Goldberry and
Bob Johnson have written two great diaries on how DailyKos operates and how it is viewed by the traditional media. I have posted similar thoughts(although not as well-expressed) on other sites in response to posts/comments about the "dictatorial" nature of DailyKos. However, I think that many of the comments and responses are going a bit too far in advocating the theory that DailyKos is created and managed organically. In fact, there is organization and at a certain level control. And that organization is provided by Markos.
Clearly the site is set up to be a community gathering place and effort. Much content and some organizational/management services are provided by the primary contributors and general members. But there are some limits to that: Markos holds the keys to the kingdom.
* Markos can of course post to the front page whenever he wants
* Markos can promote, demote, and reorder front-page articles as he desires
* Markos can delete comments and ban (within the limits of Internet technology) users as he sees fit
* Markos can (and does) change the site management code to suit his vision. Mojo, recommendation systems, etc are all based on his ideas and vision and the ability of his programmers to translate them into actual code (hint: well past time to start looking at Oracle or even PostgreSQL)
* And of course, Markos owns the domain name and the published form of the site content (not necessarily the content itself, depending on what notices were appended to it and the site T&C, but the formatting and arrangement of the content {I believe that "compilation" is the formal legal term}). He make the site disappear any time he wants.
Now, I am not opposed to this. Any good organization has one or a few Wizards of Oz behind the scenes keeping things running; that seems to me to be an unalterable feature of human organization. But let's not go so far as to say that this site sprang into being organically like sourdough starter and can maintain itself without Markos' support.
sPh