...does the door hit you in the face before you realize it's time to adjust the spring hinges?
you can check my diaries for other warnings about what could, er, is likely happening to DKos.
there is no reasoned oversight.
there is no comprehension for the fact that what works in the beginning has to be tweaked once success has been achieved.
specifically, i'm talking about the concept of community self-policing, and in the larger sense this idea of "dkos is fine as it is, or else it wouldn't have gotten to where it is...".
both are fine approaches for a start-up, upstart entity.
but not for a serious player on the mainstream side of the fence in what should be a long hard slog of trying to change some things.
change that is already endangered, as the agent of that change, elected saying he would not be swayed, is being slowly assimilated by the washington politics he vowed to tear down and rebuild.
"getting good and better democrats elected" is going to be a lost cause if the power and good that DKos achieved is wasted by failing to get rid of - or at least greatly alter - its mob rules mentality that is the current system of hard rec's and the rec list in general.
and it doesn't help that it is a site far too susceptible to egos.
the very negative responses that will surely come to this diary will alone provide perfect corroboration of this fact.
not to mention Kos' banning of a successful diarist recently, based on what appears to be unreasonable over-reaction.
i'm not trying to say i have all the answers. i'm saying that we're not even asking the right meta questions yet. i'm saying there needs to be a serious discussion that hitherto has been dismissed out of hand - thus illustrating the fact that mob rule is the rule as opposed to the exception.
DKos is in more trouble than you think. than even Kos thinks.
it's riding high, before a fall.
a fall that is perfectly avoidable.
modify the rec system.
take the egos down a notch.
avoid pettiness, like overzealous grammar and spelling police.
upgrade the tolerance.
downgrade the flaming and the uncalled for superiority complexes.
stop the dismissiveness and nastiness that is automatically generated towards anything that challenges DKos.
in short, let's demonstrate the very same qualities we'd want in an elected official: openness, courtesy, humility, maturity.
or just proceed on the current path, and become irrelevant, or worse: just another part of the very problem DKos was created to change.