I’m another who has been around forever and didn’t post - at all - for years and years, even when I was a compulsive consumer of comments. Way back, comment threads on articles were maybe a dozen posts, and heavily weighted toward insiders with either information or analysis, which is pretty much all I saw since I didn’t take part in the free-for-all on the Cafe.
Every comment system, whatever was in place at a given time, always seemed to be clunky and inadequate. And yet, switching it over always ended up being traumatic too, and always seemed to inadvertently happen just as some big story was breaking. I think this is my third or fourth handle (I did not use the facebook comment system at all) because two separate times my previous screen name had been grabbed by some other party when the platform switched. (My current one is just the title of a book I was reading at the time.)
Whatever the comment system though, Josh has always seen it as a critical asset, not just a draw to the site.
Josh was a pioneer in involving readers as not just sources, but also volunteers in a massive parallel efforts to process information. Two obvious examples from the early days were enlisting readers to be ears on the ground in every state when it looked like there might be something fishy happening with a couple of apparently coincidental USA departures, and having readers pore over sections of a massive document dumps of unsearchable PDFs of emails.
I can’t say how much this site has meant to me over the years, not just as a news source, but also as a post-stroke training tool when my eye coordination was completely fucked. First the front page, and then later the comments (san serif is still harder for me, since my eyes have a harder time finding the edge from line to line). Thanks to all y’all for giving me short paragraphs that I could process while so much of my brain power was distracted with my vision issues. The thing that made it work for me is that I was really interested in what Josh, TPM, and all of you were saying.
Jeez - that’s a blast from the past! I would never have even remembered that site if you didn’t mention it. Wow. The ecosystem of independent blogs has really shrunk. I think back to all the sites I’d visit and comment on. Its amazing I ever got any work done.
I probably started coming here around 2003 with the run-up to Iraq. I get most politically active during republican presidencies and sort of check out and not worry when team D is in charge.
20 years! Congrats to Josh and everyone involved through the years.
I’m not sure when I first found TPM, but it had to be shortly after 9-11. I’ve been a fan ever since (and an early Prime member). Love the journalism, and especially the comment community. You guys help me retain my faith in humanity - ESPECIALLY over the past 5 utterly insane years. Thanks, y’all!
I have been here since that first post twenty years ago. Josh brought some hope after the Supreme Court anointed W. Thank you Josh, for twenty years of news and views!
ETA: I forgot to acknowledge the best team of political commenters on the inner tubes! Thank you, all!
Been following TPM for the past twenty years or so, from the beginning. TPM has gone through a few major redos and I have gone through several user names with the changes over the years, the most recent in 2013. I saw many posters come and go in the beginning and I wonder if others from the early days stayed on under different usernames. I’m sure there are a few of us.
Anyway, congrats to Josh and crew! You have kept me informed and helped me make sense of the political landscape over the years. And of course, you’ve given me a place to get my yah-yahs out and be part of a community on the boards here for a long time. Lotta history with TPM. Lotta Love.
I think I joined about 5 yrs ago, been reading about 12 (?).
I’ve said before, like being at a cocktail party with educated, literate and informed people. My membership saved my sanity during this awful period.
This pool boy story could have been decaudated by about all, but maybe 2 graphs. Tabloid stuff.
ETA: I hope Joe is reading these comments here.
I hope TPM will continue to cover those stories underreported or unreported by the MSM – or Fox.
Ex: How tRump is poisoning the wells on the way out the door.
The late Theodore Bernstein wrote some great books on grammar and language for reporters. I virtually memorized them few years back, but I’ve gotten careless in my dotage.
