Six years ago today, after sixteen and a half months on the Movable Type platform, Daily Kos switched over to Scoop. On Tuesday October 14, 2003 at 04:52:15 PM EDT, kos posted Making the change:
We have initiated the DNS change. That means both this and the original Daily Kos site may act weird. Your cookies may break. The site may be down for a while. The Cubs may win a pennant.
In other words, the frabric of time and space may rupture. I'll see you guys on the other side. Thanks for your patience.
What happened next, and how did Daily Kos get to this juncture? I'll see you guys on the other side.
Quite simply, Daily Kos was brought to this point by outgrowing the capabilities of its original platform, Movable Type. The explosive growth in readers and commenters during the lead up to and beginning of the Iraq War—Daily Kos was named number one War Blog by the Forbes Magazine website, at the minor cost of Markos's pseudonymity—caused the site to go down on more than one occasion beginning March 27.
Markos looked for a more robust platform than Movable Type, but the only one that seemed possible back in March, Slashcode, simply cost too much: on further investigation, it required more development resources and computer power than was affordable. He mentioned this in a comment on June 3, and three weeks later, in the Open Thread: 6/24 post.
Third time was a charm: in that post's comment thread, a new option was suggested by Cameron at 12:52am: Scoop. This was echoed by phil at 6:15am and Luke Francl at 7:31am. At 10:38am, Kos posted in the thread:
Thanks to everyone who recommended Scoop. It's perfect for what I want to do, and will start working right away to transition the site over.
Two days later, in Open Thread: 6/26, Markos announced that he was buying a server and would be installing Scoop on it for the "new and improved Daily Kos".
Less than a week later, it turned out the new server was first needed to host Daily Kos immediately, as Movable Type comments were bringing down the ISP server hosting Daily Kos and other blogs. Movable Type comments were shut down, and the next day, HaloScan comments, which were remotely hosted, brought in as a temporary measure for perhaps a week, with the understanding that any comments created under HaloScan would be lost once the new server was configured and able to handle the heavy load generated by Movable Type comments.
Then came over six weeks of hell, as the new server couldn't be configured once it was put in the data center: firewall issues was the initial diagnosis. The problem was eventually tracked to a malfunctioning ethernet card, but not until after the second diagnosis of a corrupt Linux installation, which was solved by a change of OS to FreeBSD Unix. Once the ethernet card had been replaced, the server went back to the data center.
During those six weeks of troubleshooting frustration, the site suffered through HaloScan comments, which everyone hated, at least according to kos. (I hate them too, but that's because they disappeared once Movable Type comments were reinstituted, and that's a month and a half of comments I'll never be able to read because they're lost to posterity...including complaints about HaloScan.) But as they were far preferable to a complete absence of comments, they were tolerated.
Once Movable Type was restored to full function on August 16, using the new server, work began on installing and configuring Scoop. It took nearly two months for kos, working with Grant (user 2) on Scoop, and Kevin on the server (if Kevin had an account on Daily Kos, I don't know his username; it wasn't the much later "kevin"); they are credited here. On October 13, 2003, six years ago yesterday, Markos posted the fateful MT version of dKos is now obsolete, and just under three hours later, at 9:17 p.m., revealed the URL of the new Scoop site to the Daily Kos public.
It took 19 hours and 35 minutes to kick the tires, make formatting decisions, fix glitches, and otherwise establish that the software seemed to be doing what it ought, before the message highlighted in the intro was posted. And within 13 minutes of said post, the new site went down for a few minutes, as noted by mickey in the equivalent thread on the old site, and confirmed by Grant half an hour later at the new one.
The entire Making the change diary on the Scoop site is worth reading, as you watch people gaining their Scoop legs and learning the new site. Familiar names like Meteor Blades, DemFromCT, Devilstower, and Bob Johnson appear there as do names from the past like Melanie and Marisacat. Sidhe was the first commenter in that post, and all the comments made by this user somehow ended up hidden. (Grant checked, and noted that these comments are somehow all rated -2, which is a trick, as 0 is the lowest number. Another problem to track down.) LeftCoastConservative's comment the next morning got a net rating of 1.22 from nine users; it provoked the first discussion of down-rating a contributor.
murfmom was the first to post in that diary that she got to the site via her normal bookmark, meaning that the DNS changes had propagated to her site before 6:29 the morning of the 15th, but that doesn't mean she was the first to have experienced the DNS change, as name/address changes don't reach every point in the net at the same time, or even the same hour. However, we do know that for otmar, the new address hadn't yet propagated as of four hours earlier.
