The Cave of the Moonbat lies near the intersection of the Southbound Diary Turnpike and Metajesus Lane, about equidistant between Rec List Plaza and the GBCW Memorial Bridge. I mention this because the neighborhood only became fashionable about a year ago, when one of the DKos Front Pagers created a means of bringing attention to what was going on in Orangeland's lesser-known precincts – and just a short time later, the institution known as SusanG's Rescue Rangers was born. Six nights a week, these volunteers marshal their resources and read lots of diaries, seeking those well-written few that, in their estimation, ought to be seen by as wide an audience as having a link posted on the Daily Kos front page will permit.
So join me, if you will, for a special meta-crossover edition of History for Kossacks - one in which your resident historiorantologist will be taking a jaunt through some previously-unrecorded aspects of the saga of the Rescue Rangers, attempting to gather a rather halcyon history together in one place, and asking the opinion of the Kossian public we serve what we Rangers ought to be doing next. And since this is like our one-year anniversary (a couple of weeks late) the beer's on me...
This special-edition metahistoriorant is dedicated to SusanG the Awesome, and to the community of rescuers, rescuees, and readers that have gathered around her vision and have found themselves and the website we share the better for it.
The purpose of this (admittedly kinda navel-gazing) piece is fourfold – in it, your resident historiorantologist and Rescue Ranger will try to don both hats (hopefully not making himself out to look too ridiculous in the process...) and attempt to: 1) collect up some of the scattered bits of Diary Rescue and Rescue Ranger lore into a single place, for the sake of DKos archival posterity; 2) honor the Founder of our little blogological zeitgeist, while celebrating a few days late the one-year anniversary of the first Ranger-written Rescue postings; 3) answer some commonly-asked questions about what, how, and why we do what we do – in other words, your E! Exclusive look at The Rescue Rangers: Behind the Mask; and 4) ask the community to reflect on a year of Rangering – what, iyho, have we been doing right and wrong, and what could we be doing better, as we head into our second orbit around the Sun as a big, happy, diary-reading family?
In Days of Yore
Though I am an Original Ranger, your resident historiorantologist is a relative latecomer to the Big Orange Forest, so I can't speak directly to SusanG's career as a diarist; what I know I've pieced together through comments and a few communiqués to the Rangers. In a recent example, she describes her early obscurity and the amazing story of ePluribus Media's takedown of GannonGuckert and Talon "News," and one can fairly surmise that the experience led to a conviction that there was a great deal of brilliant-but-overlooked work going on in the lands South of the Rec List. After she was created a Front Pager as part of the Class of 2006, SusanG acted on that belief – in an effort to call attention to well-written, thoughtful diaries that had scrolled off to the Memory Hole, she posted the first Open Thread and Diary Rescue on April 6, 2006.
The very first commenter in the very first Diary Rescue was none other than the exuberantly community-minded Buhdydharma of the Booming Voice, who would himself later serve a stint on the Rescue Trail. The exact quote was luv the diary rescue!, and it reflected a consensus (in almost a V-8 moment kind of way) that the idea was a great one. It might be telling that at least 3 of the 19 Kossacks who rec'd that comment went on to Rangerhood, and virtually all the responses to it, as well as later ones in the thread, were overwhelmingly positive. Clearly SusanG was on to something, something the community wanted, and so she posted another the next night, and the night after that.
Open Thread and Diary Rescue (FAQ entry) soon became an established feature on the left side of the Home Page, appearing nightly at around 9-9:30 PM Pacific Time. It still does, though we have heard – and are sympathetic to – those arguments of East Coasters who are either getting ready for bed or already fast asleep by 11:30. Regrettably, it would be very difficult to move the posting time earlier for a variety of reasons, not the least of which include the fact that we're spread over time zones literally across the planet, that many of us have day jobs (which already makes the last shift a tough one to complete in a timely manner), and that the time seems to work best for SusanG.
