Dear M* Community:

Well, it's been a very busy, 'interesting' month for the team here at M*!  We have been invigorated by you, the M* Community, due to your great, heartfelt feedback on the new Discuss area.  Let me assure you that we have heard you!

(ok, ok, aside... i just can't do Proper Case, even in jest... so just pretend this it's all Proper Case and ellipse free...)

change is hard.  it is hard to justify doing it.  it is hard to convince the 'old guard' that the new solution is better.  it is hard when the rollout has been bumpy.  it is hard when it is done on the internet and people don't mind (very) freely expressing their (your) opinions and jumping on the 'winning side' of a debate.  it's akin to david and goliath (or 1000 davids and one m* goliath).  you view yourselves as the underdogs... the davids... fighting the good fight for a community you've come to enjoy like a good comfortable pair of shoes.  and now the old worn out but comfortable shoes have been replaced by stiff, new, strange, bells and whistle laden $500 air jordans.

i get it.  m* gets it.  and we're going to do something about it.  here's what we're doing:

1. fix all identified bugs asap
2. allow you to customize the colors (it's a small thing, but lots of people seem to hate the dreamsicle white/orange color scheme... so, fine, pick your own color palette, default startup view, etc)
3. the blog area will be totally rewritten, to actually behave and be viewed like other, workable blogs.  we (of course) realize that needing 10 clicks to see content is ridiculous.  what were we thinking?
4. ratings will stay, but will be minimized by shrinking them down, supplying total votes up and total down, in a much less (smaller, less bright, to the right side) prominent way.
5. several low traffic forums will be combined and/or removed.
6. "politics", which was created to be the quarantine of argumentative posters, will be dissolved and combined with OT.  it didn't just isolate the flaming posters there as intended... it seemed to breed them and spread the negativity to other forums.  m* is about finance and investing, not politics.  let them move to any of the thousands of political blogs and websites out there.  we have come to realize that we don't need that here.  you have voted out that forum, and we have listened.  that forum is the crazy, slightly drunk, distant uncle at the family reunion that you tried to avoid and was embarrassing to even be associated with.  well, we're escorting him out of here.  (they can blog here to their hearts content, as long as their blog profile and title warns readers what their blog is about)
7. read and prioritize all of the feedback from the threads.  there's hundreds of great ideas that have been suggested.  we're grouping them now using KJ analysis, affinity diagrams, etc. and will rank them via a C&E matrix and implement the higher scoring ideas
8. we will keep listening and responding to you w/ a very concerted, obvious way
9. for next major discuss area release, we are looking into adopting the very successful phpBB technology and adapting to m* needs. (phpBB forum can be viewed here, at www.diehards.org

 but here's what we will NOT be doing:

1. we will NOT, cannot, go back to the old / classic format.  our data has been ported over.  that technology has been harvested, and even if we wanted to, can not go back to it.  future releases may create a "classic" profile, but the underlying backbone of that forum system is no longer compatible w/ our new discuss technology
2. we will not keep abusing our most devoted users of the M* site by continuing to have so many ads (banner ads, skyscraper ads, cover ads, hover ads, ads in ads, etc. less will be more until we get back to our original traffic we had prior to the change
3. we will not tolerate vandals (those that abuse tags and tagging potential, those that violate our terms of use, etc).

we're sorry it's been such a rocky rollout.  you deserved better.  to the faithful that have hung on through this and tried to make it work, we appreciate it.  and we're giving each of you $30 as a goodwill gesture.   this will be only payable if you have a current credit card on your account and if you've posted here in the last 14 days (ending today).  OR a $50 discount on your next year of premium service.  it's the least we can do.  nobody can claim this credit unless they have not posted at least one blog entry, or forum topic or reply from sep-13 thru sep-25. 

Best, M*_Chuck

(ps... it's a shame that this is buried in the bowels of the blogs, never to be found or read by anyone... oh, well, one can hope that this sees the light of day somewhere... somehow... by someone... anyone.  anyone? anyone?)