After a considerable amount of research, testing, and work, welcome to the new look of Stop the Cap!

Our old theme, Tarski, served us well for nearly a year.  However, it was obviously developed for lighter traffic websites where content didn’t get blown off the front page within 24-48 hours.  Since this issue exploded on April 1st as Time Warner Cable expanded its ludicrous Internet rationing plan, the fast pace here simply became untenable for our readers.  Most people don’t read beyond page two of a website, much less hunt around for articles written two or three weeks earlier.

This new theme allows our editors to keep important issues front and center so readers can obtain information that is still very relevant, but was written a short time ago.

You will also find an increasing number of articles that only display the first paragraph or two, followed by …Continue Reading.  This is to reduce page load time and let you scroll through articles more quickly.  Very important information is often contained “below the jump,” so I strongly encourage you to click on the “Continue Reading” option as often as possible.

Here are some highlights:

• The horizontal menu bar below our heading offers several categories and topics to explore.  Some have drop-down menus that let the reader drill down for specific content, others bring readers all of the articles published here on a particular subject.  Cities tracks issues and developments in each hot spot where capping and consumption tiering has broken out.  Events gives you a rundown of upcoming activities (or prior ones) Stop the Cap! is working on, from public protests to legislative hearings you can attend.  Issues is the meat and potatoes section of our site, identifying important stories in the news.  Multimedia brings you audio and video clips and events.  Providers explores what Internet Service Providers are up to.  On the right side of the bar are a variety of information pages that are under reconstruction and reorganization at the moment.  The Subscribe button lets you access our RSS feed.  We are also planning an e-mail digest/notification system because RSS seems to be falling out of favor.
• The four images beneath the horizontal bar are currently showing night skylines from four of the cities recently impacted by the Time Warner Cable “experiment.”  These images will be changing regularly to highlight important developments, issues, and projects that deserve special focus here.  If you hover your mouse over them, text content will appear, with a clickable link to additional information.  This is not yet functional.
• The left side column will be the home of most of our content, with 10 articles per page.  Right above those articles, a Breaking News box may display late-breaking stories or important Calls to Action deserving your special attention.  The box below each headline will contain a byline, date of publication (and soon time I hope), the categories that apply, and the number of reader comments, if any.
• The middle column currently contains: Recent Headlines, stories selected by our editors for their importance or reader interest, Recent Comments, which display the latest reader input we’ve received, and Popular Content, which consists of articles getting the most reader commentary.  The order of these will be adjusted shortly, with Recent Comments going on top.
• The right column features a Search This Site box, where you can type keywords to locate a specific article, Content Tags, which give you a sense of how frequently a topic is covered here, a Blogroll of links to related websites, and Your Account, for account registration and sign-in/out.  Registering for an account takes seconds and makes submitting comments a lot easier.

It is important to note there have been some visual changes in this theme.  Linked content that you can click on now appears like this here.  The fonts have been changed.  Article headlines are in a sans-serif font which usually will present as Arial.  Article text will now appear in a serif font, typically Georgia.  Quoted text within the body of an article should be easier to read than it was under our old theme.  Please let me know if you experience any problems seeing fonts, reading the text, or any similar anomalies.

Here are the known bugs and problems we are working on:

The theme here is new, and there are some known bugs and issues we are already aware of and are working to resolve.  As they are repaired, the will be stricken from the list.

• Embedded videos from Dailymotion are too big for the column space they are given, and barge into adjacent columns and content.  I will be working to resize these videos over the weekend to get them displayed properly.
• There are some minor formatting problems with thumbnail images and how they present here.  I’ve already avoided using them in places where their presence would be immediately apparent.
• The comment editor does not appear just below the comment you are replying to at this time. Remember, you can reply to the article -and- to individual comments left by others.  You can also edit your comments to correct any grammar problems you missed the first time.  Those with registered accounts here no longer have a time limit to edit their remarks, for your convenience.
• The site is designed to render properly on most browsers and screen sizes, but has problems with Internet Explorer v6.0 in particular.  Mobile browsing is not currently supported, but may be in the future.

