Personally, I like change. That might surprise some folks who know me. I used to wear holes through my shoes. I'm not giving up my discontinued model of car. And the front page of the website I work for hasn't changed in the three-plus years I've worked here.

Not much has changed in the basics of Newsvine - rules are the same, features are mostly the same, Viners still make the place what it is - but the site has grown. A lot. Discussions, the heart of the site, have gotten massive. And in light of that, the basics are going to change. A lot.

Sometime after this month of February, Newsvine is going to open up Beta for 'New Newsvine'. We can talk more about that over here.

Here's something that hasn't changed: the rules.

A user's participation at Newsvine is judged as a whole. Recurring counterproductive behavior or negative contributions - even if not specifically addressed in the Code of Honor or the User Agreement - may still warrant removal of that person from the Newsvine Community.

I'm being very careful to not make any guarantees about this next version of Newsvine, but I can promise the Code of Honor is sticking around. And at least until then, Sally and I are going to keep enforcing the Code of Honor how we've been doing it. You're free to disagree - a fair amount of folks are petitioning for a change.

I came up with the title before I fleshed out this article. By 'asylum' I don't mean the traditional houses for orphans or lunatics [though there are no prohibitions on either registering!], I mean it's not a sanctuary or a retreat. Perhaps compared to the rest of the internet, it's more comfortable, feels safer; I hope so, anyway.

I mean that you are not guaranteed a stay here. People get banned from Newsvine every day. The 'New Newsvine' might cut down on that substantially, but people are still going to get banned. That's not going to change, and I wouldn't have it any other way. It's pretty to think that maybe we could communicate the rules so well that no one ever broke them; prettier still to imagine that every ban or suspension would discipline a Viner that everyone in the community unanimously agreed needed it.

This may seem dismissive of criticism, insulated by authority. I think it's important for myself and Sally to acknowledge that while we're Viners, we actually do kind of have asylum here as long as we have jobs. The price of authority is often perspective. So please, be encouraged to continue asking questions, making suggestions, petitioning. I can't stand 'love it or leave it' sentiments.

Keep that in mind when 'New Newsvine' starts rolling out. If you like it at all, help build it.

Lately I've been having a lot of conversations with people who do our jobs or similar ones - including awesome new coworker EveryBlock Marina - and one of the things I keep hearing echoed is that we're lucky to have people so attached to Newsvine. It's a refreshing, validating reminder. Newsvine can be so many wonderful things.

But it's not an asylum. Follow the rules.

Edit, 2/22: While Newsvine is not an asylum, it's also not asylum, as mightyj points out in this comment, and would have made more sense as a headline.

TOKYO –  Japanese researchers have invented a speech-jamming gadget that painlessly forces people into silence.

Kazutaka Kurihara of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Koji Tsukada of Ochanomizu University, developed a portable "SpeechJammer" gun that can silence people more than 30 meters away.

The device works by recording its target's speech then firing their words back at them with a 0.2-second delay, which affects the brain's cognitive processes and causes speakers to stutter before silencing them completely.

How did America become broke and insolvent? How did we build up an unimaginable $115 trillion in debt and unfunded liabilities? How did we allow the American Dream to become a nightmare?

All we need do is look at the primary demand the Eurozone and IMF are placing on hopelessly bankrupt Greece to get their new $170 Billion bailout -- Greece has agreed to cut 150,000 government employees. Even Cuba's leader Raul Castro recognizes government employees are at the root of economic destruction, as he is cutting over 2 million of them to save Cuba from bankruptcy.

The truth is that government employees are the true 1%. We have far too many of them (21 million), many of them are paid too much, and their union demands are straining taxpayers to the breaking point. 

The recent revelation that the head of Media Matters walked the streets of Washington with a Glock-toting bodyguard may make it a little awkward for the group the next time it seeks a donation from a gun control advocacy group. 

Media Matters reportedly took more than $400,000 from the Joyce Foundation specifically earmarked to promote a $600,000 initiative on "gun and public safety issues." At the same time, Media Matters' gun-guarded boss David Brock reportedly obsessed over his own security. 

"It doesn't look good," said Fraser Seitel, president of Emerald Partners Communications and a public relations expert who authored the book "Rethinking Reputation." 

Look at the cow underneath the tree. Embedded within the cow's spots is an image of a pig, which as the Burlington Free Press reminds us is the '60s-era epithet used by protesters to refer to police.

Reuters reports that it was likely put there by inmates. The state, Reuters adds, "contracts with correctional facilities employing prisoners to make some print products, including the cruiser decals." One or more inmates somehow accessed the computer program holding the image and rejiggered it. The quality assurance department failed to notice it and as far as the state police know, the modified decal was used on as many as 30 Vermont State Police cruisers.

Some weren't laughing.

I mentioned 'New Newsvine' over in this article. It may have overshadowed everything else I wrote in it.

Here's what I feel confident telling y'all about it:

• It's beautiful.
• It's not like anything else on the internet.
• It is very different from today's Newsvine.
• We need beta testers.

We have a list of people, new and old, that we're planning on inviting to beta, but there's a lot of spots open. If you can think of Viners who use Newsvine a lot and you think would both give good feedback and - especially - participate in ongoing discussions, please nominate them in the discussion under comment #2.

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Edit, 2/2: Viki Babbles Gonia asks here:

Just to clarify here, Tyler, you mean give good feedback to the developers about the use of the "new" Newsvine, as well as participate in discussions with other beta testers and the devs about how it's working, bugs and issues, what might work better, etc., correct?

Yes. Nominate folks you think will kick all the tires on the system and try things that developers may not have thought of.

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Don't nominate yourself, please. [I mean, you can nominate yourself, but it won't help your case.]

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2nd Edit, 2/2:

Derails about why someone doesn't deserve beta are not welcome. Post upvotes, just like comments or articles. Not looking for slapfights over worthiness, just suggestions. This isn't a RAV or a guideship.

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Feel free to ask questions about the redesign here, but as I mentioned, I won't be making a lot of promises and I'll be writing in really general terms.