Judging from the comments to Hunter’s story concerning what features we’d like in Daily Kos 4.0, it is probably safe to say that there will be multiple pages available which are accessible by clicking tabs along the top of the screen (e.g., MyDD or BMT). This will allow the presentation of a larger quantity of content (and advertising). The main issue that needs to be talked about and clarified is how many screens and what these different screens might look like. Join the discussion over the flip.
It is important to remember that visitors to the site can be lumped into Viewers and Users. Viewers are people interested in keeping up with what’s going on in progressive politics who have no interest or desire to blog on the site. Users are the rest of us. As the Republican collapse continues and the run-up to 2008 heats up, the number of Viewers will increase dramatically, so it is worthwhile to address their attention.
The easiest way to meet the needs of the Viewers is to have a Front Page. One way to think about this is Huffington Post without the photo links and the celebrities. (At Daily Kos we’ve got democracy, we don’t need no stinking celebrities). This Front Page would look like the existing site with some minor changes.
All the items at the top of the right-hand column and the Recent Diaries List would be removed from the Front Page. These are more for Users and would appear on a page for their use. The extra space freed up would be used to greatly expand the Recommended Diaries List. (HuffPo’s list of celebs goes on forever, why shouldn’t ours?)
If the Front Page is for Viewers, then, for Users we would have a Back Page. This would again look similar to the existing format with minor changes. There would still be stories and the right hand column would be the items removed from the Front Page, the informational and user links followed by the Recent Diaries List (which would be automatically set to 50).
Stories on the Front Page would not be duplicated. The stories on the Back Page would be made up of Open Threads (which would not appear on the Front Page), or stories directed at Users, like Hunter’s call for suggestions, or other meta discussions of little interest to Viewers. Certainly, any story about Community Standards would go there.
This would still leave a lot of room to fill. My suggestion would be for kos to tap popular diarists who might not meet his standards for Front Page exposure. Here I’m thinking of people like clammyc, Dood Abides, One Pissed Off Liberal, or Bob Johnson. You know, the Not Ready For Prime Time players group.
Also, some old-timers with Front Page privileges might choose to publish a diary on this part. The prime example here would be Meteor Blades’ Eco-Diary Rescue. I would also include greenreflex so that s/he can continue to report on the Congressional Committees Project. As other worthy collaborative projects develop (as discussed in dmsilev’s MetaDailyKos: Community and Collaboration), kos can add them to this space as he sees fit.
One other page tab is needed in my vision to complete the expansion. This would be a page called High Impact Diaries and would be filled with Jotter’s lists for the previous few days (the number depends on how many would fit on the screen). These would just be lists like the Recent Diaries List without the other info that Jotter provides.
If the page didn’t contain any ads it would be pretty breathtaking to behold. This would be a compact, efficient way to see the best of Daily Kos for the past few days laid out right there in front of you. It would allow for easy tracking of recent trends and interests, along with giving clear testimony of who the workhorse stars of the site are.
After re-reading I realize there is one thing I need to clarify. Viewers would be able to click any of the tabs and see everything that Users could. All three tabs would be visible to everyone. Neither the Back Page nor the High Impact Diaries page would be restricted.
This three page presentation would greatly expand the content that is easily accessible on the site and address the issue of diaries not sticking around as long with the increase of Users. It would also present more relevant material to Viewers. The three page approach would better serve the needs of both communities and increase the impact of Daily Kos, and do so with only minor changes to the present format.
There are two other items I’d like to mention. They are not integral parts of the above discussion, but rather just options to consider. Feel free to skip to the Comments if you want.
The first item concerns SusanG’s Diary Rescue. I would like to see this have a prominent dedicated link on the Front Page. The reason for this is best expressed by SusanG herself in her beautifully written manifesto, Crashing the Gate by Rescuing Diaries:
Frankly, I have more talent for spotting talent than I do for writing, myself, and I want to use this ability for the progressive cause. I want to at the very least draw eyes to new writers who are arriving here, or old ones who have been overlooked. I want great writers to keep on writing, and I want them to get better and better and better, with lots of feedback. I want to help spot the next billmon, the next Hunter, the next Meteor Blades. Hell, I'll be even more ambitious ... I hope Daily Kos gives rise to the next George Orwell or Upton Sinclair or Charles Dickens, all of whom wrote novels that either changed political discourse forever or led to legislation outlawing the practices they depicted in their novels.
I don’t think I need to add anything to that comment.
The other item is minor and concerns those comments from Hunter’s piece like "too much meta," or, "I’m mainly interested in environmental issues". My suggestion is that when you click on the Diaries link and go to the page that shows all the introductions to recent diaries there would be a filter at the top.
The filter would consist of a tag line, like the one used when composing a diary, with a button on either side. On the left would be a NO button and on the right a YES button. You could put as many tags as you wished onto the line (separated by commas). If you then hit the NO button the filter would exclude all diaries that contained any one of the tags. If you hit the YES button the filter would exclude all diaries that did not contain at least one of the tags.
For example, if you typed in meta, snark and hit NO you would not see any diaries that were tagged with either of those terms. Or if you typed in psychology, poetry, poverty and hit YES you would only see diaries that dealt with one or more of these subjects. (Obviously, the YES button is much more exclusive).
Okay, this diary is long enough. On to the comments.