Happy Friday Wednesday Kibitzers. Please feel free to kibitz at will.
At Netroots Nation ’13 in the Orange Room, Daily Kos staff caucused with members to share some upcoming improvements and solicit ideas. Some of the improvements have already been implemented; the wait time for commenting and posting diaries has been lifted to mixed success. It was nice to see a 350 Santa Cruz member sign up and 15 minutes later post a video of the Richmond Refinery protest. Of course trolls and spammers have been drawn in like Wal-Mart shoppers to a blue-light special.
Sadly we have lost three front-pagers. Denise Ollver Velez and TornP have left because they were disappointed with the recent updates. We were sad to see Meteor Biades leave, but understood it was for a worthy cause. Who will be next?
If I had been at the caucus I planned on pitching my idea for a site feature. But since I missed it I thought I would pitch it to jotter over lunch. Well not really lunch, we were at the bar drinking, but there was a lime in my beer. jotter thought it was one of the best ideas he had ever heard. He suggested I put my idea on paper and send it by registered mail to Daily Kos Headquarters.
My idea was born from my frustration of feeling disconnected from local news as newspapers and talk radio move away from local reporters and hosts to syndication. On Daily Kos, most local news consists of “hot” topics, not the everyday topics of concern to those in the community in which they live. I have found a couple local blogs and news sites, but they are not well trafficked.
Now keep in mind, I’m a plumber and have no idea how this tech stuff works. To me it appears if by like magic on my screen, I haven’t even convinced myself any of this is real. You could all be part of a big Sims like video game.
My idea is to have a page where you can drill down to diaries on local issues. On the page would be a map of the US, clicking on a state takes you to a chronological list of diaries for the state. This page could have a subpage with diaries listed by congressional districts. To direct diaries to the correct categories, draft diaries could have two dropdown menus to check if appropriate.
Would this inspire some here to write more about local issues? I don’t know. If there were an easy to use web page showcasing local issues would it convince more local bloggers to add their writings to Daily Kos?
Let me know if you have any ideas, we could split the cost of the stamp…