Hey.
Clampe's letter was big-picture. Here're some specifics for you. I suggest you read this entire node as the context might be nebulous without it.
Re: Copyright of submissions
It's true that someone requesting the use of a node somewhere else could just message the author, but a. that requires the copyright requester to register an account which is, frankly, nuts, and b. but you're forgetting the content here by fled noders - their work will remained untagged as to copyright status, leaving control with the authors, but going forward, if a user decides to leave his nodeshare around (as I hope they would) it's much easier to know a piece's usability outside of E2 if it's tagged as being released under a certain license. Also, in a secondary way, it gives users another option other than slash-and-burn if they decide to leave.
Re: Behavioral standards
I don't want to go into specifics, but violations of our "Be Appropriate" standard have been a more serious problem than isolated incidents, serious enough that we felt a codification of our behavioral rules was necessary. We truly wish that "Be Appropriate" (as Dann puts it; "Don't Be A Fucking Dick" is more my speed) was enough. It wasn't. If you read over the rules, you'll find that they won't negatively affect almost the entirety of our userbase. Keep doin' what you're doin' and you'll be fine; we're not gonna start censoring the catbox or anything.
Re: Staff interaction
It's true that we have the Everything Finger, but it's clunky and only does half the job - anything that makes it easier to find the help that noders need is better for us in retaining talent, and a one-stop shop is better than three clicks to help that isn't intuitively obvious.
Re: Relationships with other sites
Without new contributors, we're dead, period, and the web is a far bigger and more competitive place than it was in 1999. The more sources we can funnel writers from, the better, and the more exposure we get to other communities featuring bright and talented writers, the better we can carve a niche into the web and hold it. We don't know WHERE yet, not explicitly, but adding cross-linking buttons on a level that's compatible everywhere (or, okay, at Some Interesting Places, anyway) is a good start.
Re: User control of their own content
We've actually got a feature in the works where any writeup deleted by a noder will, if the deletion leaves a nodeshell, put the nodeshell in question on a list in a separate nodelet with an attached bounty so that holes don't stay holes for too long. Think this, but prominent. It'll also encourage noders to branch out and learn, to research a topic they haven't touched before and run with it, or a nodeshell with a particularly poetic lilt and take a stab at fabulating in it. It's hasn't even been close to coded yet, but it'll help with that if and when it happens.
Re: New themes
Gnarl was actually right in his interpretation of the new themes submitted for the contest - The submitted themes were gorgeous, but not particularly 'new', though I understand how hard it can be to break out of the mold of this website we'all spend so much time at - it's tough to think of radical changes once you're used to the interface. If anybody'd like to do a complete redesign, or at least mock one up, show me, or Dann, or Two Sheds; I'm sure the perspective would be handy, contest or not.
...And the rest of it, we're still working on.
But really, I think some of y'all are missing the point. The whole point of the development newsletter was to give the userbase a heads-up as to where we are right now, how we're thinking, and what we're thinking of making modifications to. Some of the changes will have to shake out over time; some will get refined during the development process; some will probably get abandoned all together. We've been asked over and over where we are with site updates and what we're thinking about doing to keep us alive and vibrant and growing, and we talked about it, and put together a document saying, "hey. You asked; sorry it took so long. Here's where we're at."
Well. Here's where we're at. Some things, we don't know yet. You'll know when we do.
Rest easy. We really, truly, love this place.
--Jack
you know what to do