Ever since we failed to get our leaders to hold Lieberman accountable, I've been thinking about how we can best organize and advocate for the change in the policies we need. One possible way is to change the format of DailyKos, and right now, it's just a blog with a huge list of diaries, many good ones that fall off the list immediately as soon as a massively badly written diary gets added onto the list.
Sure, the recommended diaries list is great, but yesterday, they were all on that singular topic of Lieberman, the failure of the Senate leadership to hold him accountable, and what it means for the future of the progressive netroots.
Thus, I think we need to learn how to stop having a singular focus, and learn how to have a multi-faceted focus on a wide variety of issues. It may be necessary to have a tabbed browser with categories that the diaries could be directed towards to, and then recommended to the top of the category list. This would possibly generate a much wider readership for DailyKos.
Here's what my model of the new DailyKos would look like as a tabbed browser:
- Elections---divided into national, state, and local elections subtopics, along with a DAILY DONATE subtopic that would ask Kossacks to donate to the candidate of our choice for that day or week. This could possibly be merged with ActBlue, and our own Orange To Blue group. The diaries in this particular category would have a ranking system that would allow them to be recommended to the top of the subtopic lists.
- White House Administration---divided into news coverage of political appointments, Supreme Court appointments, and federal agency news subtopics, along with a DAILY ACTION subtopic that would have us call our Members of Congress on a particular appointment or a policy issue being raised within that federal agency. As mentioned above, the diaries in this particular category would have a ranking system that would allow them to be recommended to the top of the subtopic lists.
- Policy Issue Areas---divided into policy issues by subject, along with a DAILY ACTION subtopic that would have us post comments on an agency rule proposal. Thus, it would keep us engaged as a progressive netroots in terms of political leverage with each federal agency. You'd be surprised at how many comments are left on agency rules by organizations that promote corporate policies that the proposed rule would favor or hurt. With us as active citizens, the federal agency would be forced to consider our opinions along with those of corporations as well.
- General Issue Areas---that would be for diaries that really aren't related to the three categories above, like political humor, rants, and so forth.
- Tabbed links to ActBlue, Orange To Blue, and other progressive political donations websites.
Trusted users would also have the ability to delegate tags to each diary, so that way we can still search for the diary subject that we'd be interested in. Also, those who have the most recommended diaries may be automatically considered for a front-pager position. This is just a possible discussion of the role of front-pagers. I think that what we have in the role of front-pagers is a bit stale, and that we may need to rethink that. I'm interested in your ideas on that.
So, what do you think? What should be the future of DailyKos? Thanks for taking the time to read this particular diary!
UPDATE: I also had another idea. What if the progressive netroots, OpenLeft, MyDD.com, and FireDogLake, were to come together and hire a pool reporter that could cover the press conferences at the White House, and ask the press secretary OUR questions? The pool reporter would relay the report back to us, and we could use that report to generate our own reaction to the press conference from the answers given to our questions.