"Your site is flat."

With those words, Guilliaume earlier today caused a gasp from the audience at this year's Symposium on the Site - the eighth annual meeting on how to improve this website - but, then he continued to explain himself:

"What I mean, of course, is that this site is indeed flat: each post is more or less the same as the other. They might be covering different topics, but there is no 'Travel' section or 'Sports' section, even if the site might cover those topics... There is no higher-level categorization aside from tags or the earlier rough system using categories..."

He went on:

"I appreciate all five or six writers at 24Ahead! Of course, as you all know, there is just one writer, but sometime I do not know because it is like there are several! One moment there will be a biting post about an 'MSM' reporter, and the next there will be a post about some inanity where he makes up imaginary characters, and then there will be a 'Fark' post... Listen, you are not Fark, nor will you ever be... it is my recommendation to stop posting the Fark content..."

I understand where he's coming from but sometimes I can't help myself.

"It is also good that the site has moved away from the, how would you say it, 'bloggy' posts... the ones that mix snark in... it is good to see fewer like that and more 'just the facts' posts..."

Then, Guillaume offered wise council on the future of the site:

"It is my recommendation that you concentrate on 'Bam!' By that I mean, when someone comes to a page - any page - you need to hit them with content and make them realize this is a site they want to bookmark and share with their friends... They must *immediately* know what this site is about, what it's for, and what can be found at it... They must immediately know how to find things... It is my recommendation that the homepage becomes more, how would you say, 'portal-y'. By that I mean that it should have this block and that block and the user must immediately say to themselves, 'this is how I find what I want to know'. Instead, this is more like a blog with the posts one after the other... I am not suggesting a generic 'MSM'-style frontpage, nor am I suggesting that you just ripoff HotAir, but I am suggesting something like that but more of a 'reference tool'... My Javascript team (shout out to Sanjay and Alexi) is currently considering whether to create a Javascript-based 'control panel' for the site that would wrap it all up into tabs and the like: one tab for full-text searching, another for tag searching, another for browsing by date, and so on... We are evaluating this plan. Because we want to bring you the best site possible. Thank you!"

And, with those words, Guillaume brought down the house.