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Some Housekeeping
As lately the comments section has gotten heated, I was wondering if readers would be ok with moving to an outsourced comment forum such as Disqus which provides for a much better and fast-paced idea exchange. It will be a change from the existing format. If readers disagree will shelve the idea.
Also, for all to whom a lot of the topics discussed on Zero Hedge are just too arcane, I recommend reading the basic documentation in the attached website. Will give you a much better understanding of the concepts analyzed here.
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you truly want me to write a response using this piece of crap system?? upgrade it to something better and then i will let you know what i think you should do.
Interesting. I recently started coming here to see what I could learn from yet another potentially knowledgeable source, and, to my dismay, I see a lot of mutual jargoneering "quant-speak" flaming reminiscent of Yahoo! financial boards by people hiding behind anonymous screen names. Do what you must, I mostly just lurk anyway to read things.
I'd weigh 2 factors: 1. Maximum 20% of the comments are worthwhile reading. I doubt many readers are here for the comments. and 2., The amount of time and effort required to make the change, since it's likely Janet Napolitano will shut you down soon anyway.
I say try it and see how it is received. If you hate it can't you go back to this current system?
Is there a way to moderate the comments and omit those from rudes, bigots, wingnuts, etc.? I prefer the informational comments rather than polemics.
As a newbie reader of this blog, I like the content you produce but am not excited about the interface. But I can live with it. From a UI perspective it would make sense to have comments integrated within the same frame where your posts are. If using Disqus would involve users navigate to a new page (and possibly click through a few links) it would not be very user friendly.
I say no. This works just fine, and until your kick ass piece on the shrinking liquidity, the nerds on this sucker that care can comment just fine.
If you start averaging over 50 comments it might make sense.
Disqus sucks - slow and complex. Please take something better. Or block anon comments if they are the problem... I thought Janet Napolitano was running this site to collect ip numbers for the big black book to be used when things get tough.
If you'd be interested in something like Haloscan, but without the suck, I can get you in touch with the programmer of what we named UniScorn (http://www.ghetto-threads.com/uniscorn/i-dont-think-you-know-what-that-w...). It works in Blogger and WordPress, has a new comment alert, supports lightboxes for images, autorefreshes, bold, italics, underline, etc.
We found Disqus too slow and Haloscan/JSkit support to be abominable.
Hey TD - I like the idea - disqus works well at dismissing the less interesting commenters and also has a nice Firefox add-in...
Dear TD:
First. Whatever you do, don't dumb the site down. Arcane is essential. You write well, smart people will learn, idiots will read another service. The issues before us are too important.
Second. Comments reflect stress; as hard as they are to read. Again, your serious readers will skip to the next comment after a few words.
Keep up the good work.
regards,
rr
Disqus is way too slow. Crashes some people's systems .
i like the review option. I think leaving this page is going to suck. I wish this wasn't a pop up.
I say no to disqus. Just keep it simple.
GoldmanSachs666 is a dis-info site put up by Goldman, to tell us all the obvious facts, that we already know, thereby distracting us from the real conspiracy of GS crashing the market in 08!
Here is how I see it.
1. GS shorts the ABX(subprime) in 07. Makes a Billion or 2. Sends a ripple in the markets.
2. GS men at the Exchanges raise margin requirements forcing massive liquidation in JULy 07, not to mention cornering the oil market.
3. GS men at the SEC raise margin in 08, lower regulation increasingly over entire tenure.
4. There man Hank Paulson took Lehman in the other room, executation style. That really got things rolling (downhill)
5. Then, GS influence at Mood'yS(warren buffet) slashed AIG rating forcing them to find Billlions overnigth,
6.Then Hank Pauslon shows up with his $700 Billion ransome note. After stock markets crash around the world for 10 days, congress gives the big five banks their money.