What is planned for the future:

• E-mail notification of new comments left on the articles you participate in, as well as a subscription digest/alert to remind you new articles are available. [After commenting, you can now be notified of new replies!]
• Paypal link to allow readers to contribute to help defray server expenses and software costs.
• Various minor fixes and adjustments based on your input.

Please feel free to share your comments, impressions, and suggestions in the Comments section of this article.  I hope this theme change will prove helpful in the days ahead as we continue our fight.

Phillip M. Dampier
Editor, Stop the Cap!

We have begun the transition to our new theme and look.  Over the course of this evening, you will find the site appearing dramatically different.  Not everything will function as the transition occurs, because a lot of manual changes will need to be made to certain features.  In particular, options across the top horizontal bar will probably not be completely functional/look right until the end of the weekend.  Embedded videos will also present a problem until I manually complete re-sizing them to work within the new layout.

You may need to refresh the page and/or empty your browser cache if you find part so the site conflicting with other parts.

There are a few known bugs in the theme, and they are being worked on.  We’ll be tinkering with the site over the coming days to handle them, and anything else that might occur.

Thanks for your patience.

This really reminds me of 1990.  Back then, a few bad actors in the cable industry were acting so naughty, they created a groundswell of support for legislative action against the cable industry as a whole.  At the beginning of the 1990s, it was sky high rate increases, poor service, and trying to deny competitors access to cable programming networks.  The level of arrogance among the cable companies reached a high point when, then Senator Al Gore (D-TN), called the industry as a “cable cosa nostra.”  We were in the thick of it back then, working to get passage of S.12, a bill to re regulate cable which passed in 1992.

In 2009, some of the same winds are blowing.  The industry is attempting to “test” pricing for broadband that either rations Internet usage, or extorts an enormous amount of money for it.  Industry leaders promise upgrades in return for rate hikes to customers, and then tell their own investors those upgrades are not immediately necessary.  They use inconsistent arguments, bought-and-paid-for research, and clueless legislators who are duped (or bought) to carry their legislative agenda.

It always takes just a few issues, usually coming in sequence, to turn a minor skirmish into a major war, and I think we’re one or two issues away from a full court press to force dramatic changes in the cable and telephone industry.  So far, the issues which are coalescing include:

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[Editor’s Note: Our current software does not require users to confirm their e-mail address before submitting comments on this site, although the individual purporting to be Rep. Ty Harrell did use a correct e-mail address for the representative.  On the chance that the comments expressed on this site are from the representative, our reply should be taken with that understanding.]

Someone signing their name Rep. Ty Harrell and using his e-mail address left the following general comment on two articles on our site regarding the North Carolina legislation HB 1252, which is essentially a custom written bill by and for the cable and telephone industry in an effort to impede municipal broadband network development inside the state.  Today, the legislation will be taken up by the Public Utilities Committee for review.  StoptheCap! is calling on all North Carolina citizens to do their best to attend this meeting and be prepared to protest this legislation in the strongest possible terms, and demand that representatives vote “no” on it.  At this time, only telephone calls should be made to your elected representatives.  It’s too late for e-mail.  This is the link for information about the group assembling for today’s Committee meeting in Raleigh.  Here is information about the earlier Call to Action.

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StoptheCap! must organize a Truth Squad of volunteers willing to confront sloppy journalism, lazy reporters, and Kool-Aid drinking consumers hoodwinked into actually believing that metered pricing is about saving them money instead of fattening broadband provider profits.

Your job: To find press accounts that might as well have been rewritten industry press releases, those that adopt the premise that the provider is pushing, and exposing industry talking points that go unchallenged in the media.  Then the call to action goes out to bombard the reporter with protest e-mail, confront the bias in the reporting in letters to the editor, and pro-consumer pushback in comment sections where the public can learn some facts for a change.

The Kansas City Star utterly failed in its report on Saturday, lapping up industry talking points and presenting them in a myopic view of the future of broadband.  Reporter Scott Canon quoted opposition from one public statement on the Free Press website, one sentence from a group called Knowledge Ecology International, and a sentence from a press release from Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY).  After that, he paddled around the pool with one industry talking point after another.

… Continue Reading