Reason.com Is Getting an Update

Expect some disruptions over the weekend and an improved site on Monday.

This weekend we will be upgrading Reason's website. We hope the changes will make the site more appealing and user-friendly for our millions of readers, viewers, and listeners. As we work you may notice some hiccups, but please check back on Monday morning for a refreshed Reason. We may also be slower to react to news than normal, so we assume that means this evening the Mueller report will drop and heroin will be legalized. You're welcome.

If you are reading this on one of Reason's unsupported apps for Android or iPhone, you should expect interruptions due to this process. Please visit reason.com directly on your mobile device next week for the latest content and best experience.

We would welcome your help with troubleshooting. If you see something, say something to [e-mail].

Comments

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

So you're finally permabanning Screech and his many sockpuppets for the kiddie porn links they posted?

Great.

[Dillinger]

>>>links they posted

what is the matter w/people?

[Sarah Palin's Buttplug]

Tulpa is a full-time liar.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Can we hide the endless immigration articles?

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

Then what's the point of Reason if it's not promoting the Koch / Reason open borders agenda?

[JesseAz]

Thank God I thought youd be left behind on the old comment system all alone.

[Rhayader]

No let's keep the articles, and hide the non-stop bitching about them in the comments instead.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

They would just be replaced by more articles telling us what great libertarians guys like Bill "The Geld" Weld, Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke, and Pete "Buttplug" Buttigieg are.

[Dillinger]

no articles, comments only?

[Gozer the Gozarian]

Let the news write itself...

[BigT]

GENIUS!!

White House proposed releasing immigrant detainees in sanctuary cities
White House officials have tried to pressure U.S. immigration authorities to release detainees onto the streets of "sanctuary cities" to retaliate against President Trump's political adversaries, according to Department of Homeland Security officials and email messages reviewed by The Washington Post.

Trump administration officials have proposed transporting detained immigrants to sanctuary cities at least twice in the past six months ? once in November, as a migrant caravan approached the U.S. southern border, and again in February, amid a standoff with Democrats over funding for Trump's border wall.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district in San Francisco was among those the White House wanted to target, according to DHS officials. The administration also considered releasing detainees in other Democratic strongholds.

http://tinyurl.com/y59u6aun

[loveconstitution1789]

Another great move for trump.

Trump 100- Lefties 0

[Last of the Shitlords]

All illegals with ties to MS13 should be dumped off at Nancy Pelosi’s house.

[KWlib]

All illegals with no tie to MS13 should be dumped at Mar-a-Lago.

[Tony]

He's so dumb he doesn't even realize this is a move of compassion for the immigrants. But as for pwning the leftards, pretty solid. That's what conservatism in these united states is all about. To reference Montesquieu and Madison, we hold pwning the leftards to be self-evident.

[Brett Bellmore]

I honestly thought the Democrats would just suck it up, and pretend to be happy about it, and console themselves with the apportionment gains next year. It never occurred to me that they'd be so upset they'd admit that illegal immigrants were bad for the country, and they just meant to dump them somewhere other than where they themselves lived.

They're not as good at politics as I thought!

[Dillinger]

purple!

[BlueStarDragon]

Will we have edit buttons now :). Hope full, It has been long over do now.

[Sevo]

Beat me to it...

[some guy]

What do you have to hide?!

[Gozer the Gozarian]

Your mom under my desk.

[Deconstructed Potato]

No edit! Own your mistajes!

[Sevo]

I asked Santa for an "edit" feature, but Christmas is a long ways off.

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

Hoping they go to Disqus so I can plonk the tiresome amateur clowns who shit this place up.

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

Would Disqus permit your frequent name changes depending on who you're feuding with that day?

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

Yes, and your boring ass parody too.

[a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef ahf]

Disqus has been awful every time I tried it. I no longer remember what annoyed me so much, but I will not use any Disqus system.

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

I don't care.

[macsnafu]

"Disqus has been awful every time I tried it."

Compared to what? Should we paraphrase Winston Churchill and say that Disqus is the worst of commenting systems, except for all the others out there?

[Gozer the Gozarian]

You can't "thumbs down" comments. Fucktards disabled that. Why on God's green fucking earth would anyone do that? Comments sections are pro-trolling. Downvotes are critical to the expression of abject disgust towards someone else.