Diary Rescue went through several experiments in format and blurb-styling in those early days, but one thing that remained constant was that every rescue was a solo effort by SusanG. Aware that no one – not even her – could continue to perform this Herculean task while concurrently attending Yearly Kos in Las Vegas, she put out a Call for Volunteers on May 25, 2006. In a way, this might be considered (together with her First E-mail to the Volunteers) the Founding Document of the Rescue Rangers:
I'm going to be looking for volunteers to do the diary rescue from Tuesday, June 6, through Tuesday, June 13, while I'm at Yearly Kos. I'm thinking if we get enough volunteers, they can break the 24-hour cycle down and just be responsible for tracking diaries during a specified time portion so the burden doesn't fall all on one person, even for a day. But I'm open to other suggestions. Let me know what you think. I'll make arrangements to have one of the admins who is NOT going to Yearly Kos front page it each night at around 9 PM PDT so that it doesn't hog a Recommended Diary slot.
Different things motivated those of us who responded, I'm sure; in this regard, I can only speak for this moonbat. I had been an early beneficiary of the largess of recognition afforded by being rescued – in a Rescue thread on April 10, 2006, SusanG said some really nice things about the Crusades series I'd been posting, and this in turn led to a noticeable increase in the number of visitors to the Cave of the Moonbat. Among these gratefully welcomed historiokossians was Swordsmith of Publishing for Kossacks fame, who (in the interest of both full disclosure and shameless self-promotion) took me under his wing and guided me through the process of revising and expanding the first three of those Crusades diaries into Crusade of Kings, an adventure supplement for the Wildside Gaming System. It's due out this fall – so I guess you might say my volunteering was of an indebtedness born of gratitude, a means of paying things forward.
My motivations were not at all unique, it turns out: virtually every Ranger joined up in a similar spirit of community-mindedness; many define it is the reason they enjoy so much what they do. Here's Dump Terry McAuliffe:
It sounds corny, but I saw it as a form of community service, a way of making dKos better. Even before the Rangers rode into town, I wondered if there was a way to promote worthy writers and diaries not recognized by the usual recommendation process.
and jennyjem:
I joined because I really believed in Diary Rescue. I'm such a fan of good writing, and was sad to see so much go unappreciated. I found some truly excellent reading and some of my favorite diarists on the Rescue list as opposed to the Recommended list. I was only too excited when I was allowed to join, and too happy to volunteer for such a worthy effort.
The Founding and the Age of E-Mail
SusanG later indicated there had been about ten people who had e-mailed her, and she assembled a list to put us in contact with one another. Many, many "Reply to Alls" later, we had worked out a schedule that divided the reading load into several shifts, a format which we still use (each 24-hour period is divided into 6 shifts, of lengths which differ with the site's traditional traffic patterns). SusanG left things in our hands during Yearly Kos – well, actually, the editors e-mailed the Rescue to georgia10 for posting to the Front Page – beginning on June 7, 2006. The Original Rangers are listed on that diary's Inaugural Plaque:
It takes a village to substitute for SusanG while she attends YearlyKos. We are: Avila, bebacker, cmkay, dannyinla, jlynne, ksh01, melvin, odum, Patriot Daily, and Unitary Moonbat. Today's overall editor is cmkay.
Over time, of course, the composition of the Ranger ranks has changed and fluctuated. Some have left due to real-world (sorry, hipsters, but the term "m***space" makes my skin crawl) obligations, concerns, and unavoidabilities, while others have taken extended leaves of absence or semi-retired to a kind of Emeritus status – and yes, some have left due to disagreement with the arrangement that has evolved and/or the decisions that brought that arrangement about. Imho, this is always going to be the case when a group of people who've never met and who communicate pseudanonymously come together to try to coordinate anything more open to interpretation than "Call your Senator and tell him to vote 'nay'." Some will adjust to conditions like the weird, kind-of-organic decision-making process that evolved among the Rangers who stuck around, and some will find it (or maybe even some of their fellows) intolerable, and will leave. Regardless of the conditions of departure, however, in no case that I know of has any sort of malice ever been directed from or towards a person who has left the Rangers by the Rescue Ranger institution (such as it is), or vice versa. If interpersonal malice ever has made for a different story...well, that's not the kind of history into which I care to delve.
