Is Current on It's Last Leg?

Current has been my homepage for over 2 years, but that may soon change.

Front page stories never change.
Single stories appear in multiple (sometimes all) categories, edging out others.
Where are all the online pods?
Staffers are hogging all the webspace.
Scion wants me to make pods, not current.
Yes comedy is great, but pop culture references does not a channel make.
Important stories! Not pseudo-meme obscurity!
FAILS are NOT NEWS!!!!!!!!!

Come on guys! Print these comments and post them in the board room!
You can save this thing! Please, save this thing!

Current used to be more user-content oriented both on the site and the network. People's news submissions and comments were aired on current which linked the site and the network. People's videos were more often aired on the network. Now it's mainly their own programming. The last VC2 that got on TV was 2 months ago! Citizen Journalism, my ass!

This is a far leap from what Current started out as or was originally meant to be.

And this new layout blows! It looks cheap and is just plain awkward to navigate.

This website was dead to me the moment infomania got its own half hour show, and Current took the path of block scheduling. I miss my endless pods!

I have been through about 6-7 of these crappy changes ever since I got here about 2 years ago. One thing is for sure on Current:

1. Changes have historically sucked. Always. The staff always fails HARD when it makes changes.
2. There are always periodic stories announcing the end of Current and predicting its demise.

I just wonder when the next big change will come, and what cool features it will take away.

Was it 84 lay offs?

Although the powers to be disagree with me strongly on certain issues,

I LOVE CURRENT, there, I said it....

It's about control, I know they don't want my posts on their tv channel....even if the people do vote it up. I fear for free speech...

Stop complaining and take this site back from the bots, fluff news, wingnuts who post 20 stories a day about how Obama cannot deliver a speech without a teleprompter, and libitards who post Sarah Palin news everytime she sneezes on a microphone.

The good thing about Current, the thing that has always been a draw at Current, is still the ability to create and publish your own stories. Use it, publish it, send it.

If you don't want Current to die, save it.

The new layout is horrible, and the pages load way too slow for one of the computers that I use, and it takes forever just to submit a story. What's the use? This is why I've taken a break.

Also. every other story is how someone is racist or about Glenn Beck.

its not on its last legs. there is still great information on here, just not on the front page because all the funny shit gets viewed more...

there is a similar effect with the art on deviantart :D

http://current.com/groups/sustainable-agriculture/

http://current.com/groups/water-is-life/

It's not on its last leg in my groups. Why allow them to take your site from you? As Al Gore stated when this venture first started, this is your site. I'm not giving it up despite its current flaws. I was here before all of these changes.

TINSTAAFL - There is no such thing as a free lunch.

This is getting depressing.

"current" current cult. added to current cult.

The spirit lives in the people behind the cameras and computers as long as the fire still burns people are gonna tell stories by it bring the light like the lumiere bros long live guerilla film viva la revolution

I've been a fan of Current's website since inception. Unfortunately, I don't have the privilege of seeing Current on air. I always wondered why this site had such interesting and insightful comments coming from its users, as well as very respectful debaters. I had no clue that the incentive was your post on TV. That being said, I miss reading the great dialogues. In order to make it return, lets please get rid of the rating system for commentary. This isn't You Tube!

I knew it was going downhill once i saw a McDonald's ad on the front page......

Every few weeks a story like this is posted and we are invited to gaze into our communal belly button. Usually I eschew such collective bitching and moaning, and simply encourage people to go out and find cool stuff and bring it back.

Nevertheless, I too miss Vicky. I also miss the good old days when you would get those emails telling you that you were a homepage hero, or that your story had been picked up for TV. That was fun.

While I am getting used to the new comment format, I still find it awkward and confusing at times, and I do miss the recommendation feature.

Alas, now I feel like an old timer, and I must admit current has lost some of its luster.

C'est la vie

The whole article swells my heart with nostalgia...

Oh Vicky, what happened to thou? Hath thou forsaken me?

People, we're supposedly educated. Can we please finally, finally learn the difference between ITS and IT'S?!

Current is really changing, and the spamming is annoying as all hell, and one of my very important article submissions was knocked out because I personally chose to add the word "allegedy" to the headline, because the person involved with purposefully killing thousands -- yes, thousands! -- of cats and dogs hadn't yet been found guilty, even though witnesses had already testified against her. That article -- its exposure -- could have made a HUGE difference, so I've been immensely disappointed ever since.

If these comments aren't a message to the heads of current I don't know what is.

Seriously, WTF is this Sh**?

if you have a problem with the way things are being run on current, do something about it, dont just Bi*** and moan about it.

Check out the "skype debates" group

http://current.com/groups/skype-debates-beta/

I knew as soon as pop-ups made their appearance here that the end was nigh...

I didn't even find out about Current until a few months ago when I first saw SuperNews! on Hulu. We don't have Cable TV or anything in our house just the Internet. I'm in agreement that most the stories here are garbage, but there are still quite a few gems every now and then that you'd never see anywhere else IMO.