I would prefer a "thumbs up" and a "fuck you" option for all posts. I don't want to have to take the time and effort to tell you that you are a fucktard when I can do it with one click.

GIVE US A FUCKTARD OPTION TO RATE POSTS!!!!

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

"+1 Gozer"

There, I gave you a fucktard option.

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

Also, fuck off screech.

[Ron]

as long as they don't go the facebook route of comments that system sucks

[Last of the Shitlords]

“Disqus has been awful every time I tried it. I no longer remember what annoyed me so much, but I will not use any Disqus system.”

Let’s disqus this at length.

[Deconstructed Potato]

You wanna talk about length?

*whips out all five inches of flaccid baloney*

[Dillinger]

disqus blows. mho.

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

Everyone says this but then they fail to name a better alternative. It offers editing and you can block people. I find most people who complain about it do so out of reflex.

[lap83]

it's slow and buggy

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

Not on a modern computer or even a phone.

[Marshal]

It also identifies new posts so you don't have to remember everything to find new comments.

[some guy]

This would be the real MVP feature.

[Dillinger]

this is literally the only place in the universe I post and was happy it *wasnt'* disqus ... I have no say though so ...

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

It's better than what they have now.

[Gozer the Gozarian]

FUck that. I love our ghetto comments section. None of this pussy ass shit edit options. It's like fucking etching it into stone forever. No annoying notifications to distract me from trolling new posts. I could give a fuck who comments on my posts. You had to read mine, that's the whole fucking points, so goal achieved. Fuck you and your comment on my comment. See, that was easy.

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

Sorry I didn't read your comment because your screen name is stupid.

[Zeb]

I'm with you, I think. If they could just make the current system work reliably and consistently, I'd be happy enough.

[a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef ahf]

Same here. Reason has the best commenting system and the best commenters. What would make it better?

Edit button -- with the ability to see the revisions.

Collapse threads.

Hide old comments.

Rate comments and hide them below a threshold.

[a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef ahf]

It would also be nice to get email when someone replies to a comment, even one email an hour with all replies since the last email.

[Last of the Shitlords]

I’ve never had a problem with it.

[macsnafu]

I'm pretty happy with using Disqus. It's easy to use, easy to edit comments (within a reasonable timeframe), it's easy to follow comments and discussions. It even has very visible notices for comments that are pending or removed, so you know what's going on. On rare occasions, it has trouble opening, but those are pretty rare occasions indeed.

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

New design, old design, as long as you continue to publish the greatest living libertarian writer Shikha Dalmia, I'll keep your site bookmarked.

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

Bro, Zeb thinks you're boring and terrible.

Zeb. Zeb is cool to EVERYONE. He is the most level headed reasonable sometimes too equivocating person I have even seen and HE HAS GROWN TIRED OF YOU.

If you were looking for a signal to hang it up, that's your signal.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

Bro, Zeb thinks you're boring and terrible.

Of course he does; he's (just barely) smart enough to understand that he's one of the asshats OBL is lampooning.

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

Be that as it may, he's a useful guidepost for when a boring ass parody has jumped the shark.

[Zeb]

Yeah, you got me. I'm just constantly complementing Dalmia and promoting democrat candidates.

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

With all due respect to Zeb, I will continue my online #Resistance activities until the US government is no longer controlled by Russians.

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

Soooooo boring.

[Eddy]

People always ask me why I troll so much
I say, what's wrong, y'all can kiss my butt
I post snarky comments and you shouldn't be mad
It's better than any cat video you ever had

My interminable comments will soon have you snoring
It's a real soporific, 'cause me so boring
Oh, so boring
Oh, so boring
Oh, so boring
I'll put you to sleep

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

And the morning radio like amateur composer parody song shit is even more boring.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Ken is a pretty calm individual. He restrains his rage. Not me. I like visiting my rage upon annoying simpleton shitbags, like PB and Pedo Jeffy.

[shortviking]

rip rev, tony, whoever else that won't be able to figure out how to spam.

[Jgalt1975]

Will this update allow us to finally be able to (a) edit our comments (for at least a brief window of time) and (b) post links with more than 50 characters?

[BestUsedCarSales]

I hope you either officially implement the features from Reasonable, or at least don't break it.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Hopefully the squirrels will find a new home on a farm in the country.

