tdrapeau

Tom Drapeau is the Director of Propeller social news. Although it is the job he always dreamed he'd have, he's had a pretty good time for the last decade, writing code and building sites for Barnes & Noble, Online Retail Partners, Yahoo!, and Ask Jeeves. Tom is an excellent speller, having taken first place in his second grade spelling bee, and hates wearing ties.

Tom's Email: tom at propeller dot com

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sazfung6 hours, 13 minutes ago

hi, i'm newbie. Hope you will be my friend.

cheer
http://holiday-hotel-malaysia.blogspot.com
tehranchik3 weeks, 6 days ago

What in the heck happened to the Matthew McConaughey story?!
Shadowolf1 month, 1 week ago

Is it too late to put in a request for spell check???
flyonthewallzz1 month, 1 week ago

Hello Tom:
I am a lousy speller!
I hope this is the correct place to voice my concerns. Thank you for answering my question about being able to see who has voted for comments. I have to admit that I did not like the answer.
It would be fair to say that my most favorite features has been lost. In order not to take up too much space, this is a list.
a. I have been joyfully surprised by bits of common ground supported by individuals I generally disagree with.
b. My fondest memories of this game may be the comments that received few but positive votes from diametrically opposed individuals.
c. The process has given me a better understanding and I consider many folks “Friends” whom I would not otherwise.
d. I have enjoyed getting to know folks here and often how they vote for comments says as much, if not more, about there thoughts than the words they type.
e. I fear that the temptation to be a secret troll under the bridge gnashing at the heals of Billy goats could break the conversation down to partisan lines. A negative vote from one person may mean a lot more to me than one from another, and some give me pause to think.
f. Getting to know individuals was what got me addicted.
g. I still owe LovMyLibs 22 positive votes for a bet about flagpins and McCain, I hope she will forgive me if I lose interest in playing here.
berkeley1 month, 1 week ago

would it be too difficult to add line breaks between paragraphs?
berkeley1 month, 1 week ago

this is a summary. i'm sure there's more.what is different about the new site:-------------------------front page:logo and graphics -- garish shades of red and blue. no thanks. can you show me even one other heavy traffic website that uses those colors? you want to be unique and recognizable? fine. you want to attract viewers? pick some other combination.cartoon character at the top. just plain weird.arrangement and number of articles. by reducing to a smaller number, you force users to go to the next page more often. i don't see that as a benefit, except that there are more pages for advertisers who fund the whole thing. neutral.10.0 rating system -- it merges various factors rather than simply votes. this is an improvement. adding views is great. it looks like it counts views by anyone, rather than members. however, at present, it is entirely relative to other stories. hence something with few views, 6 votes, and no comments can get a 10.0. there are other options.less text describing the story. loss, with no benefit. computer screens can handle a little more text.missing: the suggestions from anchors. while i seldom supported the individual items chosen, it did have the advantage of lengthening the 24 hour limit. not having it, or something like it is a loss.missing: submitters avatars. neutral.missing: channels. this is the greatest loss. by reducing to seven categories, you force readers to wade through articles they have no interest in. if you had gone the other direction, to say 50, it would allow the user to immediately find their niche. the only disadvantage of more choices was people putting stories in random channels. that is easily covered by having a human look at the channel for stories that got more than ten votes.missing: cannot sink a story. while there are valid points on both sides, this seems to be a loss, with little benefit. users who didn't sink stories just ignored the sink button. i favor bringing it back.missing: names of anchors and scouts. neutral, though they should be somewhere. i have not found them yet.missing: names of top submitters. neutral.--------------------------members home page and stat page.it has new features. each of the additions in the left hand summary is a benefit. this is great.but it lost many features. this is a disaster.the stat page was an addition in december 06 in response to member requests. it was a very useful summary. (if you could add anything like it again, your credibility would go up.)missing: friends activity and friends submittals. these features were excellent and functioned as you apparently feel the new group option would work. not having them means i have to go to everyone on my friends list and see what they have done. this is absurd. it's disappearance is the main reason i stopped using the system this week.missing: my recent comments. how can i now track conversations? total loss with no benefit.the new friends list is only mutual friends. that's arbitrary but i support it. however, it leaves me no way to see the stories submitted by members who are not on my friends list, other than going to each of their home pages. again, this is too tedious. i would like to request a second category/list that would let me see their activity, even if they choose not become mutual friends.the old stat page had profile views. then it disappeared. now it is back, with the word "lifetime" added. those of us older than 4 days are confused. whose lifetime? also missing is the join date. i don't see why you felt it necessary to drop that detail.the sent message list does not tell me who the message went to. WHAT?------------------------other new features.several members have talked about some way to extend the life of stories. i know this is a 24 hour cycle site, but it also contains a treasure of wonderful articles that cannot easily be retrieved, except by going page to page to page.i would like to be able to search my activity, or any other members, by keyword.i would like to be able to maintain a list of "special stories" somehow.i realize this just adds to your overhead, but i feel it would more than compensate in increased activity.------------------------finally, for now, the events of this week raise many questions about the process that brought about this version, apart from the bugs that smothered it's functions.who was the prime beneficiary? apparently, it wasn't members.what kind of beta testing did you do with members?what was their reaction? if positive, why was the general reaction the opposite?does aol really support the existence of propeller, or merely tolerate it?-------------------------i feel my comments stand on their own merits. nonetheless, i have used this site for over two years, and grew to really like it. i find the new one repelling.