Bitterness about Vicky? Very strange. Don't miss her. And even though Current has always played up viewer participation, it's not the reason why I like and watch it. It's the talent of the people behind the camera, the intelligence of the reporting, the wide open inclusion in content, and the real journalism that happens here. It ain't happening many other places.

I agree with a lot of what’s been said. Staffers squashed the incentive to post and comment by removing Vicky and getting rid of the recommendation feature. I do feel however that at the same time the quality and quantity of stories posted on current has taken a turn for the worst. For that we have no one else to blame but ourselves. I know I’ve only posted a handful of stories since coming here even though I get a good chunk of my news (especially now) from outside current.

Another thing; blogs are not news and neither are vlogs. In fact blogs and vlogs are the cancer that’s killing current. We need to seriously find a board/group for all that stuff and get it off the news page.

this is very true, i still however feel that current is great. its been going downhill when i see celeb news on the top rank i think wtf? the real news needs vicky the robot i feel they should go back to vicky the robot

I have been wondering about this for a while now. Many great posters are gone. Critical thinking is no longer popular on Current. I joined Current to learn and to share the news that do not compete for main stream media rating but in fact is important and even eye opening to American freedom loving people. In debate we find the truth. Instead of intelligent debate I often find personal attacks, vulgar language, and even posters who follow you just to shut you down. I still enjoy following stories by some posters but the number of interesting conversations and unique posts are quickly shrinking.

naa.

Yep. Current is on its last leg. Current keeps playing with itself and changing things around so we never know how it will operate. A lot of the former members have either left or been kicked off for opinions that were not popular. Current is nothing more than a liberal love fest, where if your opinion is different they don't want you to speak.When everyone's gone except liberals it will be nothing more than a mutual admiration society, where all minds are alike and in agreement.

At one time currents content was user generated and promoted, now it is staff making news content decisions instead of users rating content promoted by activity. . . or so it appears to me now.

I was so pissed when they updated the site and did not bring back Vicky the Robot. What the fuck has Current been doing this whole time? They take away a highly popular feature from the site and the channel and two years later dump one of the most subpar and least thought out updates I've ever seen a website make and not even bring it back.

I used to get new information everyday from current. Now they just show these repeats of stupid pods about some fad, pop culture, clothes, and recreation shit.

I don't know about everyone else but when I hear "Current" the next word to pop into my head is "Events" and that's what I thought Currents purpose was. To explain, discuss, and shed light the IMPORTANT issues that are happening now.

Current is going the way of MTV.

I haven't been here since the oft-mentioned and missed Vicky thing, but even in the passed months I have been here, the quality of the featured and most popular articles seem to be greatly diminishing. I feel like a lot of it correlates with a general decline in diverse user input on the website. Complaining only goes so far. Current is far more user-controlled than any other news source, and the capabilities provided are still sufficient to get minority stories out there. If people continue to hunt them.

Couple things Current could do to keep it from sliding into nothingness
1. Bring back Vickie the robot. It was cool that the headlines of the stories were actually read on air
2. Restore the old commenting format. The New format sucks and I haven't heard anyone saying anything good about
3. Fire the MTV Executive they recently brought on board. Telia tequila? enough said
4. Reactivate J_Jammers account. He was a jerk- off but his comments were so obnoxious and defenseless that it was entertaining. It was funny too because he really didn't understand how ridiculous they were but would still try and defend them. Someone should create a petition/ story to bring him back or something.

BLeh! It's just fine! Quit your complaining & do something!!! You don't fix a flat tire by sitting in the car do you??? Nothing's wrong on the site, it's the world that's having issues!!! Fix the world & Then the site will be magically "Fixed" :) OH! I still see when stuff's on,don't know why everyone else doesn't! They DO need to correct their programing stuff JUST a little though because it displays the wrong programs a lot!!!Write new stories about the issues that matter to you! Quit complaining & PLEASE get this rap crap off the radios!!!

Agreed! I miss our robot. I also miss seeing how many have voted something up or down, and the timer to see when something makes it to tv. without that current isn't offering much more than everything else on the net.

Current does seem kinda dead compared to the way it used to be. It's definitely lacking that "viewer participation" that it once had.

I miss those e-mail alerts like "You're a Homepage Hero" when one of your stories made it to the front page, and I really miss Vicky the robot calling out the hourly news bumps on TV.

It was exciting, like a MMORPG, and when you made it to the treasured TV spot, oh ya, TVgasm for sure! Oh, what a feeling that was!

But now there isn't much incentive for posters. No TVgasms, no glory, just another post on a website with nowhere else to go.

There are still some great articles though, you just have to search through the groups to find them.

Just a suggestion for Current: Bring back the "Picked for TV," bring back the excitement, bring back that "viewer participation" that it once had.

Please!!!

lol.. That first sentence is copyrighted. I just said that exact sentence like half an hour ago

http://current.com/items/92197744_c-nt-eastwood-costco-display-fail.htm

...I love it, probably more on a comedic level, but in saying that I get what I need, newswise as well...

LOL current doesn't have legs. its a website, silly