It
seems to be a
week of
Navel gazing. Well, I've been toying with an idea for an improvement to the DailyKos format, and now seems the moment to spring it.
How should we be like congress? By mimicking the committee structure to facilitate community leadership and the organization so many are calling for.
What I'm proposing is an additional function to the site, that would allow
subgroups of users to band together as committees focused on particular subjects. We all cheered
Armando on in his battle to bring down Alito, and I'm certainly loving
georgia10's focus on the Intelligence leaks. Why not allow groups of users to also bring such focus, and not just to the rec list my friends, nay, I speak of the promised land: Front page.
Here's the basic idea I have in mind:
- 5-20 users on a committee. Some minimum number of TU's would be required for a "viable" committee (to prevent trolls somehow taking over a committee).
- Each committee elects a chair and vice-chair. Chairs could have renewable terms (say 1 month) and the chairs have the administrative powers of the committee (with vices able to act in their stead should the chair be absent for extended periods)
- Committees would be able to post 1 diary/day to the usual place users can post diaries. Members of the committee could also post as usual. Each committee diary would automatically have the recommendation of each member who voted to post it
- Here's the real juice: Each committee could post 1 diary a week to the front page. Naturally there would be penalties for unworthy front page entries, and it would be understood that if a committee had nothing relevant to their mandate worth front paging, they should not post.
- Committees would each have their own page, with a public space visible to all registered Kos users, and a private area just for the committee. This would allow them to interact, and trade info, edit the collective diary, squabble and go off topic, all away from the public eye, before going public. The semi-public area would allow interested non-committee members to make suggestions, or post tips, links to relevant or breaking news.
- Once critical mass of a committee was reached, new members could be admitted (or others removed) by majority vote
So what the hell does this accomplish?
Well for example, let's see what Jerome was talking about:
When you bitch about 15 diaries on the same topic, remember that: in one of the 15, there may be a jewel, and if it is the case, it is likely that it will be found and widely distributed thanks to the Kosloudspeaker. The fact that there are 15 diaries on one topic means that the community thinks it's a significant item to be discussed, and that it is worth talking about.
So for starters, you might not see 15 diaries analyzing Cheney's bogus story about capping his buddy. The diarists most interested in all things Cheney, could check out the committee on the Vice President and either join it, or at least post suggestions to their public forum. The committee would then post a comprehensive round up and analysis on Cheney's story. One that would be more widely read than those of Joe UnknownDiarist, by virtue of coming from a mini-community of Cheney experts.
Rather than having to sift 15 for that gem, you could be reasonably sure that 1 post would have the gems.
What else does Jerome love about Kos?
The other role of DailyKos, which is also made possible by its sheer size, is that of an information collector. The people who post here (rarely or often) has very different interests, competences and information sources, and they bring them all to the site.
Well, here again committees would be to the benefit. There are some here who are just out-and-out talented writers. Others are insightful researchers, and others are dogged-go-getters who will make calls and track down 1st person leads (quasi-journalism). Imagine we can combine all these strengths into single posts. If your strongest skills are the mechanics of writing (grammar, prose, pacing, sentence structure) but you don't have the time or inclination to sift through pages of government statistics to find out how the republicans are skimming off the top, you don't have to anymore. Another poster, with stronger analytical interest will do that grunt work, while you polish off the writing to make it appealing and digestable.
I see other benefits too. Networking - by forcing together posters who care about similar issues, and giving them private fora to interact and possibly take their activism beyond the blogosphere. Real friendships would form. Authority - No longer would an opinion just be that of a diary, it would have the added aura of being a group's shared opinion. Organization: Instead of just Armando beating the drums on the next Alito, a Kos committee on the Judiciary could have 20 posters coordinating activities, posting summaries and whip counts, and provide (in the form of the committee's publicly visible page, a forum to centralize efforts. For the casual reader who might want to jump into an issue, no longer do they have to scroll down the front page and find the latest post on it, they can go right to the committee page and see where the fight stands (and what they can do to help).
Finally, committees would neatly solve a long standing complaint: Less famous posters being unable to reach the rec list. Sure, the famous diarists, who get to the rec list 80% of the time or better will console us in the anonymous masses that our time will come, that they just got lucky, but we know this isn't the case. Sure, great diaries by lesser known posters make the rec list, but even average diaries by famous posters usually do. Committees would level the playing field. Not famous but having something important to say? Join a committee, and say it there. The smaller, much more forgiving filter of your fellow committee members will tweak (or reject) your thoughts and give it a better test audience before hitting the big time. It would give the less famous posters (like me, for example) a chance to feel like they were contributing which is really the goal of getting on the rec list. You want to know your writing was read, and your ideas had influence.
So, in short, here's the run down of what a committee function would add to Kos:
- Concentrated, focused, fact checked diaries which boil down complex issues
- Combine the strengths of many to produce much higher quality writing
- Allow the unfamous to still feel like their contribution matters
- Provide a mechanism for individuals to focus their efforts on the issues they care most about (and thus make contact with others in the blogosphere who also care about that issue)
- Add to the sense of community by forging closer bonds between the registered users.
All that boils down to
leadership. Here we come back to my title, in reference to congress. If 100 senators are too unwieldy a bunch to focus a debate in vetting a judicial candidate or considering a bill's impact, how could 5000 Kos regulars possibly coordinate? Congress picks smaller bunches to focus on different issues, and though the system is only as strong as its membership, the principle is solid. True, Republican hacks are subverting the process, but since I don't see a hell of a lot of them around here, I won't worry so much about that happening here.
So there it is. There'd need to be more done to flesh it all out. If you read all that, thanks.