Nevertheless, design-wise, one of the first changes you should consider is to your type-face. The use of bolding should be limited to your headers only. Non-bolded body copy will make your posts more readable, and overall, give your page a cleaner look.

It's somewhat frustrating, since this is such a great source of information on how the party is doing across the country.

As far as desired changes, I'd like to work on what Chris mentioned in a recent post: breaking into the MSM.  CNN interviews re: the war on Christmas are amusing for their inanity, but they fritter away valuable hours of news coverage.  This country is ripe for a leftward political shift.  The values of efficiency and self-sufficieny that conservative politicians endorse rhetorically, are being completely undercut by their corrupt leaders who defecit spend excessively and irresponsibly.

The adeptitude that MyDD has shown at gathering numbers for polling figures could benefit the progressive cause via other applications.  Comparing changes in the federal deficit or examining the cost of Democratic programs versus Republican causes would be useful.  I know the hatred and bile that Fox broadcasts obviously has an appeal to some voters.  But aren't the facts on our side?  Using policy realities would seem to be both the most effective and honest way to undermine the allegiance of Republican voters.  Put the data into snack size pieces and get Democratic leaders to force feed them to the masses.  

i can't think of anything else off the top of my head that i'd suggest, but i'll grind my gears on it a bit.

i would leave the ratings "as is".  they are fine for a community this size.

If the idea of running a candidate in every congressional district is a good one and mydd wants to play a part in that, maybe a prominant link to Barry Welsh's 50 State Project on the mydd front page - his site seems to be the most complete list out there. In fact could be its own box or something to make it stand out - like the Democracy Directory.

Also maybe a link to districtblogs in order to help organize a blog for every congressional district.

Riffing on Jeffrey Feldman's thoughts the other day and the Daou Triangle, also would be good to set up a media resource page - a list of major outlets across the country, and a form to easily submit stories to them. The Kerry website had something like this, so did the DNC for awhile there, MoveOn has done it too I think.  

I know people have brought this up on dkos a lot and it's not so much a problem on mydd, but the ability to rate diaries in addition to rating comments would be good. Good diaries scroll off into oblivion too easily, especially with a limit of only 3 recommended diaries. It will become more of an issue here perhaps as traffic picks up into the '06 election season.

Also - I'd like to see ourcongress updated some more for the '06 election season, with a current list of targeted races (use superribbie's?). Some of the front page stuff there (polling and such) dates back to 04.

It would be useful to have a page that would show me all new comments and ratings that my own diaries or comments have received. This would keep responses that may come a bit late from falling through the cracks.

You also need a 'jump to page' feature for commenters who have a longer track record. This could be by date range or by page number. For instance, I know I wrote something blasting George Bush back in November of 04' but getting to it can be a challenge.

An export feature would also be nice. I'd love to be able to export my comments and diaries to a file that I could save so I'd at least have a copy of the stuff I've written that's in my own control.

The general theme is to make it easier for people to access and save their own writings.

I'm a flickr user, too.

And, since you asked, was it because of tags? The tags in flickr are a great way to use the site. It allows much more intuitive (and fun) browsing of the photos there.

I like that dkos has added them, and that would be my one suggestion to add here.

1. I think it would be better to have more than ten recent dairies show before they roll off the front page. Restricting that forum to ten entries doesn't really allow most posts to be seen. Rush hour blog traffic can make for a short life for a post.

I try to post only when there's something not already under discussion, but when the diaries disapear so soon, the discussion may start all over from a different dairy.

Maybe I'm missing the point of how this is supposed to work? Do you want a short life for all but the rec'd dairies? The opposite situation, of course, would also be problematic, with hundreds of similar entries cluttering up the vision of the Site. Can the Site moderators perhaps take a more active roll in allowing some diaries to stay longer than others?

2. I like the ads. I use the ads. Keep the ads! Tell people who buy pay for them that I use your ads. Do banners if you have to.

3. However, for all links, whether for other addresses, documents, or ads, please have the browser open up a new window. The Web builder has the choice, and, unless you tell them, they will install the links to do the opposite, viz. open in the same browser window, forcing you to hit the back button rather than have different windows under your own control. Sometimes I lose my place at Sites like MyDD and have to go back to the home page manually.

This could also attract more readers who can't keep up with the site daily (hourly?).

Thanks.

-Nat

I'm with those above on the K.I.S.S. principle.

Conversation and the other stuff is good and I go looking for it too but there is always very good, fact filled reading material here.

Don't change that. The whistles and bells and blinking lights are of far less concern to me (though if you screw them up I'll be sure to let you - LOL).