The community-building features of Scoop took off fairly quickly. People could write their own diaries—effectively set up a blog within a blog—and there was no initial limit on the number of diaries a user could post per day. Five people wrote two diaries each on that day six years ago, and on October 16, DavidNYC wrote four. Eventually, the parade of diaries got too dense, and Markos announced a two diary daily maximum, and rules against single-line diaries and repetitive diaries on January 27, 2004.
Community moderation started out with comments being able to be ranked at levels of 1 to 5 (low to high), with a 0 being reserved to Trusted Users, those with mojo of 3.75 or above. Trusted users, as now, were the only ones who could see hidden comments. As Grant notes here, trusted users are trusted to hide and to unhide comments as appropriate. (Initially, a glitch caused all comments with 0 or 1 rating to appear with an average mojo of 2.50, which is blatantly impossible. The mojo is probably accurate for those comments that received 2 or more ratings.) The 5 level was soon eliminated, leaving 4 as the best, and mojo became a combination of average comment rating, and other activity measures such as how recently the site participation occurred.
Many features we think of today as Scoop-based were actually added later to the site as homegrown modifications to Scoop. The Recommended button and diary list date from August 10, 2004, and the look of the site was changed significantly with Daily Kos 3.0, released on June 24, 2005. The original "Section" categories for front-page posts such as Senate Elections 2004 or Democrats or War or Bush Administration, which was limited to a single category per front-page post, gave way to tagging on October 10, 2004, allowing front-page stories and user diaries to be given as many subject tags as a particular post warranted. Those categories were lost in the switchover to tags, so you can only see them (along with the then-current front page look) at web archive links for Daily Kos.
If you want to read more about the events leading up to Scoop, please see Top Comments: The Road to Scoop Edition. If you want to read more about the switchover and the first couple of days under Scoop, Top Comments: Scooping Daily Kos Edition has some fun details. It also looks at site growing pains in the first few months on Scoop.
One thing I have to note: Scoop won't be having a seventh anniversary here. When version 4.0 of Daily Kos is unveiled later this year, it will be on a new platform developed specifically for this site. Doubtless many of the ideas and features from Scoop will be incorporated into the new site, but it won't be Scoop.
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If our gmail account suffered growing pains tonight from all the submissions, I cannot regret it in the slightest. Today's diary has been saved greatly enhanced by the many Kossacks who found worthy comments and sent their nominations to our gmail address before the 9:30pm Eastern Time deadline—especially that last step! The actual address of our mailbox for top comments submissions is:
TopComments AT gmail DOT com
(change " AT " to "@" and " DOT " to ".")
Anyone can send great comments to our address. Be sure to include the direct link to a comment—the URL—which is available from that comment's date/time; we need that to find your choice. Please always include your Daily Kos user name in the body of your message, so we can credit you properly. As I say every time, both link and username are important. If you also include a writeup, we are able to include that, too, though we reserve the right to edit if necessary; should you only provide the link, then you have to take whatever writeup we create...and we can be excessively creative. Today, I was forestalled. ;-)
From Cali Scribe:
In CityLightLover's Countdown diary, Diogenes2008 explains how the health care reform bill will move through Congress.
From Bronx59:
kbman offers an explanation for the "winner take all" economy.
From CityLightsLover:
Sure, this joke's a little silly, but it made me giggle, and that's hard to do these days.
From Land of Enchantment:
A bit self-indulgent, I suppose, but what a well-crafted compliment silver-tongued trashablanca sent my way!
From bubbanomics:
In the not-so-tragically funny GBCW diary by i broke up with you, a diarist claiming to be the reinkognation of [Editor's interjection: the deservedly banned] Jack Dublin, Adept2u asks "Who's Jack Dublin?" The response by BenderRodriguez made me laugh.
From carolita:
Responding to John Cole's derision of a post on RedState about Olympia Snowe's Finance Committee vote, which had elicited 19 comments in an hour, this comment from Calouste on Balloon Juice made me laugh. [Editor's note: this is comment 102, replying to comment 78, which refers back to Cole's original post at the top.]
