I am proud to announce two new categories for Discussion starters. Bernie's Voices and Social Justice.

Bernie's Voices is a long overdue category on Yabberz. Bernie represents a passionate movement in our Country today - a movement to embrace policies that are more aggressively progressive and less capitalistic than those in our recent history. Bernie makes many compelling arguments e.g., free college education and healthcare as a right. He presents these arguments in a way that is easy to follow and are extremely popular with younger voters as well as folk turned-off by some of the power struggles in the modern DNC. He is also one of the most visible advocates that Climate Change is an urgent National Security concern. I look forward to learning more about Bernie myself by reading discussions in this topic area.

Social Justice is a new topic area to discuss issues of income economics, racial and other inequalities that exist in our policies and social order. Social Justice is another topic which I am excited to continue to read and learn about from our community of thoughtful posters. When I first heard the phrase "Social Justice", it was in the context of Black Lives Matter and I really did not understand its meaning at all. While I have always reacted to #BLM with "wait, wait but ... All Lives Matter", the 2016 campaign gave me pause as to how little in some communities we have progressed from Jim Crowe days. Social Justice is not just a race thing, it is also about gender inequalities, cultural understanding and more. Gender inequality in terms of pay and position is still a huge issue even in our highly progressive home of Silicon Valley. Social Justice needs attention, and we now have a category to give it just that.

Find the two new topics in the top menu bar, as well as in the drop-down menu category menu when posting.

As always best wishes to everyone. Melissa and I are doing well, and we are enjoying the relative harmony of the new Yabberz. At the same time we feel the mission to #Resist is more important than ever. Despite the daily issues with the new Trump administration, the reality is that Obamacare repeal will likely pass and many more damaging policies are in motion. Trump is not likely going to be impeached, and 2018 is the best window for progress. We need to stay motivated and attentive as a community - always recruiting and motivating with fact based arguments.

Apologize again to those experiencing the backspace/delete issue in Chrome 58. I check everyday to see if someone has found a simple work-around fix. We expect resolution by June 9th with release of Chrome 59.

A good workaround in the meantime is to select the text, and Cut it (Ctrl-X). It beats backspacing one letter at a time.

I clearly remember the day of the SCOTUS decision to legalize gay marriage. It was not long ago at all - June 26, 2015 - a 5-4 decision. One singular vote by a Supreme Court Justice.

Consider that singular vote as we face the Trump agenda. Reflect on the juvenile campaign of 2016, the un-investigated tsunami of Fake News spread across billions and billions of views by Facebook, and the undeniable material influence of foreign state sponsored actors on both of the above tragedies.

Only a majority of one enabled these civil rights for millions within our communities.

The Supreme Court decision is true progress for our nation. This decision was proceeded by countless actions within the LGBTQ community to stand up and be heard. Finally, the legal and moral equality deserved is the law of the land.

Whenever I meet someone who opposes the decision, I ask two simple questions for discussion:

1.) Have you ever met and spent time with a gay or lesbian couple or have you ever had a real face to face conversation with a transgender?

The answer is almost always no. So silly and sad, our prejudices and fears based in nothing more than ignorance.

2.) When in our human history has it ever been bad to pursue and grant additional civil rights to citizens?

I can think of no such case. Sadly in this backwards yearning day and age, I have seen comments posted on Yabberz, to the effect that some of these decisions were bad and in fact citizens need less rights not more. Somehow in this twisted logic a reduction in rights is justified as creating more Freedom and Liberty. The arguments are sometimes rooted in religion, and sometimes rooted in pure evil. They are wrong, but they are also a stark reminder that the fight must continue.

It is with great pride that I introduce the new LGBTQ section for discussion. A section dedicated to all that the LGBTQ community and its supporters do to promote progress, understanding, creativity, and energy -- brightening our world.

I'd love to meet the owners of these beautiful homes and welcome them to join Yabberz:

As previously announced, Yabberz is adding and improving its sections.

Why are sections important when we have follow/share and a home page feed?

Sections help with discovery of content for new members and also for passive members who don't follow or share. It is just a simple way to do some browsing along a thematic axis.

When filing a story, please consider where the story might best fit, then select that topic category. All members are welcome and encouraged to post in any section. All members are encouraged and welcome to be creative and share in their own unique way to these topics.

Today we added two more new sections - Just a Thought and SANE60.

Just a Thought (#MEMES)

I was thinking to myself about a section for MEMES, and I realized it is a little more than that. Sometimes it is just a quote or a simple shower thought, or sometimes it is just a MEME, and then sometimes it is a little of both. So the basic pattern is that it is a short piece that struck you as worthy of discussion. Kevin Mc Daid does a lot of these posts titled as Just a Thought ... and that seems liked a clear name to me. So we went with it.

