I've heard that dKos has more unique visitors per month than the Fox News site. I've seen a screen shot of a dKos diary on the Google News front page. We're a source of news and analysis, but we're also a community that talks to itself. This creates a conflict which may have a partial socio-technological fix.
A problem: In the standard, "nested" view, the recent diary on electronic voting fraud had 12 screens of reminiscence about antique text editors before any substantive discussion of current -- possibly urgent -- fraud scenarios. This illustrates a familiar problem, but trying to get people to rate enjoyable off-topic comments as "2: marginal" isn't a solution. Chat, jokes, even personal messages in diary threads, are all part of what makes dKos a community.
A suggestion: Because diary comments are not created equal, we might benefit from having a better way to say what we're creating. What if we had two buttons for posting comments: "post" and "post side remark"? These might work like this....
"Post" does what it does now in all respects. No changes.
"Post side remark" does what "post" does now as seen by anyone who has selected "Show side remarks" as a (default or current) display option. No changes, for those who choose to see everything.
The default setting for un-registered readers (e.g., Google News visitors) would be "Don't show side remarks". For readers using this view (by default or by choice), side remarks would be invisible except to the author of the item commented on (whether the author of another comment or a diary). Thus, for comment authors addressing a particular person, no changes -- except freedom from guilt about cluttering up a leading public information channel with a private remark.
The default setting for registered readers (e.g., dKos community-junkies) would be "show side remarks". For readers using this view (by default or by choice), everything would look as it does now (everything visible the same way) so off-topic threads would likely continue pretty much as they do now -- just not displayed by default to the whole world via Google News links, blog links, email links, and so on.
Yes, this would give a new choice to bitch about -- "That should have been a side remark!" -- but the bitching would itself be in side remarks. There are plenty of design options to fiddle with. Should comment authors be able to retroactively declare something a side remark? Could others rate a comment as a side remark (a different dimension of rating, with little stigma on either side)? Should the default for newly-registered Kossacks be "show" or "don't show"? (The default for everyone already registered should probably be "show", to minimize disturbance.)
I think that a side-remark mechanism (SRM) along these lines would help dKos serve its different functions better, with less conflict beween roles, but there may be a social or technical gotcha of some sort. What do you think?
UPDATE: Some points raised so far (paraphrased), and some responses:
"It might be better not to be in Google News"
Perhaps, but the real issue is whether we can present a better public face for dKos without damaging (maybe improving!) community dynamics. I may have emphasized Google News a bit to much, but it did prompt this idea.
"Hidden conversations are already confusing"
For the dKos public face, we'd be showing fewer personal conversations and more discussion focused on the diary contents. Even so, nothing would be hidden unless the commenter chose "post side remark" and the reader chose (or defaulted to) "don't show side comments". This is a very weak form of hiding.
"Comments on news articles are usually linked, hence semi-hidden"
Comments in dKos diaries are directly visible, on the same page, as seen via Google News links.
(Some edits for clarity Friday, 24 Sept 04.)