It's just been dragging for so damn long, OS has become more of hassle than it's worth... still double posting and hoping for the best. R&R

I have been on here for almost 4 years. I don't put my writing on here much anymore but I still blog elsewhere every day where I dont have to earn more grey hairs -but I still come every single day to TRY to read and rate.

It has been next to impossible for a long time, so I don't try as hard as I know it is fruitless. I think Sunday said it all for me when the Apache test page was up for hours.

Spam gets the hits even when the site is down and let's face it it is all about hits. Toss in a few writers and it is a worry free zone and lots of hits for investors. Running sites like Salon is a huge job and takes time and that is their main worry- which is should be. I have little faith that they will fix it after all this time. It is a shame as it could have been, should have been, would have been the best.

I cannot seem to turn my back on the people I love on this site but let's face it. If it has not been fixed now- it will never be.

Jake holds hope but alas- he is just the messenger.

HUGGGGGGGGGG

The writing's on the wall, plain as day. It's just kind of hard to accept.

i would say, tis time for art james and
jacob sugarman to meet, over
a brew of art's concoction.
i honestly see no way out of this mess.
still, i am loyal to it!

I put my oil lamp and quill in a wooden box on the back of my horse drawn cart and have moved it to another time. This one is worn out.

Every damned editor starts out being communicative (or 'communicative') and lapses into silence early on. I guess it's the *Corporate Culture*. As in many things, I fail to understand why a five-second notice is too much to ask for.

Ironic, that THIS is the post that OS let me see today. I think you are exactly correct. I go to Our first and then come here and I try ONCE a day. Sometimes it works, mostly it doesn't.

It's the same thing over and over again. The apologetic post -- the promise to do better -- the appeal to patience and the rebirth of hope -- the plan with the details that cannot now be revealed -- the long silence during which nothing happens -- the inquiries that receive no response -- months pass by and then the same thing happens again.

My last post, published in early December 2011, was titled "We're Working On It." It was in response to yet another promise by OS management to fix things, this one in late November 2011.

A few days ago I noticed that a couple of porn spammers had arrived at OS. Two of the "top rated" posts were links to porn sites. If the pornography folks arrive in force at OS it will be very interesting. Some of the porn spam is so explicit that it has to be deleted, but OS doesn't have the resources to delete it. Given a large number of porn spam posts OS management's only option might be to close the site.

An honorable editor might consider hiri kiri.

r.

re: Margaret Feike: If your writing is on a wall someplace how can anyone read it and comment?

Let's please remember that OS is not a community, OS is a platform for a community. The way to keep this community intact in the face of these problems is to move it. I tried that on Oct. 1, but OS had gotten rid of some major difficulties a day or two before that so it didn't happen. If OS were like this on Oct. 1 it would be mostly empty now.

We know that there is one site where the people of this community are collecting. It operates differently from this site but it has some key advantages and management there is responsive enough to have eliminated some key disadvantages, the most significant of which was no notification when our friends posted.

At this point, I post at the other site with a link here. The only things I post here alone are posts about this site, like this one, which would be nonsensical to post on another site.

At least for the time being: Keep the community, Ditch the site. If it makes sense at some point to return because they miraculously get their act together, great.

How frustrated are you? This is an individual question. How frustrated are you? And now the follow up:

Why are you putting up with this level of frustration?

The main answer would be: Because I want to blog with my friends.

OK, so talk your friends into moving with you.
That's what I've been doing, and most of them are at least double posting at the other site now. Some are complaining that they're not yet getting enough traffic over there.

So let's go give them some traffic.

I recently got over 50 comments on a post over there. It's not a Dead Zone any more.

Anybody got a better idea? I'm all ears.

If not, get your tuches in gear and post there.

Keep in mind: The more people move, the less attractive this place remains to those who stay.

I'm not being disloyal. I want to stay here but The Site Is Broken!

We are not failing OS. OS is failing us.

If they fix things, a lot of us will be back because we have a huge history of older posts here. We won't really have to desert anywhere, because what we'll end up doing if we have any sense is double-posting and gravitating toward wherever the responses are.

Since I came back from our power outage, OS seems to have gotten a lot worse. It literally does not seem to function anymore on almost any level. I have been here two years and the other day got only my third EP ever. I was excited enough to head for the home page and there I was all smiley faced in my tuxedo hanging on to the last position on the last column. A few minutes, right before my eyes, I vanished to be replaced by another writer. My fifteen minutes of fame lasted less than five. I couldn't help but be reminded of the photo of that poor man hanging on to the last helicopter leaving Saigon. I guess it is time to go.
R

The cover has not changed for weeks. They asked for Frankenstorm photos. My latest blog is of Frankenstorm photos,"Frankenstorm Sandy Photos: The Trees Revolt", but no Frankenstorm photos, including mine, have been given any special attention.

