I have just done a quick check on my own diaries and, of the last dozen or so, something like seven have been recommended. It is time to stop.
Recommended diaries should be one of the great attributes of Daily Kos. On a forum that lets everyone freely and equally have their say, Recommended Diaries brings into clear focus those that the forum as a whole feel are of special merit. A nice bit of democratic peer group rating of what is deemed worthwhile.
Except it is not working like that, as anyone trying for the first few times to get a diary recommended will know.
Not only does the Recommended Diary List not provide an equal playing field but it is destroying much of what DKos can and should be if it is to grow in strength as a voice of the grassroots in American politics.
To write a well thought through diary takes a considerable amount of time. For those who take the trouble, they hope that as many people as possible will see it. Even more important, they hope as many as possible will comment on it. Which means, they hope it will get recommended. This is particularly so given the heavy usage of the site and the speed with which new diaries get scrolled off the Recent Diaries list and become lost even when these are set to fifty, rather than the default twenty-five.
The fact that many don't get recommended, that deserve to be, is not a failure of the topic chosen or how well they are written. It is a function of the mechanisms that determine which diaries are selected to be recommended.
First let me say that Markos has made some excellent attempts to overcome some of the problems that I will outline. The restriction to one diary per person per day was a very important one.
The new tagging system has enhanced the search and retrieval systems of the site, so that experienced hands can find the information and diarist that is important to them much more easily.
None of this truly replaces the desirability of getting your diary flagged up on the Recommended List, the first place to which many turn for a quick read snatched during the coffee break of the working day. The competition for the eight places is as intense and as competitive as ever. Except the competition is not equal.
THE UNEQUAL PLAYING FIELD
Let me outline what the relatively new person has to contend with if they have something that is important and valuable to say.
I need to say at the outset that a brilliant, well written diary will almost always get the recognition it deserves here. Yet this is despite some of the underlying mechanisms, not because of them:
1- The most benign mechanism for getting recommended is that you have persevered long enough and written well enough that you build up a recognition that your diaries are worth reading before they scroll out of sight. A growing number of people will start to recommend you. This only becomes a negative if the recommendation is done out of habit by those making recommendations rather than by taking a critical look at the writing and subject matter of each diary.
2- The next mechanism for getting recommended is to start recommending other people. Do this frequently enough and they will begin to feel they "owe" you recommendations in return. Not much harm in this, you might think. Sometimes, though, I feel that this is done consciously so that it becomes a complicit "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" mechanism. This is worse if the diarist rather than the subject becomes the prompt for such a recommendation.
3- The third way to get recommended is to come from a smaller blog and get recommended by your fellow bloggers from that site, either out of a spirit of camaraderie or, even less justifiably, just to promote the blog itself. Even worse is if members of that site are invited to support you over on DKos or, in the extremes that I have known, form a small group that are emailed prior to each posting. It is imaginable that the entire Recommended Diaries list here could even be taken over by bloggers from another site by this mechanism.
So, for a newcomer, or even an old hand who does not use these mechanisms, the playing field on which a recommended diary is created is far from level. I know they exist because in the beginning I have been involved, to my shame, in all three mechanisms. You can test this for yourself by checking the list of those recommending frequently recommended diarists and by noting cross recommendations to each other and the commonality of other blogs to which some of these people contribute.
Throw in a couple, or as yesterday, three diaries from elected representatives on to the recommended list and the obstacles become horrific. Now add in a couple of more factors that could disadvantage you:
4- You gain recommendations if you post diaries frequently and if you can read a number of the mainstream newspapers each day to research and pick out the stories that are most likely to find traction on Daily Kos. This takes time and it excludes those in jobs that do not allow them to spend their boss's day in this way.
So what, don't you get better diaries because people can afford this time? Well, yes. You get better written and more researched diaries. The question has to be asked if you get the most important diaries by this means? The vast majority of manual workers and those in pressurised jobs find this extremely difficult, particularly if they have families to attend to in the evenings.. Surely, as progressives, these are the people that we both want to reach out to and for whose problems and issues we want to provide a platform? Not just a platform, but at times the sort of spotlight that Recommended Diaries will bring.
5- You get recommended if you write well, if you can entertain and if you can excite. Fair enough you might think. Again, this takes time. Yet, no matter how important your subject may be, look at the competition derived from the first four factors and then add to it inexperience in writing. The danger is that we could create our own form of elitism and deny a voice to many that we should hear.
