I have just reread kos' announcement of the restoration of the "Recent Diary" box and most of the comments. It will be similar to what existed on DK3, but more without the one diary limit. He prefaces this revision with a statement of his flexibility, his being being responsive to users and always open to improvement. But then there is this comment he makes, which is a reiteration of something he has expressed the same way many times:
Never will limit diaries
And yes, I change my mind on lots of things. But it would have to be epic for me to go back on unlimited diaries. It'd be like me joining the dark side and becoming a Republican. In other words, it violates my core community-building principles.
Again -- I don't care if diaries scroll off the front page quickly. And again -- I don't see it as the best or even a desirable way to find content on the site.
by kos on Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 01:49:08 PM PDT
Kos began his career as a blogger being a user like the rest of us. He was popular, had the knack for getting read, and then started his own site. He is fortunate in that he never had to struggle to get his material read to then have the satisfaction of leading a discussion. As in the old T.V. ad for the investment company, "When Kos talks, everybody listens."
Kos is a lawyer, and many of us here understand how principles of law expand to cover analagous situations. Kos has by his single choice, in effect, revised a fundimental aspect of Dailykos. The guidelines described diaries as "the source of most of the action" with this detailed definition:
4-Diaries should be substantive. A good guideline is that if you don't have at least three solid paragraphs to write about your subject, you should probably post a comment in an open thread, or in a recent diary or front-page post that covers a topic relevant to what you wish to write about.
Property rights are an interesting thing. Right now under current law, Markos has the legal right to do what he wants with this website. He can choose to exclude anyone whom he chooses for whatever reason. He can change the terms of our tacit understanding of what this means at will. It is analagous to the current common law for employers, who can terminate at will any group of people or individual with no recourse at all.
Most of us as progressives don't like this current legal principle, but that's what an employer may do; and that's what an owner of a website can do. The larger question, never broached on this site, is whether it is right.
Kos chooses to ignore that the expanded multiplicity of means of accessing diaries-groups, tags, and following- do not create the real time contemporanious conversations that for large numbers of users are the highpoint of Dailykos. Yes, over time his vision would allow diaries to be accessed indefinitely, almost like a library, and comments could be made, but they would be isolated, unlike the conversations that happened frequently during the magic early minutes of the DK3 recent diary.
Kos, because of his special status as owner can get at any time what we users must work very hard to achieve, a hearing for our insights, observations and opinions. The vehicle for this, the dialykos diary, is treated with such disdain by Kos that he can say "Again -- I don't care if diaries scroll off the front page quickly" Again, as in, how many times do I have to tell you this.
The reason Kos has chosen this one issue to treat as inviolable, in spite of it being a reversal of the definition of what he had described as the "source of most of the action" is a subject for speculation. Eventually, it must reduce the quality of diaries that are written by all but the few who will remain with the knack of hitting the sweet spot of readers approval.
There are many ways to preserve the special quality, the unique quality, of a dailykos diary, and many were suggested in his diary announcing the change. Most of them require the pruning of the trivial, or the re-direction of such messages to an Open Thread or an interactive chat space. There are many options that would be possible, but nothing is worth suggesting as long as the owner, the traditional owner of property that he controls, has set out this one point as being beyond discussion.
This attitude, autocratic at its core, is the antithesis of the most basic vaues represented by this progressive web site.