I'm beginning to suspect that the Petraeus/Broadwell/Kelley/Adams emails were covertly disguised as spam and routed through OS since no one pays attention to the Most Recent posts. And the site's general inaccessibility would discourage any FBI attempt to read it. Naturally, since the investigation is ongoing, Jake is unable to take any action or even speak about the inaction.

If I were Jake I'd look for a job that doesn't require editorship skills.

~r

Whatever is going on here reflects so poorly on Salon, as OS is, of course, a featured link from Salon.com. It is so spectacularly unprofessional and pointless. Most website issues can be quickly handled by switching hosts/servers and getting the webmaster to clean up any dodgy code. By not fixing the site, Salon lowers the reputation of their brand. At this point, take a weekend, geek out, and FIX IT or shut it down completely.

What a waste of the FREE RESOURCES of some very talented writers.

I still think they'd prefer to get rid of the spam. Since they don't, I'm guessing that they have next to no resources available. In other words, OS means little to them as I've seen several low cost and plausible solutions offered up here. Why in the world they haven't been responded to in a Q&A format is a mystery to me. Unless the answer is always "We can't be bothered".

Jake is doing double duty. He is the cover editor at Salon and when he has time, is the editor here at Open Salon.
They did the same thing with Emily. Probably one of the reasons she moved on...
It looks like Gail Williams is gone as well. (Director of Communities)
Salon sold The Well to a group of private investors for 400k.
The lights are still on, barely.

sign of the times.......as a retired mechanic,if i had performed any 'repairs'in this manner....woulda been fired first week and still workin at MacDonald's.....

Kosher--You're making the assumption that high membership or traffic brings value to their company. While that is logical on its own, NOTHING they do supports that assumption. Nothing.

While i come back every now and then to kick the carcass and see if its dead yet, and wish it wasn't, the only thing born out by observable facts is that nothing changes.

I would speculate, and it is speculation because of course none of us know, that the people who own the site---and if I'm not mistaken, its 3 venture capitalists--make more m0ney from either the tax write off or the spam.

And because they never speak, except for poor Jake---the front man--I can only draw the conclusion that they simply don't care.

Hoping I'm wrong . . . .but have no real reason to believe I am.

If there was any way to save it, I'd help. But I think what's really clear is they do not want it saved.

So--here only out of curiosity and to help with the lifeboats.

Cause this was once a really good ship.

Well said. But I'll stick around with OS until it sinks.

Well said. But I'll stick around with OS until it sinks.

I'm here for the free porn! :D

Looking no further than cihan 2 cihan 2 with a post called Muhteşem Yüzyıl 73.Bölüm izle 13 14 15 kasim 2012

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2 rates.

None of us will ever be able to compete with this. I think they won.

Pssssst...don't tell anybody, but Jake's spending most of his time on job interviews.

"Searching for Sugar Man" is playing at my local theater. Everybody's looking for him.

Chicago Guy,
My assumption is based on the proposition that they have some reason for keeping this open, and it's actually just speculation.

Regarding the lifeboats, do you have an OurSalon account? If not, get one, because that's the main lifeboat and our best hope for maintaining this community anything like intact. OurSalon was founded when there were rumors that OS was going to close, specifically as a lifeboat.

In terms of loading the lifeboat, you might want to have a look at my most recent post over there. It will be easy to find.

Nick, that's fine, but this may become a much more lonely place.

Shit...I'd take the technical issues, but it doesn't take a lot of effort to update the home page such that it doesn't include posts about how close Mitt Romney is in the presidential election that he already lost.

That's just lazy and kinda rude, I think.

Malcolm on a free site, Jake's the kind of editor we paid for.

well then, give the shit over to the users. you don't think you can find 10 better posts (or 10 more recent, relevant ones, at the very least) than what's up there now? you don't think there's 10 people willing to do 1/10 of that work for free (enhanced privileges, without monetary compensation?).

this shit isn't that hard to figure out. 1st rule of management - delegate.

jl brings up a mystical point.
searching for sugarman.
my hippy social worker sister played me his cd.
to say i was dumbfounded and introduced to serious rhythm is
an understatement.
~
you bring up very Adult points herein.
"If, on the other hand, you had a community full of people clamboring for answers, you had insufficient resources for real solutions to the technical problems but enough resources for occasional temporary minor fixes, and your task was to keep membership as high as possible in order to enhance the value of your company, what would you do?"

i dunno what jake, our jake , would do.i hope he has a spine.
his spine would maybe be held up by some kinda duty?
duty to what tho?
i bet he is kind of a split guy. duties all over the place.