Ok, so first of all don't crucify me, because this diary is short and not link-heavy. I'm posting to draw some attention to: a really nice diary I read by a first-time diarist about the United States' occupation of its territories (something you don't see here at dkos and which seems totally appropriate for this blogsite); and, what is the bashing of this first-time diarist's posting.
Hope for guahan wrote his/her first diary on kos today July 4th - The Irony of America's Independence Day and, okay, so it looks like just a few people responded to it. The diary points us at a direction--our "territories"--that I think we don't think about much. When was the last time we thought about the plight of the people of Guam for example? Given the United Nation's work to help indiginious people gain their independence, it seems like an issue not to be ignored (especially at dkos). Most of the responses to "hope for guahan's" diary, however, were really unnecessarily rude. This is not a great posting posture to have at any time, but in my humble opinion, it is really not appropriate for a first time diarist like "hope for guahan". I'm afraid that it will turn him/her off from informing us all in the future about the issue of US occupation of its territories, and other topics of knowledge to the diarist, but also I fear that it will turn off: (a) newbies to dailykos who may be thinking of visiting the site regularly (because they've heard good things about the site); and (b) newbies to dkos who are maybe thinking of posting their first diary. I doubt this is what we want.
"Hope for guahan" doesn't seem to know what a tipjar is, so if you like his/her diary after reading it, and if you have something to add to the discussion of it, let him/her know. As a blogging community, let's send a message of respect to first-time bloggers here at dkos (even if we don't agree with the content of first-time bloggers' diaries, we can add something to the discussion by writing an informed posting, and not taking a easy, but counter-productive swipe at them). Or we could just send them a tip.