SANE60

SANE60 is really classic Yabberz political opinion discussion. Discussion for the middle 60% who want a return to sensible government. BridgeTourJade put a wonderful name on it, and actively wants to actively develop this "SANE60" line of reasoning to try to attract a readership that is tired of both the far-right and far-left.

Note: I have been doing some really simple and coarse moving of posts into these new categories to "seed" them. If there is a discussion you would like moved to one of the new categories just send me an email along with a link to mike@yabberz.com and I will move it. For now, only admins can move posts between categories, but that is something we could trivially change in the future.

We also added "cover" images for each new section. Just News, Indivisible, Just a Thought, SANE60, and Art By Wilner all now have cover art. We can add or modify the section cover art with just a few seconds of work.

We welcome feedback and suggestions on these cover images, as well as image suggestions for the sections that are yet to come - Bernie's Voices, Social Consciousness, LGBTQ and my upcoming revised tech blog Sun Sky Star.

I also welcome suggestions on your favorite news site in terms of "UI and Graphic Design". At some point in the coming months, I want to do a home page facelift and make the home page a more visual guide to the various topics and angles represented on the site at any moment in time.

A good new home page will become even more important once we do successfully #Resist and return to normalcy ;-). So I am collecting sites to study.

Last but not least, I want to say thank you to our members for supporting these on-going changes. We think the change is going quite well overall, and we are encouraged that more and more people are putting effort into grassroots resistance efforts. More and more people are taking time to express why they have concerns with blindly following the Trumpster and his new and more twisted flavor of Republican establishment policy.

When people peacefully #Resist in mass, the government must listen and act. It can and will work.

I am pleased to announce an important new section of Yabberz.

The new Indivisible - Resist section and topic category is dedicated to stories from the front lines of grassroots Trump Resistance. As we all know, just last week we all witnessed the very real impact of these actions stopping TrumpCare dead in its tracks.

Here is what the Indivisible newsletter had to say about how grassroots activism made this happen:

Whether the story is your own personal action, that of a group you participate in, or a news report of activism, this section is the go to place to see how we are all Indivisible.

https://www.yabberz.com/indivisible

I also took this opportunity to rename the core news section to "Just News", and will be adding more sections and enhancing their landing pages as discussed in recent posts.

Here is a screen shot of where to find it:

A few days ago, I announced that we would start adding more customized sections.

We plan to implement these sections over the next few weeks which will replace/augment our current topics.

The first one to go live is Art by Wilner

Johnathan Wilner over the last couple of years has dedicated significant time and energy to create a series of top notch reviews of famous and interesting Artists for Yabberz. These posts have been an enlightening break from the day to day of Yabberz.

Johnathan welcomes other contributors to this topic, and he would love to see more Art & Cultural oriented members and discussion.

To add a post to Art by Wilner just select Art by Wilner or #Art on Mobile from the topic selection menu (see screen shots below). To date, we have not had as much success as I think we should be collectively capable of in promoting Johnathan's work outside the Yabberz confines. We will redouble our efforts.

I have looked at a number of other Art History sites on the Internet, and I can say that Johnathan's work is as good as any at the dedicated Art and Art History sites.

To help further promote the Art, History and Culture section, in the coming days we will also be adding a customized landing image with section description, and also link [ mirror ] this content directly onto Johnathan's private domain. This will be our first experiment in this regard of using a linked custom domain for specific content, and we hope it increases the over all visibility of this section and drives new audiences for Yabberz in general.

Please consider sharing Johnathan's work to all your networks. Let your friends and family know about this wonderful treasure of content now directly accessible at:

https://www.yabberz.com/art

To find the blog directly from the sections menu see below:

To contribute your quality content to this section, select the Art by Wilner topic:

It has been a couple of weeks, since we announced the new Yabberz mission.

We are proud to be a source of information and discussion for efforts to resist the Trump agenda and to be a more focused platform.

We are now considering ways to get members more involved in the site. We want to give members more control of the story lines around the mission, while at the same time giving the site a more innovative and consistent editorial direction.

In order to do this we are proposing a set of new category topics that reflect the mission and give “power users” who wants to help shape the Yabberz voice more real estate. What this means exactly is not quite determined but here is rough sketch.

New Categories

Members are always welcome to post in any category. Members who want to help lead one of these categories, please let me know on the site or at mike@yabberz.com

I, for example, will try to post more regularly to Sun Sky Star, on various goings on in tech and how they impact people.

Feedback on this proposed change is welcomed.

