So apparently messages are working for some people now. My latest questions, then, are ONLY for those of you who CAN send messages:

1. Were you not able to send messages before?
2. Are you always able to send messages now? If you restart your browser, and clear your cache, and log back in, can you still send messages?

Again, this is ONLY for those people who CAN send messages. Everybody else, please hold tight.

First, they're still working on messages. In fact, they're going to be doing some upgrades later (so if something happens, please be patient).

Second, only for those of you receiving an error on the Dashboard page: does the error message make reference to a failed listserv email sent to a PB group? If not, what exactly does it say?

(Please only use this thread for those of you answering the second question, so that I can read through replies easier.)

Thanks, everyone, for your patience.

Anybody know when PB messages stopped working? I found out about this much later than normally because usually people send me messages through PB when there's a problem.

Obviously, due to the nature of this issue, I only found out about it when I stumbled across it on the blog. Nobody could message me to let me know.

We'll try to get this taken care of as soon as possible. In the meantime, can anybody help them figure out what went wrong by letting me know when this first started happening?

UPDATE 3: Obvoiusly, it's still not fixed. When it is, I'll be sure to announce it.

As you may have noticed, when you send a message in PartyBuilder, you get a blank page. We're working on that right now, and I'll update this post when it's fixed.

However, the message does in fact send -- even though the page is blank. If you want to make sure, just check the "sent messages" link when you're looking through your messages.

The problem only appears to be the blank page. If there are complaints about it not actually sending those messages, please let me know in the comments.

Thanks.

So instead of going after the "supply" of double-posts, it makes sense to target the "demand" by making sure that posts people write don't get lost in the crowd. One way to do that, which I suggested in my last post, was to organize a PB Rescue feature here that the community puts together -- say, once or twice a day.

This post is dedicated to finding people who can actually make it happen.   Read More »

Many have advocated, in private messages to me, that I take a more active role in moderating PartyBuilder given some of the differences that have arisen. There have been arguments, I've argued, but I've been hesitant to ban anybody who isn't clearly crossing the line.

I've done it -- I've had to, on occasion. And I think everybody agrees it's necessary from time to time. Usually I prefer to send messages privately.

Now I no longer have to step in, thanks to a new feature from the makers of PartyBuilder. I'll detail it on the flip.   Read More »

Earlier today, in my mea culpa post, somebody commented that while everything else was fixed on profiles, points were still missing. Later a diary on the subject appeared.

They should be back now. Thanks for the heads-up. I appreciate it.

Just wanted to take a minute to apologize for everybody for the errors that we experienced this weekend. The talented people who made PartyBuilder decided to make some changes that resulted in some errors, but we should be back to normal now. In the future, I'll try to notify all of you in advance.

Please use this thread to report any errors you might still be receiving. (More on the flip.)   Read More »

How about this as a community agreed-upon standard?

Hate speech will be removed immediately -- with no warning. Personal attacks, if brought to my attention through a message on PB, could result in a warning and a request for you to remove the post yourself. If it isn't removed after 1 day from when the warning appears, it will be deleted.

I'm requesting your input before making a decision. More in extended.   Read More »

After sitting down with Fenyo, the philosopher, I've boiled down the drama on PartyBuilder to these two values that usually get along quite nicely. Still, with the recent increase in PB Drama, it's worth examining in greater detail why I think they're conflicting right now.

There were some things written about Fenyo that were wrong. And Fenyo has, on occasion, fired back with his own statements that were wrong.

But this isn't about what's right and wrong. It's about what's appropriate and not appropriate. That's the point I'll make if you make the jump to "Extended Entry."   Read More »

Many of you have noticed the new points system we rolled out recently here. Surprisingly, the reaction hasn't been what we expected.

Your concerns about blog posts and blog comments comments for the sake of points is very valid. Right now, a certain amount of points are assigned for each post and comment. While that's unlikely to change, there are two changes we may now make after reading what you had to say. The first is that posts and comments could receive fewer points. The second is that while posts my be initially worth less, bonus points could be added based on the rating system. The better your post, the more you're rated, the more points you get. Conversely, we could penalize poorly-rated posts by removing points. (A system like this is already under consideration for the next version of Democrats.org so that quality content from you ends up more prominently on the website.)

Actions across the site are weighted depending on their frequency and importance. Posts and comments, for example, are actually comparatively less valuable than many other things on the site. Creating an event gets you 50 points -- ten times what a comment gets you. Point totals were tweaked a lot, and can be changed in the future. I'll make sure we get a full list up shortly so that you can weigh in on where you think we're giving away too much and where we're not giving away enough.

On the negative profile points you may have: that was just a small bug when we were going back and calculating points. You do lose points for un-doing certain actions -- making friends with someone and then deleting them means we take away points so that you don't spend hours doing that to get to the top.

Some have also said that we were using points all along, but that's not entirely true. We certainly reach out to activists who may have hosted an organizing event, for example, but we've never used points for anything before.

At the end of the day, points are designed to reward you all for being here and helping build the Party. They're also designed to incentivize and get people using PartyBuilder -- we want people to know that creating a real-world event that Democrats can find here is important. We also want people to understand that creating or joining a group is important, or that posting on this blog is important.

There's no prize package or anything like that, but don't be surprised if you find 50 bumper stickers in your mailbox one day -- we know that you're the people that care enough to hand them out to your friends and family. That's why we implemented the points system -- to help new people recognize the importance of their actions here, and to reward everyone in little ways when we can.