-C.

I also see this as a place where the DCCC could interface with the blogosphere and put everyone a click away from helping with ANY campaign for any Dem in the country.

Media Resource Page

Links to Important/Viable Races

Action Tools - I would like to see volunteer opportunities, call for phone bankers, canvassers, letter writers etc... for campaigns and such. Make it easier for us to transform energy and enthusiasm into concrete action.

Maybe a separate section for Candidates organized by region or state with daily features on the front page of races to watch - action alerts?

Any Initiatives we should be following?

That's my two-cents.

Adding tags as dkos and other sites have done might be useful, although I don't search on the feature myself.

Focus not, on mojo, my friends... focus on me.

Can we get that too?  But Chris much hotter looking and bustier (the chick on the Blog for Bush looked like a B cup).   If that works maybe somnething for the gals too

I really like your political camapign fundraising.....please highlight more underfunded progressive candidates to build a network and $$$ for

These Flame Wars make us look bad to people who  come MYDD to just read our posts.

Perhaps a bandwidth co-operative among members.  Those that do not need to upload a lot of documents could gift their server space over to those that do need a lot of space.

These would be seperate from the diaries. A mission is assigned to members.

Ex: Write an opinion piece and submit it to a local paper based on Family Farming.

Members then post their letters in the mission area and discuss them back on their diaries.

Education

Guest lecturers on important nuances of the political process.

Each member could upload there own 50x100 pixel image to be used.

The list would change when the page refreshes.  This could recive it's own domain or subdomain which would bring more traffic in and act as a portal to myDD.

1. Bring back Jerome Armstrong.

2. Bring back Jerome Armstrong.

3. Bring back Jerome Armstrong.

Here's a link to a list of webforum software free and those you have to pay for.  

Also, if this idea gets adopted let's institute a one entry and one comment a day rule like they have on Daily Kos.

http://www.thinkofit.com/webconf/forumsoft.htm#freeware

However, now and again - more frequently, ever since Hackett vs. Schmidt made the blogosphere seem powerful - a bunch of politicians post official or semi-official communications as diaries at about the same time.  These tend to get recommended almost automatically, and jump up onto the rec list.  This can crowd out really first rate diaries from regular community members.  And my own admittedly non-scientific sense is that politicians' diaries don't seem to prompt as much discussion - there's more one-way communication, although there are notable exceptions.

I would love to see a means to distinguish between official communications by campaigns or political officeholders, and diaries in the more traditional sense.  Then, if it's technically feasible, I'd also love to see separate recommend lists - perhaps 3 and 3 - for each.

Or perhaps there is some other solution.  But at least for me, MyDD's recommend list becomes a much less useful way to sort through content when it's filled with messages from campaigns and representatives.

When I come back to MYDD, after a spell, I usually go straight to Dumbo's Page and then click Comments to see if anything I posted previously might have got a reply.  

I do the same thing at Dkos, as well.

At Booman, it's a one-step process to do the same thing.  Very handy.

I propose a direct link to the user's own comments.  

That said, I think that both sites, http://www.MyDD.com and http://www.DailyKos.com -- yes, I know that we're dealing with http://www.MyDD.com exclusively here; however, my broad comments are applicable to both sites -- I feel that both sites must evolve into "activism" platforms.

I believe that http://www.MyDD.com (and, yes, http://www.DailyKos.com) is narrowly focused on being a media outlet to progressive causes and stops short of providing "tools" for grassroots participants to get involved.  I think that moving from being a media/press outlet, to being a grassroots mobilization site require different administrative mind sets.  Therefore, the site(s) may require to be divided into two distinct sections: an editorial/media outlet side and a grassroots/tactical mobilization side.  Of course, there'll be no clear demarcation, as users and the website administrators would flow from one to the other with no restrictions.  However, the focus of the sections would be distinct and specialized; and, if a plan similar to this were to be adopted, the grassroots/tactical facilitator would be someone whose primary focus would be to "direct and inspire" concrete action (am thinking of the various offline activities, for example, that MoveOn.org puts together; however, since this community, I believe, is more immersed in the nitty gritty of politics, perhaps we could come up with better activities than vigils, for example).

Take the conservative http://www.TownHall.com website -- they go beyond opinion by directing users to take concrete action; moreover, they serve as a gate way to reach conservative activists and pundits.

