Just a heads up, we'll be down a bit starting at 9 p.m. PT as we implement a design refresh for the site. The basic concept was "strip everything down to the basics", and it looks like this:
My favorite part is the lack of a banner ad at the top of the front page. Hurrah! Less ads always makes for nicer design. (Of course, if our revenues take a significant hit, we may have to bring it back. Here's hoping we don't!) Our old tagline, "State of the Nation", shortened from the original "Rants and raves from the state of the nation", is now officially retired. We've distilled the three core components of the site into "News", "
Action Community", and "
Activism Action" [these typos are more proof I suck]. That's the new tagline, and eventually, the structure of the site will be organized around those three functions.
Over the next several months to a year we'll be re-architecting that front page, and features will be rolled back into it, stuff will be rearranged. So it won't always look this stripped down. But we wanted as blank of a canvas as possible to work with.
Over the next 3-4 months we'll be rolling out a new photo management project, the community self-moderation adjudication system, and a bunch of other minor stuff.
Our writers and editors have been clamoring for more sophisticated photo tools for years now, we'll also be able to extend those tools to you guys. Subscribers will be able to upload and host their pictures on Daily Kos, as well as have access to the photos we use on the front page.
As for moderation, while the new system gets built out, I will personally be taking over moderation duties. Starting tomorrow, I'll be reading the community moderation emails you can send through here. That'll make me crankier than usual, so you are forewarned. We are also continuously tweaking the automated tools, so if obvious trolls or zombies are being missed, send over their account name. If someone who gets lots of hidden comments has a crazy high mojo, let me know. We will definitely be tightening up the TU algorithm. And just in general, if something looks hinky in the way mojo is calculating, let me know so we can tweak. You guys have more eyes than we do and the formula is so complex that we can't account for every scenario.
The long term plan is to surrender these moderation duties over to you, as a community, in a way that doesn't allow any clique to dominate. We're making progress toward that, but the final solution is still months away. So until then, you have me.
For better or for worse.
Update: Oh, I forgot to mention -- we also have a new support sitelet going up tonight -- a place to get answers and solutions to frequent problems as well as provide bug reports.