From Dump Terry McAuliffe:
In Christian Dem in NC's diary NFL sources: Checketts drops Limbaugh from bid to buy Rams,
Bob Johnson describes the rival football league that Limbaugh will create.
From Elise:
slinkerwink has a top comment.
From sardonyx (your hysterical historical diarist):
Skipbidder writes on early scientific and medical research.
fat old man is not a betting man really.
SVDem has an idea.
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For our final feature in tonight's diary, we have today's top mojo using my revision of the cskendrick-devised mojo-to-Excel process.
First, Top Mojo excluding Cheers and Jeers, search-identifiable tip jars, and first diary comments:
1) Did You Buy the Companion Book Too? by JekyllnHyde — 194
2) Booman by Kitty — 193
3) I'm So Glad I Bet on George W. Bush by JekyllnHyde — 174
4) They didn't create it, they just encouraged it, by rontun — 164
5) It would force competition within by TomP — 156
6) They created a monster. by Nick Zouroudis — 149
7) Does she know you call her Mrs. Goat Boy? by Nick Zouroudis — 145
8) There appears to be a major outbreak by flitedocnm — 127
9) WOW! That IS HUGE! But where else would that by MinistryOfTruth — 124
10) I agree with you about the need by TomP — 119
11) Good question. by Giles Goat Boy — 117
12) Baucus wants union workers to foot the bill by Lefty Coaster — 115
13) My husband and I were just lamenting by Julie Gulden — 114
14) Exactly. by TomP — 111
15) This is good news for Barack Obama! eom by ulookarmless — 109
16) The fact that I read it by Giles Goat Boy — 105
17) Actually page 62 says by JimWilson — 105
18) The way antitrust works is by brooklynbadboy — 105
19) I wouldn't try it out by RudiB — 104
20) Only obvious outcome by RobertInWisconsin — 97
21) ...heh... by grannyhelen — 96
22) Everytime I think he's wrong, I'm wrong... by plumbobb — 94
23) The Ego Has LANDED!!!! by grannyhelen — 93
24) This is the Monster by JekyllnHyde — 87
25) I'd be prepared to duck by TheMomCat — 86
26) 'I'm sticking with the Union!' by deepsouthdoug — 86
27) Take it for what you will. by wmtriallawyer — 80
28) The market is a social construct by Pangloss — 79
29) I think it's a ploy. A good one. by SicPlurisPoenaPrestantia — 77
30) Even a failed amandment by TomP — 76
Top Mojo with No Exclusions:
1) Tip Jar by brooklynbadboy — 675
2) Tip Jar by Michael Moore — 618
3) Tip Jar by Giles Goat Boy — 588
4) Tip Jar by wmtriallawyer — 512
5) Tip Jar by Maimonides — 376
6) Tip Jar by Muzikal203 — 335
7) Tip Jar by TomP — 316
8) Tip Jar by rperks — 213
9) Tip Jar by Jim Ascot — 212
10) Tip Jar by Christian Dem in NC — 204
11) Did You Buy the Companion Book Too? by JekyllnHyde — 194
12) Booman by Kitty — 193
13) Tip Jar by slinkerwink — 187
14) I'm So Glad I Bet on George W. Bush by JekyllnHyde — 174
15) Tip Jar by dave1042 — 173
16) They didn't create it, they just encouraged it, by rontun — 164
17) Tip Jar by nyceve — 163
18) It would force competition within by TomP — 156
19) They created a monster. by Nick Zouroudis — 149
20) Does she know you call her Mrs. Goat Boy? by Nick Zouroudis — 145
21) Tip Jar by Meteor Blades — 131
22) There appears to be a major outbreak by flitedocnm — 127
23) WOW! That IS HUGE! But where else would that by MinistryOfTruth — 124
24) I agree with you about the need by TomP — 119
25) Good question. by Giles Goat Boy — 117
26) Baucus wants union workers to foot the bill by Lefty Coaster — 115
27) My husband and I were just lamenting by Julie Gulden — 114
28) Exactly. by TomP — 111
29) This is good news for Barack Obama! eom by ulookarmless — 109
30) Actually page 62 says by JimWilson — 105
31) The way antitrust works is by brooklynbadboy — 105
32) The fact that I read it by Giles Goat Boy — 105
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All quotes are the property of the original authors or the websites that held them