[some guy]

You'd miss them too much.

[$park? is the Worst]

We would welcome your help with troubleshooting.

Are you sure that's a good idea?

[some guy]

And isn't it illegal to solicit unpaid work from the mentally ill?

[Rockabilly]

Will Al Gore be helping with the internets?

[a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef ahf]

Totally Tubular, man!

[macsnafu]

Will the site finally switch to a better commenting system, like Disqus? It would be so much better if there were an easier way to follow Reason comments.

[MasterThief]

Agreed. If someone responds to me I'm unlikely to ever see it here. Editing, threading, and notifications would all be handled by that change

[Marshal]

Expect some disruptions over the weekend and an improved site on Monday.

They're finally cutting Dalmia loose? If so it's a shame. My favorite articles are Welch's requests for money because Reason is the place to go to avoid the prevalent overwrought demagoguery immediately followed by Shikha Dalmia's overwrought demagoguery.

[Fist of Etiquette]

THEY BETTER NOT BE DOING AWAY WITH THREADING.

[some guy]

They're randomizing it. Should be fun.

[Last of the Shitlords]

But will phrasing still be a thing?

[SIV]

I flagged your comment. I want the old, and vastly superior, no registration and no threading comments.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I flagbanned you for making me feel unsafe with that comment.

[Greg F]

Modeled after the two social media giants it will probably require a Facebook login and will limit comments to 140 characters.

[Marshal]

Facebook would effectively end comments so it seems a likely choice.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Everything which is now red-orange should be recast to show in a subdued (meaning less-saturated) shade of blue-grey.

I work on a screen calibrated to optimize tonal variations for graphic arts applications?meaning it's a far-above-average screen. And your red-orange type on my screen is borderline unreadable?by which I mean I often can't read it, without special effort. Which is exactly what a graphics-trained designer would expect from saturated red type, by the way. Please help yourselves, and your audience, and make the change I suggest.

[some guy]

I have no problem reading the orange characters on my decade old budget LCD. Are you sure your monitor is "far-above-average?"

[Army of the 12 Woodchippers]

I often wish I'd gone blind instead, after reading these comment threads.

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

Pencil+your eyes = your wish is granted.

Be the change you (don't) want to see.

[Tu­lpa AKA "feeling smug"]

That sounds like the very definition of a you problem not a Reason problem.

"meaning it's a far-above-average screen"

Meaning you aren't the audience.

[Gozer the Gozarian]

Praise Fucking Jesus!

[Claudio Ibarra]

I read Reason through RSS (please don't judge, Twitter has too much noise vs signal to be viable for me) -- will I have to update my RSS subscriptions?

[TPKeller]

My RSS feed for the Volokh Conspiracy died.

reason.com/volokh/

I haven't see a new feed for that yet, just one for the whole site (at the bottom of the page.)

[Vernon Depner]

One thing we can be sure of?they'll fuck up the comments section, and won't understand why we're upset about the changes they made.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

I suspect that if they had their way, the Welchie Boys would gladly do away with the comments altogether, and probably 99% of the readers to boot.

All that really matters for Reason is that Soros, Bezos, and their one or two other big donors keep giving their occasional big donations to from time to time.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I heard they're making everyone re-register their accounts.

[a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef ahf]

It seemed to have lost my cookies, so I logged in again.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Chocolate chip sounds good right now.

[SIV]

Free Minds and Free Markets

FULL COMMUNISM

[Ron]

If it weren't for the comments I would't read anything on the internet. it doesn't matter what site it is wether it be science or Reason the commenters are often more informed than the articles.

[Ordinary Person]

Ever so often my fridge sounds like it's leaking water but I never see water and there isn't a drain. Did I come to the right place?

[Longtobefree]

Yep. In a minute there will be a link to a money making scam you can use to buy a new fridge instead of a car - - - -

[Longtobefree]

OK, let me get this straight.
You are going to update the site, but you expect to fuck it up. So not enough testing, no testing at all, you just downloaded a bunch of cool looking code from some public IT sites? WHAT THE HELL? If you EXPECT 'hiccups' (really?) then it is NOT time to do the update. Learn to code. Learn to test your code. Learn to have your reviewed and tested code tried out by non-IT workers.
You HOPE the changes will make the site more appealing and user-friendly? Ever hear of program specifications? Ever hear of peer reviews of design documents? Ever hear of hiring professionals?
I gotta go take more meds. This is beginning to look like an effort by Bernie and what-her-name.