Here, then, is a perhaps-incomplete Roll of Ranger of Ranger Honor (derived from a couple of readily-accessible rosters – if your name belongs upon it, please drop a reminder in the comments and I'll update), listing all the Present and Emeritus Rangers I can dig up as of Sunday, June 17, 2007:
Avila, bebacker, cmkay, dannyinla, jlynne, ksh01, melvin, odum, Patriot Daily, Unitary Moonbat, claude, Dump Terry McAuliffe, Elise, Got a Grip, hhex65, joyful, Kronos Blue, kraant, jennyjem, msobel, pico, Rippen Kitten, smokeymonkey, srkp23, vcmvo2, nyc in exile, fatbyjhnsn, LiberalLucy, OCD, Painty Kat, shayera, ybruti, BentLiberal, B12love, Truth of Angels, The Blaz, Budhydharma, Land of Enchantment, tlh lib, and All Those whom I have Regrettably and Unintentionally Spaced, but who have Sacrificed of their Free Time to Bring Great Diaries to the Masses.
The Age of E-Mail extended into the summer, as the Rangers went from assembling on an ad-hoc basis whenever SusanG needed coverage to responsibility for an increasing number of Diary Rescues per week. It just made sense: she'd assembled a staff of around twenty volunteers who shared her vision and commitment, and who had always managed to adequately pull off coverage of a days' worth of diary-reading, even on short notice. This was also the period during which the term "Rescue Rangers" came to describe the group. In a thread on the forum, I noted this about our moniker:
Fwiw, I think the term may have been first used by me (and yeah, 'suppose it's Chip-n'-Dale derivative, but only because they got to that particular alliteration first), but at that point in the Founding, we had gotten to where we needed something other than "Dear Group" or "Hello, Everyone" to start our e-mails with, and "Rescue Rangers" just kinda stuck. It should be noted that even among Original Rangers, the adoption of the name was not universally acclaimed.
Neither was the move to the forum, but I'll get to that in a second. The Rescue Ranger logo used above and elsewhere in this diary is a newer creation, courtesy of OCD and losthorizon.
Two days before she first turned the reins of rescue over to the Rangers, SusanG posted a Credo on what Diary Rescue was intended to be, and what it was not. The context, especially considering that DR was a new feature whose purpose was not yet being fully appreciated, is pretty easy to discern:
People, I'm getting a lot of emails asking for diary rescue on behalf of self or others. While I don't really mind this (it actually doesn't help your cause much though since I take a look at all diaries regardless), I'm finding I need to make something clear. The purpose of diary rescue is to help overlooked diaries authored by active Kossacks gain readership and comments. The criteria for selection is that the pieces show originality, critical thinking skills, research and are well-written. Obviously, this is subjective and not all will agree with my choices. But hey, I'm trying.
I want to help the writers gain a larger audience and, in turn, to continue to provide the community with original writing. The more people we have coming to the attention of readers here, the more variety of recommended diaries we are going to have. We'll also be nurturing the next generation of political writing talent, whether it's in short humor, research, historical pieces or analysis.
This is not to say if your diary doesn't make it, it was necessarily poorly written, or that the information provided in it was not important. It means, for that given day, there was a whole lot of stuff that piqued my subjective interest and that I wanted to share with the readership.
...
How the Rangers – a group of notably diverse and subjective tastes – were to go about trying to realize that vision necessitated a form of communication a little less in-box clogging than holding debates through flurries of e-mails. In August, our own La Passionara, Avila the NION-Founder, offered a solution.
The Stables
Avila set up a forum-style space on a message board specifically for the Rescue Rangers, and it has since become our virtual headquarters, Rescue-related debate hall, and workspace. The forum has all the features that chat roomers know and love: emoticons, discussion threads, even avatars (mine's an Ewok). It also has the ability to host polls, create various forums and threads, and, most importantly, spread out our work in a format that allows for editing of (and communication about) rescues-in-progress. Without a whole lot of modification, the forum-based rescue process we developed late last summer is the one still in use today:
- The next day's editor creates a new thread in the workspace, listing the staffing and shifts for the upcoming rescue. Concurrently, an e-mail reminder is sent out to all assigned Rangers.
- Rangers "check in" (optional) by dropping a note in the forum that they're on the case, then post their rescues as they complete their shifts (not optional).
