I don't mind the quieter times - especially at weekends - and I don't mind the ebb and flow. I don't start to worry if an open thread only gets a handful of comments, because in a day or two another one won't, and that's not a problem.

I also don't think you can please all of the people all of the time, and if someone with a fundamentally different point of view leaves in a huff because they made some unsupported assertions and got called on it, I wouldn't see that as a problem either.

I'm generally more averse to meta diaries, because I think we can end up talking about specific incidents rather than strategy, and it can easily turn into one of those talks you have in a relationship where someone says 'Yes, but ten years ago you said...' - and it's often not helpful.

So I think if we're going to do meta we should maybe distinguish between 'What should ET do next' and 'How can we be friendlier.'

I think kcurie covered what we should do next. We've talked about, we have to do it.

As for being friendlier - WhatAboutBob was always an excellent balance to the more intense discussions, and it might be useful to have a frontpager who's  not one of the policy kids.

I think Bob had a rare talent for setting a civil tone, and I think if we could find someone with a similar vibe it could help balance some of the intensity.

This isn't a criticism of any of the frontpagers in any way - just a suggestion that there may be a gap there, and filling it could help smooth out some of the sharp edges.

Other than that, my main beef with ET at the moment is that I have too many diary ideas and too little time to write them. But I'm not going to blame the FPers for that. (At least - not yet. :) )