7. Jim Cramer, former partner of GS, after watching the market crash for 10 days, tells America to sell everything. If we see a rally this year, you know Cramer is in on it
8. Rubin was a trojan horse on Citi's Board, encouraging them to get long and heavy in realestate.
9. AIG and Citi were made fall guys from the beginning, "to big to fail" was the plot
10. It's possible that GS even inflitrated Freddie and Fannie. It's obvious IndyMAc was a front to push liars loans.
I'd leave the comments close to the article. Smarts will weed through the crap. Dumbs will dwell and add. We can sort it out .
Skipping over the silly comments is easy. Better to keep the interface clean. Maybe you can encourage the more substantive/repeat commentators to pick an anonymous ID/name and stick with it. Once people do that, we will start scanning for those smart comments ourselves.
Anonymous is convenient, but attracts flies. Disqus is awful with IE7, but actually quite good with Firefox, and facilities replies and follow up questions to posters.
Loving the in-depth analysis. Some technical bits on the credit markets are over my head for now, but I'm trying to pick it up. Thanks for the reading list... that ought to keep me busy for a while.
It is spamming fools like April 14 521pm that need to be regulated.
With popularity comes a larger pool of eggheads. Eventually some will lose interest, realizing they are over their head in the "arcane" ZH zone. A peer review system could work well.
Blog kernal works just fine here, fwiw. The separate comment window keeps the blog stream-lined. Slow load on pda (BB Bold), but to be expected given extensive content.
Don't burn yourself out. Keeping it to fewer but higher quality posts may be in your interest? Your strength and uniqueness is ability to post frequent high quality data and ideas, which stimulates high quality discussion. As an objective outsider, keep in mind that an overzealous slant can and will eventually turn off the sharper big fish lurking. Are you doing this to reach out to and learn from other professionals, or to eventually preach to a group of blind followers? There are plenty of other avenues to load up on conspiracy created from out-of-context data. Don't be yet another Honda in a sea of Honda's.
Keep it up and as always thank you for the great effort.
TD
I'm a blue collar guy w/no investments other than my home. I read to try and understand WTF is happening. This feels very different than the '87 mess.
You write well enough for me to understand some things. Items such as "Bailout for dummies" were great. Thank you
love the reading list should keep me busy for the weekend and then some
My company(one of your friendly neighborhood money center banks) blocks the comments anyways. If by switching to disqus you lose the blogger.com url, I'm all for it.
thanks for the docs. will flip through them.
not exactly toilet bowl reading. Why is it the greatest investor of all time coined the phrase: beware of geeks bearing formulas?
There's a comment section?
It's your site; you should do what you want. My "vote" would be to keep your comment the section in its present form. It works well enough. And its easy to go back and forth from blog to comments and back again.
I say try Discus. Its too bad that there's a minority of readers who waste ZH's time with comments that lack substance or worse look to pick a fight. In the meanwhile, keep up the good work at ZH. This site is a true ray of light.
lightbox plugin for images on the posts would be great too.
TD, you are amazing! Just a high school dropout with a GED here looking to educate himself as the how and why(beyond usual suspects - greed monsters and scum sucking lizards in suits)of this catastrophic failure. The resources provided through the link from the post is a gold mine for someone like me. Thanks!
Leave things just as they are, thanks!
ardano +2
thanx for askin
ardano +2
thanx for askin
I am in the league of those who are edyukatin' themselves here. Your output is prodigous and accurate. I generally ignore comments as they are mostly junk. If you want to move them elsewhere, that is fine.
The reading list: need to take a speed reading course to get through it.....but thanks for the list.
Thanks for the interest in Disqus. We've done a bunch of releases recently, including one which significantly increased rendering speeds across the major browsers: http://blog.disqus.net/2009/03/26/upgraded-interface-and-performance/.
Let us know if we can help at all if and when you give it a try: help@disqus.com; twitter.com/disqus.
-Ro
Whatever you decide, Tyler.
It's six of one, half a dozen of another to me.
I usually post anonymously. It's mainly pure unadulterated laziness on my part. I simply don't want to log in, log out, all live long day to whatever site I happen to be looking in on at the time.
Whatever. I'm hooked on your site. IT gives me clear, concise information without talking head moonbats (CNBC) flittering across my TV screen). I appreciate you greatly, I want you to know that.