As someone who has watched the ebb and flow of DKos for more than a year, it always amuses me when it hits one of its "DKos is broken" cycles. It seems to happen every three or four months.
Whether it's profanity, "breaking news" diaries, or controversial diaries, there raises from the crowd a hue and cry of despair. "DK is not what it can be!"
Perhaps not, but it is what it is. And what it is to me is a site that I have spent more time with than any in my entire websurfing existence. And I don't commit to much of anything as evidenced by the countless blogs and websites I dump during a favorites purge.
What it is to me is also an amazing community of people with diverse viewpoints and different levels of passion and expertise on an incredible array of topics.
Last year I wrote a series called OverKos, where I spent an entire week reading every diary on the site. Every diary. Over 1500 of them. I still have nightmares.
I wrote this back then and it still applies today:
Daily Kos is also not broken.
The squabbles, the debates; the rudeness, the push and pull of varying agendas are a perfect analogy of the Democratic Party.
When you invite such diversity you are going to naturally have some disorder.
For the Democratic leadership it's important to rein in that disorder and come up with a concise message to the majority of voters who vote based solely on keywords. For instance: "Tax and Spend Democrats" (as opposed to "Bankrupt America and Spend Republicans").
The diaries in Daily Kos do not need to meet these criteria. It is chaotic. It's is beautiful. It's a democracy that works.
Kossacks who are looking for perfection in manners (me) and on the diary page (others) are just going to have to learn to live with the fact the Daily Kos is a living breathing community with its own diversity and pulse.
We can't dictate style, although we sure as hell can suggest it.
DK is not perfect, but DK is NOT broken either. It ebbs and flows with personality and vibrancy. A few months ago I was at the point of given DK up entirely because the quality of diaries had fallen so miserably. The site personality had turned completely ugly. Nadir.
Then, after a week of frustration, something happened: the quality of the diaries became phenomenal. It was as if the community sensed the plunge in quality and worked feverishly to correct it. A mini Golden Age which leveled back off to normal (and that ain't bad).
Ebb and flow.
Now there's a suggestion that Daily Kos should become more professional. Profanity should be curtailed. Diaries should be reviewed and must pass some sort of community muster to be published. You must be this smart or this clever to post here. Blech.
If this is the direction that Daily Kos wants to go... Well, let's just say, as many times as I told myself in the past it would be the last time I ever clicked that little orange icon in the favorites list because of one of the periodic hissy fits, I guarantee that professionalizing this site by grading its community members on their diary skills will be the final straw. I'd be ditching that little orange icon once and for all.
I love this blog. Even when I hate it. Even when Kos has written something that throws me into a fit of screaming obscenities; even when this community is cannibalizing itself over the latest dustup; even as a somewhat amused bystander of the pie fights, "Shut Your Fucking (sorry, "effing") Piehole" diaries, tin foil cullings, and the never ending "Armando is an Asshole" (sorry, "buttocks orifice") diaries.
The moment the diarists are graded on their work will be the day when all the color drains from DK. That's the day it will become an orange and white monstrosity of blandness as it tries to reach a level of "quality" some in the community feel it has to attain to be taken seriously.
Newsflash. Most Americans don't have a clue what a blog is and they don't care. They don't care if DK is a storm of flying fucks (sorry, "flapping intercourses") and they don't care that some may want it to take up some ambiguous mantle of quality.
To the people who may care, well, they're still coming by the busloads based of the latest UID numbers, so the quality must not be all that bad.
What I care about is this community. This community is dazzling. It's every color of the rainbow, every emotion of the human race. It's blood, sweat, laughter, tears, spit, skin, bad breath.
It has left me breathless with its generosity, and frustrated with its pettiness. Yes, it's messy, but it's rarely, rarely boring. It is about as close to a living breathing entity as I have every witnessed online.
Kos seems to instinctually know (99% of the time, at least) that to impose overt control would destroy it. Were it that all the community members felt the same. As I said before: "We can't dictate style, although we sure as hell can suggest it."
Rating diaries would be terrific. Previewing them for publication would be disastrous. I fear it would stifle, or even worse, silence the nervous (which is most of us) diarists.
Throwing your words and work out there is nerve wracking enough. To know you have to jump through hoops even to be heard by the whole community is frightening. We a not a community of scientists who need to check each others work. We are a community of people and our imperfections are what make us interesting and, more importantly, human.
Could DK be better? Of course. Nothing is perfect. However, Daily Kos is not broken. It just appears to be that way every three or four months. It's all part of the normal ebb and flow of the site.
Note: If Kos or any Kossack wants to start a sister site that employs the peer review method, I'm all for it. It would be a fascinating project to observe.
Update [2005-11-14 15:1:44 by mentaldebris]:: LOL! I write a meta diary that I feel was mainly a purge diary for myself of internal doubts and concerns and it ends up on this list.
I just want to say I didn’t duck out purposely. Wrote it. Went to bed. Woke up, got involved in finishing up my Harlan Ellison book. Came back, and whoa…
Community. Thanks. I think. Mixed blessing at best, having a meta diary on the rec list these days.
Based on the comments I truly wish some of you wrote this diary instead of me.
One thing I’d like to address. This isn’t a knee-jerk reaction to recent events. Despite the title, it’s not about a catfight over “you’re saying we’re dysfunctional-no we’re not”.
What has been proposed in RedDan’s diary and the cyclical “obscenity” wars as a way to “clean” up and make the community “presentable to the teeming masses”, and a more enjoyable experience to those who feel they must slog through every diary posted just to find a decent one, has been around as an undercurrent as long as I’ve been on the site. It’s been around from the very beginning.
My objection has more to do with other people coming up with ways of determining what I can or cannot read on this site. Yes, it’s about me and my choices, or lack of them depending on how seriously this idea is being considered from the higher ups.
After having tasted the ambrosia of unfettered ideas, to ask me to feed only on the pre-chewed morsels others have found palatable is offensive. No matter how much I respect the tasters, it is nothing less than insulting.
It’s not about hating change. Yeah, I hate the redesign and the bloody ads down the center. I’m still here. Yes, I’m bitter that I’m one of the 500 or so inconvenienced by the demise of the sacred dynamic threaded feature. I’m still here. Yes, I’ve been offended by the words written on this site enough to shun it for a time. I’m still here.
The *main* reason I’m still here is I know, with very little interference, I’m getting the information on this site raw. Unfettered. Messy. And thus, I can take from that messiness what facts I need, what facts I can use to develop my own opinions and plans of action. I can read a silly diary for a laugh. I can enjoy a badly written, but passionate, drunken rant. I don't need my info pre-chewed; get enough of that in my diet as it is.
The day that what I see has been vetted and approved by others it becomes more about what they think I can use, what they think I need, what they think is funny. What they think is enjoyable.
Thanks, but, no thanks. I can think for myself.
And if I want to see what I missed, I can always head over to jotter's High Impact Diaries list to get caught up.
:)