DkMich put up a
fun diary where she researches the origins of the great pie fight wars here on daily kos. That research (combined with the latest kerfluffle over ratings abuse) prompted me to go back and list all the great wars and "pie fights" we have had on daily kos since it began. So here's the list as best as I can remember it:
1. The Dean Clark wars during the Democratic primaries. For awhile, this site was dominated by Dean supporters during the Democratic primaries, and then a contingent of Clark supporters entered, with critical things to say about Dean, and then all hell broke loose, with some people saying some very nasty things, including accusations that people were on "Clark's payroll" etc. etc. In some ways, those wars were the nastiest of all.
2. Shut Your Fucking Pie Hole. As the 2004 Presidential election came barelling towards its depressing conclusion, a number of posters continued to rip John Kerry and explain everything he was doing wrong. Then someone wrote a diary called "Shut Your Fucking Pie Hole" where he told those posters to "shut up," because the most important thing then was beating Bush, not mau-mauing Kerry.
3. Ohio! Fraud!. Citing very unreliable websites and authors, a number of posters (a very large number), insisted that Ohio's voting machines were systematically corrupted to record Kerry votes as Bush votes. These diaries dominated the recommended list for awhile, much to the consternation of those of us who felt they were horrendously sourced and based on paranoid conspiracy theories.
4. Kid Oakland Leaves. Kid Oakland, one of this site's best writers ever, quits the front page over a front page post attacking Donna Brazile (although it was really the aftermath of the post where the matter wasn't addressed again by the front pagers)
5. Pie Fights. Described by Dkmich here.
6. The London Bombing Bannings. Several diaries speculated that Bush and Cheney were behind the the London Tube bombings, and Kos ended up personally banning every user who recommended those diaries (many of the banned users were reinstated).
7. Troll Abuse Hysteria. What's happening now -- where there are a handful of users abusing the troll ratings [Note: Armando, who has been following this a bit more closely than I have, adds this]. Hunter describes the phenomenon here.
Please feel free to add fights in comments which I may have missed. Also, let me know if I've gotten the order wrong.
One thing I am struck by is how long its been since there was a major conflict here on Daily Kos. This ratings-abuse fight is the first one since the new front pagers took over, and the first one in at least a year, I believe. So I can see how some of the new users think this is "the end of daily kos," since they weren't around for the earlier fights. But this site has survived much much worse in the past. With every fight, a handful of well-liked users leave, which is sad, but new people always seem to rise up and contribute to making this site valuable.
One thing I'm concerned about, as we head towards 2008, are wars over the coming Presidential primaries. In some ways, the original Dean-Clark wars were the most intense and nasty wars of all. I can imagine future Feingold-Gore wars being equally brutal, if not worse, and I hope we're prepared to survive them.