It is not just that important but not very well written diaries fail to get into the Recommended List, but they drop out of being submitted at all because the writers feel defeated by the lack of any recognition. This is particularly sad because some of the most valuable diaries that have appeared on DKos have arisen not because of the diary per se but because of the comments attached to it.
Let me give an example. There was a diary on here today about New Orleans. It could be criticised because it did not contain much material and, if I recall correctly, did not cross-reference to the sort of newspaper article that can lift anyone's diary to the level of the quoted journalist's own excellence. It was, however, important. Maybe I'm making a mistake because perhaps yesterday there was a recommended diary on the subject, but I did not see one there today. If you want to know how much the people of New Orleans are hurting right at this moment read the comments on this diary from someone who lives in the area and works in that once glorious city. Then tell me the subject does not deserve the Recommended List spotlight. Yes, I will even have the temerity to say compared with those excellent diaries that were on the list today.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
In terms of mechanisms, I think Markos has done a lot already. Sure, I could suggest that recommended diaries would benefit by being extended to a dozen rather than just eight. Maybe having recent diaries scroll off the top rather than the bottom would help. Maybe some of you would scrap recommended diaries completely. I think, however, much of the solution is down to us, both as people who recommend and those of us who get frequently recommended diaries.
1- Those making recommendations
Please don't recommend purely on the basis that the diarist recommended your last diary or because you exchange views on another blog or because that person is one of your favourites. Don't even necessarily recommend it on the basis that it is beautifully written.
Your first loyalty is to the liberal cause and for every excellent diarist to whom you give the spotlight there will be at least thirty that will have only a brief visibility in the shadows. In those shadows may be some key issues or alternative experience that we should have more clearly highlighted to us.
Consider if the subject matter is important or if it has been adequately covered recently Ask yourself if it introduces a major new angle or if the diary makes an important personal contribution to the subject. Most of us are probably limited to one or two subjects on which we can make a major contribution. If the diarist is frequent, ask if that is not an indicator that his or her subjects have had sufficient discussion for the time being. For every topic spotlighted, a hundred may pass largely unnoticed because of the over-exposure of a limited number of others.
2- Those writing recommended diaries
Once you have been in the Recommended Diary list two or three times, you know you have the ability to write well and interestingly enough to get there. Ask yourself if you really have the range of subjects and the enormous amount of unsaid information that makes you want to write so frequently as to deny a place on the list to others. They may not have the time available to say it as well as you, their topic may be less important, but consider giving them a place in which they can share some of the spotlight.
Check to see how many of your diaries get more than a hundred responses. If they don't, question why not. Question even more if you get a lot more recommendations than you do replies to what you write.
If you are that good, try an even bigger pond than DKos; turn professional or, more humbly, write for one of the smaller liberal blogs to help them develop. Anything, rather than presume from vanity or excessive enthusiasm that your word is so important that it should be heard with a frequency that blocks the prime real estate of the Recommended Diary List from giving others an equal opportunity of a voice.
MY OWN MEDICINE
I have been writing a couple of diaries a week. Not excessive but now I have over half of them recommended. I guess there might be a higher percentage if I wrote more frequently, became more widely known and chose my subjects more carefully - in other words wrote more for the market than myself.
So, that is at about one and a half slots a week that I have been taking up. Believe me, I've earned it. I put a lot into those diaries. I am fortunate, I have the time, you see.
I must admit that only one or two got more than seventy replies, but, hey, they did get a lot of recommends.
Now consider. I am a Welshman in a nation of barely three million people. I am a very long way from Cincinnati or Houston. This is election year. Sure, I can share with you thoughts on the Iraq war or on Condi's visit to Europe. I can tell you if anything happens that may effect you that happens to Blair or the Common Market. My professional expertise? I was at the top of multinational corporations for many years. The truth is, though, that the best lessons I ever learnt about how to do the job was from Americans.
You are about to enter an election year. How many of these topics warrant taking up one and a half recommended slots per week? Compare what I have to say on what subjects with the list of the polled key issues for voters. If there is any commonality at all? Very little. Should I not respect the fact that it can be discussed equally as well, and more relevantly to your own electorate, by an American?
So, out of respect for your need for Daily Kos to use every available space to further the Democratic agenda, and out of gratitude for the remarkable and open hearted kindness you have shown in giving me the opportunity to write at all, I shall now restrict myself to one diary a month. These may or may not get recommended. It doesn't matter. I want you to win in 2006 that much!
Oh, and one more thing. Give some of my space to New Orleans. I love that city. I love its music. With Caldonia from Daily Kos, I got us Brits to get together a few health kits for the people there at the time that they were needed. It deserves better than it is now receiving.