[Overt]

Nah, I'm a big fan of getting something stable out the door that they can then iterate on. I would much rather have a site released that has some bugs that are fixed quickly, than some massive beast that will then never be changed again because of the massive effort necessary to get it out the door (and besides, programs that follow the big bang release model tend to have bugs anyways, as the longer release time encourages more features to be added since people aren't willing to wait months for the next release.)

It is also worth noting that much of KMW's post was a bit of humility. If she had come out and said "We did the testing and the review and are 100% confident this is going to be awesome", the people would react basically the same. So far the site hasn't been buggy for me or unusable, even though I do not like some of the changes (like the extra large type face).

[Last of the Shitlords]

I’ve experienced a few minor glitches, but not much more than the site already displayed anyway.

[Fats of Fury]

Hey! Where the hell is all the spam? How the hell am I ever gonna retire without knowing how to make $87 an hour?

[a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef ahf]

Right above you at 1:32 for $20.000.

[a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef ahf]

New comment. Does it work?

[Real Books]

Hmmm. Looking big and blobby. No edit function that I can see.

[Eddy]

...but enough about yo momma!

[Rob Misek]

Maybe you could add an ability to edit comments until someone responds, just to clean up bot autocorrect mistakes

The boxes around the comments make it too busy looking

[Freddy the Jerk]

Agreed re: the boxes.

[Rob Misek]

Maybe you could add a feature to see the newest comment on an article

Maybe you could add a feature to see all the comments made by a member

[SIV]

RIP comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

I have to admit, the new site isn't bad with the ads not blocked.

[Rat on a train]

I am thankful that I no longer have to deal with the new article button right below logout.

[Overt]

Kind of shocked that no one has mentioned that Hit-n-Run is gone! It has been replaced with a "Latest" feed, which mixes in articles from the whole site, including their other micro-blogs, like Volokh.

I am not a fan of the extra large typeface and 1.5 line spacing. This 4 sentence comment now takes up ~30% of my browser space. Also there do not appear to be controls for style changes like bold and italics. As I said in a previous article, it is like they replaced my Legos with Duplos.

[Delroy]

Hit-n-Run was the main reason (drink?) I came here. Oh well. I'll still check for Stossel and Remy every once in a while.

[a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef ahf]

I agree -- wastes a lot of screen space with pointless padding. The outline around each comment adds nothing -- I was never confused before about the boundaries between comments.

It is interesting that the "new comment" text box is above comments now instead of after them all. Good or not? I do not know; but I think it will encourage commenting before reading existing comments.

[a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef ahf]

No, I'd prefer the new comment text box at the end of comments, so it's there when I'm done reading existing comments. As this new layout is, I have to scroll back to the top to add a new comment, and it probably encourages posting before reading other comments.

When I logged in last night / early this morning, there were two articles from the future which now return a 404 (and apologize for not returning a 420, complete with ASCII art of a smoking bong).

Way too much wasted vertical space, which is precious real estate. The outline around each comment contributes no useful information (I have never been confused about where one comment ends and the next begins, or confused comments with ads or article text) and takes more space.

[a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef ahf]

I do like "latest" as a link; I had to click "NEW" before, and it was not part of the URL so could not be bookmarked. Including everything under "latest" is also good.

[Sevo]

"Way too much wasted vertical space, which is precious real estate."
Takes a *LOT* of scrolling.
Other than that, no gripes, but I'm curious what is deemed an improvement for all the effort.

[DesparateReasoning]

New look is pretty nice.

[Ska]

Looking good, Billy Ray.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Feeling good Louis!

[LynchPin1477]

The fonts seem intrusively large on Chrome. Just a couple points smaller would clean it up a bit.

[LynchPin1477]

And still no edit button, I see.

[Greg F]

Testing ... testing ...

Checking linking

[Greg F]

blockquote no workie

How about italics?
Does bold work?

[a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef ahf]

What, no blockquotes?!?

Lesseehere

[a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef ahf]

Does quote work?!?That would be intolerable!

