Good that the issue is being addressed...long awaited!

Then can you all do US a favor?

Make sure the "Related Links" sections of new posts are exactly that, and not just random links intended to get your search result numbers up...?

Oh yeah, and do a better job about clearing spam posts faster.

patrick (the other one), the Related Posts under the Tags heading are automatically generated, and we wish they were better. That is the reason we started implementing our own Related Posts at the conclusion of our posts, and we really try to make those as relevant as possible.

Oh, so it's okay for you guys to use automated technology to create link opportunities (hence increasing your placement on searches) that bring absolutely no value-add to the post's content, but it's not okay for your readers to benignly do the same thing?

I get it now.

patrick, I'm surprised by your tone, especially considering how supportive Apartment Therapy has been of you and your work. I disagree that the Related Posts don't bring any value. All of the generated Related Posts have the same top category as the post just written, with the hope that it will be of further interest to our readers. Is it a perfect system? No. But we're working to improve it.

Wow Patrick...such harsh words. If you don't like what is posted, then stop following the site. It's called Freedom to Choose.

And looking at your most recent posts - you seem to post negative comments more often than postitive ones. In the spirit of Thanksgiving...why not find something to be thankful for...

Cambria, I know that if I had something being automatically generated on my website of which I had no control over and "wished were better" I wouldn't be displaying the item at all.

i dont mind the signatures at the end of people's relevant comments. There have been a couple of blogs that I've found through them when I've found a person's comment to be interesting.

What gets me though are the people who say
"I was just talking about this on my blog! www.blah.com" or "I tried it and blogged about it, read my post!". Those comments are a waste of space. Wish there was a way to stop those.

And, Cambria, Apartment Therapy has surprised *me* several times in spite of how supportive *I* have been to the site, Maxwell, his book, his events, and how many times I have gone to bat for editors, over the years... so I guess we can call it even.

Kerstin--
Apologies for offending you. Yes, freedom of choice, I get it. But this is also a forum for discussion and (egads!) civil disagreement, and I have exercised that right as well.

Does anyone read Seth Godin? Truly helpful post this week on "How to lose an argument online."

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

I don't see the harm in the signatures that contain links. I don't believe post length is the issue either. How much space does this actually take? If it's an issue of competition, I'd respect you more if you just said so--we don't want to support diverting people from a site we own and profit from (makes sense to me). If it's not wanting to spend the time sifting through legit comments by legit posters with links versus meaningless spam posts that exist only to divert readers to another site, then why not tell us that.

And for the record, I don't have a blog or design business to advertise here, so a no links policy is no loss to me.

And for the record, nor do I.