I first came to dailyKos about 2 years ago. Some people come and lurk for a while. Not me. I jumped right in. I wrote my first comment as soon as it was possible, and my first diary as soon as possible, as well. I got TU status in a couple weeks, and have never lost it. I've written 429 diaries and 21,764 comments.
I like it here.
But now, I feel like leaving, and I am not the only one
Many good diarists have left already. A search of GBCW for the last quarter gave 63 hits; OK, not all were really GBCW, and some people left for other reasons. OTOH, not everyone who leaves writes a diary.
Many more are thinking of leaving, or are just posting a lot less. People like rserven, Runs With Scissors, nu, TexMex, prodigal, BlueJerseyMom, and many others.
I'm one of them. This site used to be great. It used to be full of diaries that were insightful, that were funny, that were about electing Democrats, that were about the evils of Bush and his gang. Those diaries are still here, somewhere. I try to find them, but they disappear down the recent diaries list, drowned in a sea of nastiness.
There were, and are, other diaries. Diaries like WYFP and what's for dinner and my own What Are you Reading? and cfk's Bookflurries and many others that weren't so directly about electing Democrats, but that make this a community - a community full of interesting and intelligent people.
Now, this site is full of people who won't vote Democratic IF. If whatever. Mostly, it's IF Hillary Clinton wins. These people seem to want to be praised for their idiocy - even though Hillary's votes are indistinguishable from Barack's.
It's full of name-calling, it's full of rage, it's full of nastiness.
I don't like it here anymore. I don't like it that people would rather not vote than vote Hillary. I don't like it that people call supporters of candidates they don't like by vicious names. As LBJ said:
When two people agree on everything, one of them is doing all the thinking
But hey, it's not my site. If Kos wants the site to be like this, that's up to him. He can let the site continue to degenerate, so that it stops helping Democrats. But he'll do it without me - and without a lot of other people.
What can be done? Well, I know nothing about the technology of blogs. There are people in admin who know a lot. Could there be a way to make candidate diaries un-recommenable? Or could people be warned and then banned? Or could there be a separate section for candidate diaries? Or could all candidate diaries be shunted into 6 'open-thread'- like diaries? (one for pro and anti each candidate?)
I don't know. That's up to Kos and his team. It's their site.
But, frankly, right now, I'd rather post on docudharma or Booman Tribune. But what I'd like best is to post on dailyKos, the way it used to be.
Some arguments have been made against leaving:
a) You can just read what you want to read. I've made this one myself, when other people complained about what this site is becoming. But, while true, it isn't completely true. The mood that people get from the candidate diaries is infectious.
b) Toughen up. Well, I don't want to. If this is going to be a site that you have to be tough to read, then it is meant for other readers
c) The candidates are going to get worse from the Republicans This may be true, but it's irrelevant. The candidates aren't here.
Is this GBCW? No. This is a plea to the admins to fix the site. They can. Only they can. In ordinary times, community moderation works pretty well. Now, it is failing.
Will I leave? I doubt it. I probably won't leave entirely, even if the admins do nothing. But instead of spending 90% of my blogging time here, I'll spend 90% elsewhere. I'll find different homes for my different interests. It won't be the same, but it might be what I have to do.
UPDATE
Since some people seem to have misinterpreted what I said, I think I should mention that I am not a Clinton supporter.
UPDATE
About my use of the word 'idiocy'..... OK, that's name calling. Sorry. See, the tone of things is affecting me, too.