Has to be

I'd like to send all the TR PTBs some lip plumper in honor of their upgrade.

AV

of "regular" users...
S'working, too.

well, I can't find a way to say it delicately except as "self-pleasure" cream, that I saw on here a week or two ago.

The site changes did do one thing. I've not seen much of the "come here to wherever India for a training class", or "help me crack this password", or the one with all of the smart phones for sale. Now it's lip plumper and special creams.

That one is back again today. Seems to be related to the Lip Plumper one.

What kills me is that they get flagged but never removed. What happened to "Message has been deleted"?

You can't mod without the tools that let you do the job. Simple fact.

If you can't sign in to your mod account, the task is now impossible. Another simple fact.

On the plus side, you are willing to talk to the muddled @sses out here and tell us what is going on from your perspective. Try to get that from an employee. Good luck with all that, too. But then, you know that because you are feeling the same frustration.

Believe me, no one here looks at you and thinks, "Why isn't she doing her job?" If anything, they are probably thinking, "Whyinhell don't they get her some help?" True story- on the site I mod we have eight mods, five Super Mods, and two Admin and our site hasn't reached 1M posts since it started in 04. Granted, that site has tighter restrictions, but still. Our force is 100% volunteer but we don't see the level of frustration that I can only imagine you are feeling about now. I am in my second year as a moderator, but if they take away the tools I need to do the job, I would be gone in a heartbeat. I have to give it to you- I don't know that I would be at my post under the circumstances that you are dealing with.

I really want to believe that they will start to understand at some point that this re-design still has a whole lot of re-work to do and begin to fix the issues. I also want to believe in fairies and that dreams really DO come true.

Hang in there, hon.

I have a discussion in the "big boys and girls" area on Autocorrect. Hit the link. The site is simple, won't violate your security (didn't mess with mine) and will make you laugh until you think you are giving impromptu birth to an alien.

Regardless of what my join date says about me, I go back to when Eric was running the joint. I wasn't nearly active back then but I WAS engaged. I started posting back when Peter ran the joint. My favorite conversation was an "alphabet soup" starter that became the loveliest piece of nonsense that ever hit the web. TechExec2, Ron, and I just had a blast. Even Peter came in for a few posts. Of course, we got input from a ton of folks. Back then, Miscellaneous posts were routinely joined by all kinds of people.

Back then, Peter saw the value of building community and telling that community that they were important. We felt important and we felt a sense of ownership about the site. Back then we didn't have moderators, but I recall clearly the shame I felt when I responded too quickly (not as clearly as I should have done) to a password question and was reprimanded by Jay. Being inclusive was important to us then and I crossed the line.

The Water Cooler was a place called Miscellaneous and it wasn't treated like it was less valuable than the rest of the site.

I agree completely with you. What has been differentiating about TR was that it valued people. The sense that the people are valuable has disappeared. From my perspective we could all move on and we wouldn't be missed. Honestly, most of us have Facebook and are friended (incidentally- I have lost a bazillion including you... thanks FB!) so we could reasonably stay in touch.

As I see it, there is absolutely NO understanding of what made TR stand out in the crowd on the part of the current PTB. I saw this coming to an extent when they dropped News in favor of regurgitating ZDNet News articles. I got a great delight and a whole lot of satisfaction in writing news. The income wouldn't support a serious pantyhose habit, but I didn't care. I got up at 4:00 a.m. and researched and wrote.

That went away. Blogging became horrifically difficult to do because fitting yourself to the narrow scope of acceptability was difficult (my experience, your mileage may vary). I finally quit altogether- even though I still had and have good material that wants an audience.

TR- in my opinion- now thinks that it wants to be some curious mixture of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn without really understanding that the key to the success of those sites is the PEOPLE who power them. It makes me incredibly sad.

Having totally lost the plot, they Tweet self congratulatory notes about how easy to use the site is. When I saw that on my Twitter feed, I actually threw things. CBS, David Spade, Jason Hiner and anyone else who thinks that this current incarnation is good, have all missed something fundamental.

The heart- the people- are trying desperately to keep the place they love alive. By all appearances, the PTB is intent on killing it. I hope that the PTB choose to drag their heads out of their collective, but I am not putting money on that happening.

For all I know, the goal is to become another cookie cutter site that looks, feels, and stinks like all the rest. If that [b]is[/b] the goal, I would say that they have achieved it.

Boxy, I understand. I know that you are doing your gut level best to hang in through this. I know that you came in to the changes wanting to be a supporter and to help guide people through. I know that you were as blind-sided as all of us. About all I can offer is that I continue to hold out a faint hope- made fainter by the self congratulatory horsiepoo on Twitter- that they will be struck by the celestial clue bat and reconsider whether or not we have value and if treating us as if we [b]do[/b] have value is a good plan.

(((hugs)))

It's almost like they put a beta skeleton into production with all the fleshy bit missing, all the while strictly obeying the law of unintended consequences.

I'm still trying to figure out what is so difficult in having a "Doug of X the current parent company" pop in once a month to say, "O hai! Iz workin on it," or "We is all incommunicado til furthar notice, kthxbye." Puzzling, but I'm not going to be upset by it. I do rather enjoy discussing our mutual bafflement, though, in case you couldn't tell.

On the other hand, one might think this should not all be such a big deal with the super cool new action on TR's end which is supposed to make everything so much easier to change and maintain. (In fact, the site is in flux right now by all indications, e.g., I cannot vote up your post.)

I want to believe, too.

Yay.
Funny how much better everything feels, when there's a word from the rescue crew once in a while.