- Some editors (me included) like to wait until all the shifts are in, then whisk the submissions off to Word or Notepad for pruning and editing. When completed, a draft is then posted on the workspace inviting comment and suggestion prior to submission to SusanG.
- Other editors prefer more of a "working copy" model, in which they'll use the forum's "edit" feature to copy and paste newly-posted rescues straight into an updated comment. These diaries have the advantage of being a true team effort, as well as a great way to train n00bs.
- Once assembled and posted for proofing, the diary is then sent to SusanG (or another front pager with whom she's made arrangements) for posting at DKos.
That's it in a nutshell, but like many shells, this one turns out to have a lot of nuts. I'll try'n address some of the mechanics (like deadlines and stuff) in an FAQ below.
The fact that we have a private forum has led to a charge of elitism from some quarters of the DKos community; I dispute that. As I mentioned above, even strife between individual Rangers has never bled over into what we do as recuers, and we certainly are not some kind of club of king-makers. I can offer little more than my word (which I hope, at this point, is worth something) as proof that no one sits around in some forum boardroom discussing who is to be the next lord or lady of the Rec List, but trust me: we don't. Susan herself said it best in a comment attached to rhfactor's RescueRangers. Their recs should be made part of Menu, like "Rec'd List" diary from May 21, 2007:
How can they be an elite?
Anyone on the site is invited to join in the effort. In fact, they periodically put out a call for additional new volunteers.
The idea that people spend hours each week reading other people's overlooked diaries for no pay and virtually no recognition -- and that this is defined as elitism -- strikes me as absurd.
To me, it's the old-fashioned, positive meaning of true "servanthood" -- serving your community and fellow community members, not ruling over them.
SusanG herself is not an active member of the forum, though she does, of course, enjoy a standing invitation. She describes her relationship to the forum in this comment, from the same diary:
But first you have to understand something ... I don't "direct" the Rescue Rangers in any way on their days. I serve as a consultant/advisor. If they need input, one of them contacts me if they have a problem.
The forum they created -- that was totally them. I didn't even know how they were organizing themselves. They figured it out and did it. It was like magic: Each evening, a text file appears in my inbox.
...
Rescue Rangers do not enjoy any special privileges, with SusanG or with any other aspect of the Front Page. We do not get extra ammo for our five-shootin' six-shooters, nor special posting abilities, nor a direct link to the Ear of TPTB. She does her thing, we do ours, and once a day, they come together to fulfill a mission that she established and we buy into.
She has, of course, provided us with advice and guidance at frequent intervals along the way – her e-mails and relayed instructions have formed a sort of Code that gives broad parameters for everything from the maximum number of comments allowed (a rather loosely-guarded secret, but you'll not find me letting any cats out of any bags in my own Cave) to, most recently, how to set up the HTML in such a way that it'll make it through the DKos New Diary Shredder. The Code is more like the Koran (in that it consists of gathered scraps of wisdom) than it is like the Code of Hammurabi; through it, SusanG has let us know what sorts of diaries should be considered rescuable, and which sorts of authors Diary Rescue should be promoting, but has never sought to establish a rigid set of micromanaging regulations.
So I Was Wondering...
I wrote the most incisive, brilliantly-composed diary in the history of the left wing blogosphere – why didn't you no-talent hacks rescue it?
To be eligible for Rescue, a diary can't have made the Rec List, and cannot have generated more than a certain number of counts (specifics evaded above). There are several additional restrictions – if too much of a diary consists of blockquotes from some other article, it doesn't leave much space for brilliant analysis of a Kossack's own, for example; same thing with BREAKING!!! or "Freep This!"-type pieces. While they may talk about important things that need to be brought to folks' attention, they don't generally display the depth of thought, research, and effort that DR was founded to showcase. SusanG addressed this concern early on:
A lot of the emails I'm getting are about how important a certain issue/campaign/candidate is and that it must be brought to the attention of the community. Fine. I agree. Bring it to the attention of the community in comments on diary rescue, or in any or all of the (at least) three open threads that are posted throughout the day.
