimatums. The site can do what it wants. But they might care, and I regard it as my ethical obligation to keep them informed of what I think so that if I one day am not here, or am just here a lot less, I have explained why with enough notice that no one says they're surprised. I believe in bug reports. It's how the world gets better.

So what are we? Chopped liver?

I'm just taking a vacation from OS and have some writing gigs next week.

I like the mix here and have always resented the divide between the new or amateur writers and the so-called "pros".

Some of the best writing that I have ever read has contained a few errors and some of the most dead awful dreck has complied with all of the rules.

This is one place where everyone has a chance to write, to express themselves, and to tell their stories. If not here, then it will go on somewhere else, thanks to all of our Facebook connects.

Nikki's site is doing well and I get over there as often as I can. There are some faves over there and I am glad that they are writing and growing the site.

Yes and yes again. Poetry is legit and I MEAN IT.

Yes and with the recent emily post this place has become their grab for not working. Hello salon.

By the way do you ever get paid by Adsense?

I'm an OS newbie. I read WAY more than I comment or blog. According to some of the comments I've read here- that combination of characteristics makes me a despicable, worthless lower life form, unfit to breath the rarefied air of the highly esteemed writers whose precious bandwith I'm stealing by my very presence.

I guess I'm naive or delusional, but I thought the OPEN in Open Salon meant just that-an open platform where anyone can write about whatever they chose and hopefully find an audience. But at least there's the opportunity for self expression, even if the readership is minimal. Of course there are people who write about subjects I have no interest in- but no one is holding a gun to my head and forcing me to read them.

Yes- the spam problem is horrific, but I really doubt the solution is going into elitist, restrictionist mode and making the newer members feel unwelcome. We're not the problem, and its hardly fair to have future potential members be forced to jump through hoops and experience restrictions not imposed upon those who joined earlier. To do so violates what I consider the spirit of Open Salon to be.

The multiple-covers idea resurfaces constantly, but I've never understood how it's expected to operate. Who doe s the sorting -management or individual bloggers? Because if it's management, that's a ton of work. If it's the bloggers themselves, the free-for-all that is OS doesn't bode well for good behavior. The tag "system" here has developed a life of its own. And who will sort the spammers?

xenon, no one is putting down the people here, except, in my opinion, Open Salon itself. Suppose there were a place for only one person on the cover. Suppose OS advertised still that it wanted more and more writers, but was not going to do anything about there being only one place on the cover. If there is one place but ten writers, is that fair? If there is one place, but 100 writers, is that more or less fair? I claim that's what we face. I'm not saying the new writers coming along are bad. I'm saying the paradigm for handling those already here, whoever they are, is not functional.

Something in this conversation is confusing me. Being a relative new writer here, I may be missing something important.

Kent appears to be confident DTMS will grant him "the audience I really want to reach are the advisors to famous people. "

DTMS looks cleaner than OS, and it looks like content will be "juried" (I think but it wasn't explicit in what I skimmed over on the site).

That said, what makes one believe DTMS will be read by these folks who (I guess folks are saying) ignore open salon?

That's the piece of the puzzle that seems to be evading me. I agree the NSFW aspects and tech issues of OS are a problem for this goal. But I don't see how or why policymakers would turn to a resource like DTMS. They tend to rely on the Brookings institutes and other think tanks for this purpose. To my eyes, DTMS is another "blog-oid" and I imagine will almost be certainly viewed as that by our various publics.

What am I missing?

Are you all under the delusion that the OSers are running the joint?
Who run OS? Who are the editors? Whose in control? not me

“another steve s”, you're perhaps confusing two statements I made, which may make it hard to see my point. I have no particular reason to suppose DTMS wants me at all—they've made me no specific offers or promises. I merely observed that a bunch of Open Salon folks are now spending their energies there. My other remark, which it might have seemed was related but wasn't, was about why I spend my time at OS rather than cultivate other locations. I see real promise here, but it's fallen way short of its potential and for no good reason I can see. Where I might go if not here is hard to say. I was just observing I wouldn't be the first to stray.

This post has somehow provoked a number of misimpressions, which I've tried patiently to answer. But at this point I feel I'm repeating myself and I just don't have time to re-answer things I've already answered, so I'm going to close comments. Answers to most or all of the pending questions are available in what I've already written to others.

If you have other things to ask, you're welcome to send PM, though please understand that when I say I'm out of time, it also means it may take a while to answer the PM.

If you want to remark publicly, and you feel I've cut you off, you all have blogs of your own, so there's no shortage of space to say whatever needs saying.

Happy to hear you are sticking around.

Although I may have sounded a bit Socratic, I was dreamily hoping you had found the Valhalla of blogging platforms.
(and maybe I could follow the same trail)

Dang, looks like that's not the case.

I check in from time to time here. I see the vaunted 4 hr feed and the same 20 or 30 writers there day after day after day. I check the cover and am mostly ashamed at what I end up reading or trying to read. The activity feed when it is not overwhelmed with the spam is the same 100 or 200 writers circle jerking each other around the clock day after day after day.

There are exceptions. They are hard to find and rarely rated. The site is cumbersome and difficult to navigate, making finding new quality writers time consuming and mind numbing. The fact that the spam has gotten to the state it has says a lot about the lack of resources applied to the technical side of things.

On the plus side, every shortcoming detailed above works in perfect harmony to bubble up what inevitably comes to the top shelf here. Some people swear by it, even going so far as to call it great writing and gushing about the 'openness' of it all. And now I see Emily and Kerry priming and coaching the minions on what content will qualify to make it up to the Salon mother ship.

In my view, after a hopeful start the site digressed into a social club whereby the popular 'writers' were screened through a well laid out politically correct template and how willing one was to play the social networking game became the chief criteria to receive merit for one's work on the site. In the end, that type of environment didn't appeal to me so I left. I was here for the quality experience and when that dissipated and was overwhelmed by what you have now my heart just wasn't in it any more, although I do get a decent recipe here every now and then.

Token Tarheel

@Kent: excellent points all.

@Matt: you can count me among the "critical readers" here who have strayed, primarily because of people like you who refuse to acknowledge that in writing contributions here, as in every other kind of artistic contribution elsewhere, quality varies wildly. You insist that everything here is equally good when that is patently not true. Are all restaurants good? Are all doctors good? Are all painters good? Are all carpenters good? For some strange reason, the only endeavour, according to you, that everyone does amazingly well (except for people who've spent a lifetime perfecting it) is to write. Ridiculous, defensive attitudes like yours are why I rarely comment any more, much less write here.