By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Before anyone asks, the Antidote will stay exactly where it is.
Later today, we’re introducing a new links feature: “2:00PM Water Cooler.” And we’ll be changing our most popular feature, Links, as a result. Basically, we’re redistributing links over two features at two different times. And at no cost to you! Here’s why the split:
1) We feel the need to react more quickly during daylight hours. A regular feature in the early afternoon will give us a hook to react to the morning’s events in the same news cycle, instead of waiting twenty-four hours.
2) Links is, in many ways, a victim of its own success. We regularly have hundreds of comments, and that can be overwhelming for readers. If we split links in two, we think we’ll get the same number of comments in total, but half in Links, and half at the Water Cooler.
3) In addition, we need to use Yves’ time better. My mother always said: “Do what only you can do.” Only Yves can do the deep dives into finance that Naked Capitalism is famous for doing. So Yves should be doing that, and not (say) collecting links about Ukraine or Ebola (except insofar as those topics have a financial aspect).
4) Next, we need to fix our workflow before one of us collapses from physical exhaustion or worse; right now, we work the night shift, and that’s bad for our health (as I warned), and heaven help us if we have an appointment in the morning; moving some of the work to daylight hours will help with that.
Summing the split up, Links will still publish regularly just before 7:00, but the topics it covers will be tailored more sharply[1] for finance and economics. “2:00PM Water Cooler” will, as the name suggests, publish just before 2:00, and be mostly about everything else[2]. We also expect, as the name suggests, that comments will range quite freely.
We’re aware of one risk: Finance is intimately connected — in fact, drives — everything else. So a split between Links mostly focused on finance and the Water Cooler mostly focused on everything else could separate topics that are deeply intertwingled. We’ll try to minimize this risk by making connections between the two features; and you, readers, can help by making connections yourselves in comments.
So please check back at 2:00PM, and give your feedback!
NOTES
[1] “More sharply” is not the same as “entirely.”
[2] “Mostly” is not the same as “entirely.”
31 comments
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Wot, just one antidote?
At 2:00pm, we may need a booster shot.
I think the antidote should be split in 2 also, one half in the morning, the other half in the afternoon. Then readers can use a software like Photoshop to put the 2 halves together. This would ensure readers tune in for both sets of links.
Time to find some old View-Masters and design 3-D antidotes!
Du jour and du nuit?
You guys do a great job, and I’ve often wondered from my perch here in Europe how you managed to do it on East Coast time and stay sane. One thought: I wouldn’t push for such a stark division between finance and watercooler topics, you’re always interesting.
agree.
The two notes are telling you that’s what we have in mind.
Makes perfect sense to me.
“Recent Comments”, on the sidebar, is a handy way to pop around threads. Thanks for including it.
Lambert, the health of you and Susan are the priority. If you miss a couple of items, the sky won’t fall, Chicken Little to the contrary. I think most of your readers understand this. At least, I hope they do.
Do what you gotta do Lambert, Yves and anyone else manning the site. I’m sure we’ll soldier on no matter how the links get split. :)
Do what you think is best, of course. In my own experience of writing for deadline, two deadlines a day generally turns out to be a lot more work than one; but YMMV. Best of luck.
I’m for the change. You know best how to structure your workflow in order to continue to deliver a quality product to NC enthusiasts. Artists have to have their freedom! I’m in the Mountain time zone, so your 2 pm is my noontime and you know what that means: Lunch with Lambert!
i agree its a great idea for everyone.
take care Yves, Lambert & you masters behind the scenes!
“Surgeons can cut out everything except cause/(stress).”
Morning tea/coffee with Yves. Lunch with Lambert. Ahhhh, the bliss of living in Mountain Time!
I’m grateful not to have to wait a whole 24 hours for another NT ‘fix.’
That’s NC, not NT. I still haven’t had enough caffeine!
Many economic data releases occur at 8:30 or 10 am, perfect for a 2 pm roundup. For instance, the ISM index is released at 10 am on the first business day of the month. Summary:
‘U.S. manufacturing companies grew in August at the fastest pace since March 2011, a survey of executives found. The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index climbed to 59% last month from 57.1% in July. That easily beat the 56.1% forecast of economists surveyed by MarketWatch.’
