Just got this email from TDB. I imagine some of you did also;
Hi david!
We’ve got exciting news.
Thanks to all the feedback we’ve had from readers during the past few months, we’re launching a new and improved commenting platform on The Daily Beast on Monday, July 23.
So why the change?
As The Daily Beast’s readership has expanded from just a few thousand readers in 2008 to, most recently, some 12 million Beasties each month (up 57% over last year!), we noticed the need for an improved commenting experience that focuses on elevating the level of discourse between commenters.
We wanted one where you could help us spotlight the best and brightest comments, more seamlessly share our stories with your friends across the social web, and–as we feel is important to any lively discussion–have the choice to sign in through Facebook, Twitter, or email. The choice is yours.
To achieve that, we worked with the whip smart folks at Livefyre, a company based out of San Francisco smack in the heart of the American tech scene. You can read more about the product on their website, if you’d like.
But know this: it’s fast, efficient, and has a low-tolerance for spam and trolls. It’s also deeply hooked into the social web, and empowers readers to edit their own comments, moderate threads, add rich text, images, and video from pre-approved sources.
If you’re a commenter now with an active account, don’t fret. You won’t have to do anything and your account will continue to work. If you’re a reader who doesn’t currently comment–or perhaps you did but have not for a while–we encourage you to hop on in and try it out. To register, just click the “Sign In” button at the top-left corner of any page. You can create a commenting account using your favorite social network or an email address.
We hope you like what we’ve built, and we invite you to stay in touch with feedback and recommended tweaks as we adjust to the new platform. Just email comments@thedailybeast.com.
Thanks for being a Beast.
Best,
Brian Ries
Social Media Editor
Newsweek & The Daily Beast
Don’t know who first started using the intensifier with the salutation, but whoever it was has a lot to answer for.
Anyway, looks like MT will get a workable blog platform after all. Good for him. He’s sure been getting some long comment threads (3000 almost, sometimes) but they are choked up miserably with trolling and impossible to hold conversations on. If they can tidy things up a little somehow, it might work OK.
I just checked my email, i got that notice too. So good. But if it’s going to be more troll free, i hope Mr. T ups his game there soon. It’s getting tiresome. But would be awfully nice to have a platform sorta like the old Graun. Just tried to sort of leave messages on there for Lefty and Jabs, but with the platform now they just disappear into the ether.
MT is capable of writing some insightful pieces, but at the moment he is playing flack. Richard Adams is also capable of writing some interesting pieces, but I find the live blogging stuff to be a bore. The G is wasting him.
Richard Adams is totally wasted, as there’s not enough happening to make live blogging worthwhile these days. I feel sorry for the man actually, he’s a vwry funny and knowledgable workhorse who got stuck on kind of a thankless gig.
MT is totally playing flack, and it’s dull as dirt.
Rip: “MT is totally playing flack, and it’s dull as dirt.”
Even at the Guardian, the real action was always BTL. But at least his output was impressive and he wasn’t precious like some of the writers. Generally, though, it helps for someone to know something about something. I mean, really: house painting, car repair, iPhone apps, economics, law… Just something.
What is this expression ‘playing flack’? I’ve never heard it and can’t even find it on the net. Flack is (was?) shrapnel, right? Specifically shrapnel in the air aimed at aircraft.
Yeah I got one of those emails, too. Not sure how they get rid of trolls unless some person just becomes the troll policeman. but will be interesting to see how it pans out.
Me I’m away for a week or so. Have fun and I’ll see you all on the flip side.
Bluth -
1. press agent. 2. publicity. verb (used without object). 3. to serve as a press agent or publicist: to flack for a new rock group. 00: 10 …
Bim -
You’re right, all the action at the Graun, and pretty much any other online paper these days in btl. I like MT very much, but when he gets a bug up his ass i have to tune out. There was one week at the Graun where like every day there was a mosque article. Now it’s like 10 articles in a row on Mittens’ tax returns.
porn,
Thanks for that. Makes sense (ie flak catcher, flak jacket). Is this a new usage or just one I missed my entire life?
you never heard the term PR flack?
Have a great vacation. Going anywhere fun?
thanks, porn, but no I never heard it. Maybe it’s a fairly new American expression? (ie last 20 years or so? Don’t think anyone uses it over here. not that the whole place isn’t crawling with PR flacks. Christ the prime minister is a pr flack.)
Going to roast on the coast of Turkey. And am out the door now.
Have a good time, Bluth.
I have been on the DB more frequently in the last month, and I am thrilled that commenting there will become easier.
I am a big fan of Mike- which does not mean I always agree with him, by the way. But he is always thoughtful and writes well, with minimal snark.
Too much on Romney’s tax returns? Maybe. But that is what is happening in the campaign right now.
Elena: “But [MT] is always thoughtful and writes well, with minimal snark.”
He always did a good job over at Cif. My complaints generally had to do with my deconstructive bent (same reason I like Pacifica Radio but NPR so often annoys the hell out of me).
Spoken very slowly: “If you are going to deconstruct, then please deconstruct.”
Anyway, I’m wearing myself out. It’s not as if I expect everyone to have studied philosophy and read Nathanael West as if he’s some sort of 20th century Joseph Smith translating Miss Lonelyhearts from gold plates dropped from the heavens.
Bim, I love your deconstructive bent.
From Salon – Glenn Greenwald joining the G
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/19/home_news/