Of course, building a robust tool box that we could use to take concrete action would require more resources than are available.  However, if the resources were to be available I would like the following:

• Require that users provide zip code, so that data (i.e., house races, local government, media, etc) could be personalized.
• Break diaries into categories that include, for example, the following ("editorial" and "activism" diary entries should be separated into their respective sections):
• Most Commented on Diaries
    - "Thumbs up" section!?  (Check out http://www.digg.com to see what I mean.  This could be distinct from the Recommended Diaries)
    - Recent Diaries
    - Recommended Diaries
• Allow users to customize their "user's page" (mine, for example, is http://bedobe.mydd.com) so that if could function more like a portal to the MyDD.com if I so chose to use it: with feeds, subscriptions, a MyDD.com inbox, a buddies list (so we can network and build off-line communities) -- and any other goodie that a user may want to add to their portal/"user's page."

Minor website tweaks that I would like see:

• Printer Friendly Link that reformats a dairy entry just like many newspaper sites do with their articles.
• Customization capability so that users, for example, could choose their font size, whether to open links in new windows, etc. -- check out http://www.memeorandum.com/ to see what I mean (click on preferences).
• Allow users to see who is online -- this, I think, promotes community cohesiveness and participation.

Am writing this off the cuff, so a lot may be jumbled and not all that clear.  But I do hope that this contributes in some way.  And, again, thanks for building this community.

also, before you do an interview, let us submit questions.

Secondly, I would like to see MDD add the feature of "Floor Speeches" from both the House and Senate.  In doing so, additional data can be reviewed, and which, ultimately, will enhance the quality of the history of the subject and the data posted here.

And thirdly, I would suggest that "Committee Hearings" be established, which would enable us here at MDD to track, prepare, and respond, at the appropriate timing (in real time) to the discussions that will be making the front pages of the Mainstream Media.  Thus, the benefit is that we would have the ability to be "ahead of the curve" in responding to our elected officials since we know in advance (by two to four weeks)and have the ability to prepare any commentary in hopes of "influencing" the decision-making.

My thanks in advance for any consideration.  Btw, keep up the good work.

http://bushclock.lose.com/

Specifically, I would like the ability to jump directly to a region in time and look for a post, rather than having to hit "previous 12" forever to try to re-find a post that occurred a few days ago, or worse, having to attempt a web-search for posts that are older. The one drawback of this 'Scoop' software is that if you don't bookmark the entry or diary when you see it, by a couple days later it's pretty much unfindable.

Please, do NOT go to the narrow-text format Kos went to. I like the page presentation and layout that you have now just fine and would not like to see that drastically changed.

25 YEARS!?! What were you on ARPAnet back in the command line days? That's impressive.

Maybe it isn't a perfect fit here, but the presence of labor and worker issues in the blogosphere is darn light.

Even for those of us who aren't union members, what happens to workers in one place happens to all of us.  I'd love it if more of the progressive bloggers made this connection.

By contrast, dailyKos is much more Treo-friendly because Markos puts his content in the left-most column.

Honestly, since I'm as much on my Treo than on my PC, it is that distinction that has made me a dailyKos fanatic but has tempered my use of MYDD.
It would be great if it changed.

i have always preferred mydd to dailykos, but this has become a stronger preference recently, because mydd has a cleaner interface--it is more readable; its colors aren't jarring (the orange on kos screams: stay back--just as the orange of a road construction sign or biohazard sign is meant to); the diaries don't come so fast and furious, and as a general rule the site has a higher percentage of diaries that are substantive. my suspicion is that a lot of the topics and news on mydd are on dkos, too. but "over there," i miss them. they're buried in what has become genuine cacophony. here, they're more likely to be spotted, i think.

so, i'm not sure what the exact changes r that r coming, but, i hope they don't make the site less venerable and less approachable.

Whatever happens, it would be driven by the user community and mostly self-moderated, as I believe the Wikipedia is. If lots of people contribute, a collaborative system like this might find much better ways to organize all of its information than Scoop's linear diary page does.

As it is right now, information on MyDD (and most blogs) gets hopelessly lost after it moves off the front page (if you just want to browse it, rather than search it). I'm convinced there are better classification and categorization systems than what blogs have come up with so far.

Scott

In effect, this blog entry was lost to the internet within a day or two of its posting!

A wiki presents more options for accessing its information, by crosslinking from more generalized topics to more specific discussions. You could drill down into the specifics of policy, if enough people were working on it. Sure, parts of a wiki can also get lost in a deep, complex web, but it can't really do any worse than entries on a blog and can probably do much better.

A wiki has the potential to be MUCH more constructive to long-term political discussion, if collaboration is your goal.

Please consider this suggestion! I only wish others were still reading this entry and could respond to my comments!

Scott