Making editorial decisions along these lines can be among the most difficult parts of being a Rescue Ranger. I think all of us have encountered times when we wanted to rescue an otherwise-unqualified diary because it happened to be about an issue about which we personally felt needed to be highlighted, or others where we disagreed vehemently with an author's premise or argument but had to admit that the writing was good enough for rescuing. In any event, that's part of why we have editors.
Where do the tags come from?
Various community members, especially PatsBard the Wise, have taken it upon themselves to add the coveted "Rescue" tag once the diary is posted. Rangers don't generally add the tags, but most of us Recommend the diaries we're rescuing as a matter of course.
If I was gonna be a Ranger, how many hours would I have to set aside per week?
Depends on how much you want to do. We're up to almost 30 people now; so the Scheduling & Mentoring Department can always use a hand, but at a minimum, you'd be reading at least a shift a week, and after you've been around a while, editing every couple of weeks or so. It should be noted that "reading a shift" doesn't mean doing so in real time – in fact, most Rangers wait until an hour or two after their shift has ended to begin reading (about the amount of time to see if a given diary is going to be disqualified due to rec listing or comment volume). Reading a shift can take as little as 15 minutes – I've seen graveyards where 20 diaries got posted, with half of them garnering enough comments and recs to be out of rescue reach – to way more than an hour or two, for those days when the stars seem to have aligned with the muses and everybody on the site is posting their best stuff ever. Editing can take as much as 2-3 hours total, and many editors and Rangers like to stick around and spend some time in the comment thread when the diary gets posted, as well.
Where and how do I sign up?
So you think you've got what it takes to sit on your ass, clicking, reading, and typing for a couple of hours per week, hunh? Keep an eye on the nightly Open Thread and Diary Rescue; through SusanG, the Rangers put out a call for volunteers every two or three months.
My diary is on the Rescue list – who should I thank?
For the general concept of Diary Rescue, and for the fact that a front-page link to your diary is now getting picked up by every news aggregator in the Left Blogosphere, SusanG. For your particular diary, thank the Ranger whose name appears in parentheses at the end of the blurb advertising your work. That Ranger is the one who read your shift, identified yours as a worthy candidate for rescue, wrote up a blurb, and clicked around the site to gather URLs for your username and the story's permalink. The Ranger then posted these in the forum, and perhaps advocated for your story as a "first choice" or something like that to the editor (you can find his/her name in the italicized print at the top, in the section identifying "tonight's Resuce Rangers"), who made the final decisions regarding its inclusion and placement within the rescue list.
What's the biggest drag about Rangering?
Opinions vary. It takes up a lot of time for some, for others, unfounded charges like nepotism in diary-promotion (generally leveled by people who have little or no working knowledge of the Rescue Rangers) can rob the task of a little of its joy. Got a Grip has a response for those who level such accusations:
I've heard the occasional complaint about DR, always from those who have no idea what goes into it or how difficult it is to save one diary and discard another. They'll say that DR is some sort of cult of personality, or that Rangers conspire to get their friends heard over others more deserving. Those who say such things are idiots, truly, and it makes me as angry as I can possibly be. I have never known any of the diarists I've rescued personally, and I don't seek them out. This is a job that takes dedication, a sense of fair play, and the ability to follow the rules. We rangers are good people doing good work for a good cause. We are doing something really important here, and that makes any difficulties and insults we might endure worth it.
Various embarrassments can occur while Rangering, as well. Editing mistakes have involved humiliating public fixes by SusanG (I've had a couple of those), or having it called to your attention that buried deep in an otherwise rescuable diary is a statement or link to a site that really ought not be highlighted on DKos' front page.
What makes it all worthwhile, then?
Ah, the "Why We Ranger" stuff! Got a Grip speaks wisely here, too:
I did have a diary go from rescue to rec, but for me personally, the coolest thing was getting a lovely thank you from someone whose diary I'd rescued. Because of the rescue, he was going to continue to write. That was by far the most gratifying, personally.
as does Rippen Kitten:
The Rangers keep DR true to SusanG's original vision of community service and encouraging good writers to keep writing...This is the most rewarding online project I've ever worked on.
and joyful:
"I wanted to give back to the community that has sustained me with their incredible determination, fine intellect, and wicked sense of humor. My fellow Kossacks continue to give me great hope that real change is truly possible."
and vcmvo2:
I think the popularity of the feature is a great accomplishment. Second to that is the community that comes together and works very hard for little recognition and puts out wonderful rescues day in and day out. Also mentoring new rangers and blending them right in to the community is a very difficult thing to do and yet on DR it's done seamlessly.