No recession here! Kind of like 1941 ain’t it, as we retool the nation’s factories to supply materiel and armaments to the European front. Only the Soviets aren’t our allies this time round.
Can ye spare a ration coupon for a beer, comrade?
Jim, very interesting. Could you supply some links? Thanks!
The role of proxy terror.
I loved this bit: “And at no cost to you! ”
Before I forget once again to add it, here’s my closing thought for the day–appropriately posted here in the 2-fer-1-split thing-y.
As contemporary high-tech civilization disintegrates around us, life is offering one of its (rare?) examples of poignant sorta-poetic justice for our view and perhaps semi-edification. I refer to the spectacle of all manner of conflict-driven refugees, from “boat-people” in the Mediterranean and the southern asian oceans to the overland flight of people streaming from war zones in Africa and the Middle and Near East.
Our corrupted rotten political systems have so thoroughly captured the material blessings of life for such a narrowing set of privileged that, at last, people have found that enterprising and unscrupulous traffickers have rich opportunities in the clandenstine movement of the desperate poor. And so, with sophisticated means and organizational accumen, these people-smugglers are creating a world of expensive headaches which both discredit the ruling predatory classes’ theory and practice of political and economic freedom–the PR stuff they love to put about– as well as place a whopping penalty-tax on the elite’s bulging bankroll. With such extreme floods of desperate people–the U.N. refugee experts tell us that there are now more displaced people living in temporary refuge than at any time since the Second World War—that now even the rich and powerful are forced to look upon the idiotic misery which their collossal greed has wrought.
As terrible as all this tragedy is, I find something at least slightly redeeming in the fact that, through the wondrous workings of capitalist profit-seeking, a miserable and disgusting world order finds the rich and the ingenious in between a rock and an ultimately-hard place of their own stupid, greedy, making.
breath proxi And don’t forget to click on the cute white tigger pups right of screen : ))
Honestly, whatever you guys need to do to keep turning out such elucidating material is all right by me. As a West Coaster who loves getting up when everything is in full swing (whenever I’m in NYC I get edgy in the morning because nothing is happening yet. I like to start mid-story as it were). What I’m saying (sorry for the narcissistic detour) is that I never understand how you get all that info out in the morning, and now it seems you do pull a night shift. No wonder Yves’ sleep cycles are disrupted. Your health comes first. I’ll work around your schedules. We need you.
Finance is intimately connected — in fact, drives — everything else.
Sounds like Marxism to me.
Common sense. “Follow the money.”
I do find that having 180+ comments, perhaps typically for the Daily Links, is not only cumbersome on the managers Yves and Lambert, but also on readers. At least, that’s the case for me. I believe that was point (2) of Lambert’s argument.
I can envision Yves as more “pro” than Lambert on arcane matters of finance, and in my estimation, I find that through their writings, Lambert and Yves complement each other in a good way.
On another topic, rss-feeds, which is not directly related to the 2-for-1 Links Split posting, I use here Firefox 32 (the latest), and would like to enquire about the best ways to read what’s new at Naked Capitalism through using RSS feeds. I prefer to read RSS feeds from the web browser Firefox, because I think navigating links embedded in postings should go better than if I were reading RSS thru Thunderbird.
Interested in an intern?
In theory, we would love another intern. In practice, we need to pay them, since under IRS rules, free internships are kosher only if there is training involved. Throwing tasks at people, even if they are better than the tasks like making copies and running personal errands for top execs that news stories said were major components of some Big Brand Name Internships, does not appear to be kosher. And we do have an intern, Jessica, that we haven’t deployed as much as we should have due to both managerial and financial constraints.
It is conceivable we could use volunteers, if any were to surface, in a more organized manner. For instance, we have a lot of volunteers who now send us quite a few links, and we are grateful for the help.
Per Wikipedia: “An exception is allowed for individuals who volunteer their time, freely and without anticipation of compensation for religious, charitable, civic, or humanitarian purposes to non-profit organizations”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internship#United_States
Sounds about right. Though this is hardly the venue to post a cover letter (or resume for that matter), I could volunteer some anecdotal enrichment and/or research to some of the topics you’ve touched upon in the past.
Sounds like a great idea! For all the reasons listed.
Don’t lie you just want me to come by twice a day. It’s cool.