Dear Yabberz Family,

We would like to welcome Logic as a new Pundit to the Pundit Circle. Logic will be the first Pundit added in 2017, and we are excited to have him on board given the recent change to our mission. Logic brings clarity and precision to his writing, and he takes great effort in doing his research for accuracy before articulating his point of view. Below is some information on who Logic is:

I am an avid proponent of education and that the application of knowledge is actually power. I will always remain a student of knowledge and information because it allows me to grow and write with a sense of purpose. I am open to discussing any issue, as well as challenging those that needs to be challenged.

I am neither a democrat, republican, nor independent. I am simply an individual searching for truth in a society that doesn't always subscribed to honesty and integrity. I'm a firm believer in what Malcolm X stated, "I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being, first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole."

I believe the above quote dictates the power of thought, speech, and action as it relates to all things socially, morally, and politically as they relate to this thing we call life.

For more information on Logic go to: https://www.yabberz.com/logic

Congratulations, Logic! We are very excited that you are part of the Yabberz Pundit Family.

-Mike and Melissa

Dear Fellow Yabberz Members,

Democracy has been compromised with the election of Donald J Trump. The truth now has no name; hypocrisy no limits. Hate and division now rule the free world. We shall not wait until we falter. As of February 2017 the Yabberz mission has changed to the following:

Yabberz Mission

·Resist, Repeal, and Replace Donald J Trump.

·Yabberz connects people to discuss and coordinate resistance news, ideas, and experiences.

·Yabberz also serves as a community to simply and safely vent frustration with Trump’s policy and meet like-minded activist.

Who Isn't Yabberz for?

Trumpkins

ALLOWED AND VALUED:

All Sexes and Sexual Orientations

All Religions

All Citizens Around the World

NOT ALLOWED AND NOT VALUED:

Fake News, Alternative Facts

Bigots Or Racists

Direct monetary solicitation. Promotional, advertorial content of any kind

Posts or commentators who cannot relate to our mission will be removed. Although we are now a Resist Trump platform, please take note that Fake News regardless of its political position will not be tolerated. So please check your links for authenticity before posting and avoid putting direct links to State media sites such as Breitbart or media outlets owned by the Trump family.

Civility has always been a core value at Yabberz and it shall remain part of our mission. For further information on the Do’s and Don’ts on Yabberz go to www.yabberz.com/rules. If you believe in our mission, share our site and tell your friends this is where they can congregate to Resist.

A new movement is forming. Our Democracy is worth saving. We look forward in hearing your thoughts and ideas on how to Resist.

Please note, the logo and share button icons have been updated to more clearly reflect this mission.

-Melissa & Mike Horton

Announcing New Self-Moderation Options for Readers and Writers on Yabberz.

We are pleased to announce several important changes at Yabberz based on our observations of behavior on the threads, on your requests and suggestions, and on trends in moderation on social media.

The first change is that Rating has been simplified. No more slippery sliding bar. No more minus ratings. Just three choices +1, +5, or +10. A simple click to rate. When a post is sponsored the value doubles to +2, +10 and +20. You can edit your rating at any time.

Why no negative ratings? After long consideration and experience, we have come to the conclusion that the -1, -2 and -3 are not really useful. Members value a thoughtful, civilized, rebuttal much more than a -3 with no explanation. That practice has been referred to as "Point Bombing" on this site. So no more Point Bombing.

How then will a member show disapproval? We have consolidated old and new self-moderation options using the new and improved Flag button. We believe that the new options under Flag will greatly improve the utility of the site by further customizing it to meet specific needs. Below is a screen shot with all options.

We have had a number of requests for a simpler way to invite one or more people to join and follow you on Yabberz. Until now the two best ways (which both still work) are :

(1) to use the Find Friends email importer and invite tool. BTW, this is a great tool - much cleaner and more transparent than Facebook or Twitter's version of the same thing.

(2) to share a Post/Thread Link using the Facebook, Twitter, or Google Plus buttons found on every post using Share button. This one has been working well for Yabberz in spite of all of Facebook's changes.

NOW, there is a 3rd option that does not require an external social account nor requires using our email importer tool. We now offer an invite link on your personal profile page. The button to generate this link is shown below highlighted in red:

When you click the Invite Link button, a popup will appear (as shown below). Simply email the provided link to whomever you want to invite. They will be prompted to connect with you while visiting your profile page. If they do choose to join, you will receive a reward as outlined in the screen shot.

BTW, the link provided can be used as many times as you want. It is always available.

But wait, there is more.

You also have the ability to generate an invite link on every post. So if you want to invite a friend to read an article and simultaneously offer them a chance to join and follow you on Yabberz, then just use the "link" button found on every post on Yabberz. See it below.

Hope to meet and learn from all your friends on Yabberz.

Have a nice weekend !