In a world full of too much information, Salon is the only thing I look forward to reading on a daily basis. Because I adore his writing and his perspective I would occasionally have to go to USAToday and check out what Walter Shapiro was writing about. Now you've saved me that extra effort. I get the best of both in one great place. Thank you!

Salon is a nation of geniuses, fueling the new media revolution. Fantastic. The unique democraticizing nature of TCP/IP will change the country. You and your friends on the Salon staff are not only wonderful human beings, but journalists of heretofore unseen skill and truth-telling.

Now get back to work! Enough with the mushy content-free love fests!

Hire Robert Scheer.

Although I have recently noticed the feminization (for lack of a better word) of Salon that people seem to be complaining about, I don't think its that bad, and I think most of those who complain are being overly harsh. Joe Conason and Sidney Blumenthal are both still Salon regulars. Phillip Robertson still pops his head up every now and then. War room is as good (and popular) as ever. And, Salon is still doing long form, investigative pieces on things that other publications are not (witness today's piece entitled "Gulf Coast Slaves"). Ease up, people. If you don't like Broadsheet, DON'T READ IT. But don't condemn the whole site just because of that.

All of that said, Joan Walsh, please take note: most of us (myself included) don't want Salon to be any more feminized that it already is. Enough with the pregnancy and child rearing articles. Enough with the sappy essays on the virtues of crying in public. Let's stop this yinward shift right here.

Happy 10th birthday (unfortunately, I missed the first 5). Here's to another 10 good ones.

I clicked on Salon.com today and was greeted by the same boxy, over colored, uninviting entity that has taken over my local library's home page. Its fugly there and its fugly here. What is this monster taking over the web?

Walter Shapiro as your Washington bureau chief... hey -- congrats, Joan.

Have you considered ditching the subscription service except for the right to respond to letters, write Salon Blogs (remember us citizen bloggers?) and interact in Table Talk and Well, while seeing if you can sell more ads without the barrier of selecting that little commercial people have to watch?

Happy 10 and good luck Salon!

I am one Premium Subscriber that will not be dropping my membership. I like the new look, I think Salon keeps getting better and better. Keep up the good work! Here's to another great ten years!

The many letters stating that the writers' would be discontinuing their Salon Premium membership were heartening, to put it mildly. I dropped my Salon Premium Membership almost two years ago, and here's why:

1. Fewer and fewer regular columnists of any stature or quality. King Kaufman for Allen Berra? Are you guys nuts?!

2. Worse and worse editing. I'm a professional writer and editor, and it annoys the shit out of me when I read a sloppily edited article anywhere. The fact that Salon is edited daily and in "real time" makes the endless gaffes that much more infuriating.

3. The noblesse oblige. I'm sorry, but for $50 a year I can get several different, individual newspapers. These would come to my door every day, including holidays, and the best of them would include vastly better reportage, editorial comment, lifestyle reviews and specialty sections than does Salon. I got sick of paying for a "daily" webzine that excretes a few new articles a day per week and is all but shut down a full 20 days a year (not to mention every weekend).

4. Pandering, from "Mothers Who Think" (as opposed to the majority who don't??) to "Broadsheet." What the hell? As another reader pointed out earlier, this kind of ghettoization is silly and potentially divisive.

5. Godforesaken entertainment reportage and criticism. Stephanie Zecharek frankly stinks as a film reviwer. Andrew O'Hehir is a bit better, though when he reviews books he demonstrates a breathtaking imbecility. Charles Taylor and Cintra Wilson are both infinitely better for either task, but are rarely published. I'd like to know why? Heather Havirelsky was funny at Suck.com, but here is merely annoying.

So I have gleefully clicked on your "Site Pass" button, over and over again, lo these many months. Salon is not worth the cash.

I love Salon, and thought the new design was OK, but the changes I see today -- that big gray box with the Yahoo! search -- are just plain ugly! Please rethink this; it makes the front page look cluttered and uninviting.

As for the Broadsheet hate, I suspect that an online magazine like Salon keeps very close tabs on which features generate lots of hits and which don't. If you don't like a recurring blog or feature, don't click on it. Unlike print publications, Salon can get up to the minute data on which articles actually get read, and which ones have the highest readership among paying subscribers. The fact is, a lot of people (myself included) enjoy Salon's "fluffier" features, like Heather Havrilevsky's TV column, the much maligned Steve Almond piece, Rebecca Traister's articles, etc. We are probably just less vocal than the readers who loathe them. If Broadsheet catches on with enough readers, it'll stay; if it's ignored, it'll go.

As a longtime reader who shares the bafflement and frustration many other readers have expressed in response to Salon's recent makeover, I am glad to see Ms. Walsh outlining at last the strategic intent behind these changes. At least now she has provided a context that does have its own internal logic.

The one aspect of Salon's recent redesign experiments I've found to be interesting and fruitful has been the real-time, wholly visible letters publication. I like the idea of an actual electronic salon: a place of active, lively, intelligent participation, rather than passive receipt of content. I also appreciate the experimental potential of Broadsheet as a new mode of feminist thought: more conversational, less dependent on the sort of high-minded seriousness that can appear old-fashioned, over-earnest and overly intellectualized. I've noted the enthusiasm and the intensity of reader responses, my own included, and I've enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, however, the experiment fails in several crucial respects. The main failure, to my mind, is that execution has been both awkward and shortsighted. The decision to shift Salon from the 'old media' style of one-way reporting to the 'new media' style of two-way participation, and simultaneously its editorial tone from traditional informed explanation to increasingly first-person, subjective commentary, was made without consulting the readers themselves.

Consequently, the first swell of reader partipation that I've seen has been wave after wave of outrage on Table Talk. The next result was that the smattering of thoughtful commentary available on the newly-open Letters to the Editor feature was nearly obliterated, again and again, with post after post of the same sort of repetitive, argumentative, knee-jerk, thoughtless, hostile, semi-literate screed that can be found anywhere else on the Net.

It seems to me that plans to increase reader partipation should have included readers from the outset, so that Salon's editorial board might better know what readers actually wanted, and readers might have more readily felt their actual interests were being served.

Moreover, as others have already pointed out, many of us are paying subscribers. What we are paying for is quality--'old media' style quality of thought and quality of writing. Salon remains one of the very few publications of this kind that remains to the Left. If blogs and the participatory model they represent have indeed become the 'new media' standard, that's because partipation is free--which is as it should be. Why should we pay for content that we ourselves are now largely responsible for generating? For the privilege of seeing our writing appear on a site like Salon, that built its reputation by offering content whose quality consistently met or exceeded the traditional journalistic standards it is now abandoning?

I am a professional writer and scholar. When I publish, either I receive payment for my work, or I receive prestige in the venues in which I have built my reputation. Salon is not one of those venues. Therefore, I have no reason to continue to pay Salon a subscription fee for the type and quality of writing that it is now phasing out, or for the privilege of using the site as an outlet for my own writing. And as much as I do enjoy partipating in an intelligent, engaged community of other writers, there are other venues for that. Although admittedly more intelligent than most, such a community is hardly unique.

I do support experiment, and I have enjoyed seeing the initial results. It's very likely that I will continue reading Salon. But I will no longer pay for it.

I do, however, wish you the very best.