[SIV]

strike doesn't work

I posted

Free Minds Free Markets

FULL COMMUNISM

efore the change and the strike disappeared with the changeover to new site.

[SIV]

Strike works now but it didn't come back on my original comment

[DRM]

Hmmm.

Blockquote:

Free Minds Free Markets

S: Free Minds Free Markets
Del: Free Minds Free Markets
Ins: Free Minds Free Markets
B: Free Minds Free Markets
Strong: Free Minds Free Markets
I: Free Minds Free Markets
Em: Free Minds Free Markets
Cite: Free Minds Free Markets
Bdo: Free Minds Free Markets
Bdi: Free Minds Free Markets
Sup: Free Minds Free Markets
Sub: Free Minds Free Markets
Aside: Free Minds Free Markets
U: Free Minds Free Markets
TT: Free Minds Free Markets
Small: Free Minds Free Markets
Big: Free Minds Free Markets
Code: Free Minds Free Markets

[DRM]

So, looking at the HMTL, it passed through:
Blockquote
S
Del
B
Strong
I
Em
Cite
Code

And it stripped the rest. But the style sheet doesn't do anything to make a blockquote indented.

[Greg F]

The blockquote doesn't appear to do anything.

This sentence should be separated from the first.

[Greg F]

So the blockquote doesn't do anything to indicate it's a quote. Does it do the same thing as a paragraph?
This is a paragraph.This should be separated from the paragraph.

This is a blockquote.

This should be separated from the blockquote.

[Tony]

I go away for a week and all of a sudden I am being assaulted by a lack of serifs.

[Deconstructed Potato]

That's weird. The rest of us have experienced the exact opposite.

[Tony]

No serifs on anything but the comment text for me, and only after it's posted.

Not that I'm criticizing. Fonts are a big part of my job and I am terrible at them.

[Rufus The Monocled]

I KNEW IT!

NO MORE CANADIANS EH?

Reason is kicking out the Canadians. I feel it in my bones.

It's the Canadians, right?

[SIV]

Great!

No more stink of Crown-subsidized maple syrup and poorly tanned harp seal pelts.

[a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef ahf]

What does George Hamilton have to do with this?

[Deconstructed Potato]

Can I get the sans font back, please? I ain't down with serifs.

[Finrod]

I will say that I appreciate that the rotating headline thing in the middle of the main page is gone. That thing was a pain in the ass; by the time you noticed something and went to click on it, it would change to something else and you were clicking on the wrong thing, plus it chewed up browser CPU if you left a tab open to that page, so good riddance.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Still no edit button though.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I could have sworn there was one at one point.

[Sevo]

I the server is still so slow you need to wait a bit before clicking on anything with the hope that what you clicked on handn't jumped out of the way by then,

[Sheldonius Rex]

oh great. now reason looks just like the huffington and puffington poast...

rip in peace my eyeballs.

[fafalone]

Why is it that every time a site I like "updates" it always sucks.

Come on, this is terrible. You did it to drive more clicks didn't you? It's a massive downgrade of user experience to force click-through to read more than a single damn sentence.
And I enjoy reading Volokh as well, but don't like that it's mixed into the main feed.

Please restore full story / several paragraphs of large stories like H&R used to be, at least for desktop users who have the space.

[rfpollard]

This is a vast improvement. The previous format gave me a headache.

[BLNelson]

Hate it.

[Sarah Palin's Buttplug]

Nice.

[Earth Skeptic]

Removing the date stamp from all the article headlines at the top of the page is a pussy move.

Your job is to write and publish new shit. Don't be serving up a stealth combo of fresh material and moldy shit from last week.

[Rob Misek]

Your “most read” fist five is actually the first three.

[Rob Misek]

The text is too fine to see on a mobile device.

The text should stand out while the commenters names, reply to etc doesn’t need to.

[BigT]

KMW IT FAIL!!

I couldn’t imagine you could mak3 i5 worse. But you did.

[Bubba Jones]

All the complaints about change just prove we are conservatives in libertarian clothing!

But seriously. Meh. I like the “latest” feed but otherwise, I hate change.

[Echospinner]

Comment posting, I do it, is so gone.

There are a dozen or so who care.

[Brett Bellmore]

Update, downdate. Did you think to ask anybody before doing this?

[Allen964]

Perfect cheap replica watches. 100% made in switzerland.