DIDS
The past year has indeed seen Diary Rescue become a popular feature on Daily Kos, and I think I speak for all the Rangers when I say that we're looking forward to continuing our little exercise in community enhancement into the foreseeable future. We have had our detractors – one notable poster refer to Diary Rescue as a "visual blight" on the Front Page – but we also look back with pride at a few of our more measurable accomplishments over the past year, listed here in a (hopefully) rare burst of Moonbat immodesty:
- Rescue-to-Rec List - There have been several instances (probably somewhere between one and two dozen) where attention directed to a diary through the Rescue list resulted in the diary being promoted to the Recommended Diaries one. This entitles the diary to a rare duo of tags, and the Rangers who spotted it heading southward a pat on the back.
- Over 4000 Diaries Rescued - The number speaks for itself: there's a lot of damn good writing going on out there, and it's a point of pride among the Ranger to bring it to folks. LiberalLucy speaks to that:
For me, rescuing is about passing it on. There are so many talented writers, so many diamonds in the rough, that being rescued is something each and every writer who's serious about their craft should aim for.
Rescuing is recognizing the desire in a diarist/diary to move and motivate others, and encouraging and inspiring them to continue on.
My only advice to diarists to continue to write with your heart, be true to your emotions, and always keep your mind open. It's easy to see through a diary that is written simply to impress or appease. The real gems are the ones in which the writer's heart shines through.
- Election Roundup - A couple of months before the election last year, I chanced upon a posting by Sidinny the Diary-Miner that included a ton of links categorizing election diaries. Since we all like the idea of Rescues begetting rescues, I did what any Ranger with that shift would have done and blurbed it up. That night, enough people – including Lord Markos I himself – so dug what Sid was doing that he and what eventually became a crack team of Diary Miners saw their community-enriching Election Roundup daily promoted to the Front Page until November, when they disbanded, their mission well and truly accomplished.
- Other Community-Oriented Rescues and Roundups - some Rangers (this one included) have a soft spot diaries that round up writings on a particular topic, mostly because we know how much work it is to sift through so much Kosssery. Meteor Blades needs little introduction for the fantastic Eco-Diary Rescue, but the Rangers have proudly gotten behind efforts like TerranceDC's GLBT roundup – SusanG herself even rescued one of Elise's Action diaries back in the early days. Of course, no history of rescuing would be complete without mention of the Teacher's Lounge, in which rserven has been rounding up education-related diaries for longer than I've been a Kossack.
- Giving Great, Unsung Diarists More Exposure - from OCD, Dump Terry, and Rippen Kitten, respectively:
Rescued markthshark 2 out of 3 days before he made the rec list for the first time.
I'm not naming names, but a couple of people whose diaries I've rescued have become Rangers themselves.
I rescued Magnifico's first Overnight News Digest. This has since become a collaborative effort and regular feature of Daily Kos that judging from Recommended Diaries list, is very well-liked.
Auld Lang Syne
Of all the Rangers who responded to my request for written interview responses, however, maybe jennyjem encapsulated the whole thing best when she said,
By adhering to guidelines, and trying to maintain a strict standard of excellence, and most importantly, through our belief that what we do for Daily Kos is important, we elevate the expectations of the readers of this site. And we raise the sights of the writer's, too. The best thing we do, though, is let people know that this isn't a popularity contest. If you write a stellar diary, it's going to get some attention - whether you're a professional or just a guy in your pajamas.
Damn straight. That's pretty much the way it is, and if it sounds like we're a bunch of ate-up Kool-Aid quaffers willing to give freely our time and our talents to something that is inherently (and perhaps suspiciously) altruistic – well, what did you expect? Rescue Rangers do have daily lives, other interests and pursuits, and things we enjoy besides slogging through the Recent Diaries list, seeking gems – but that feeling that we're doing something good for both the site and the community is something that continues to motivate each and every one of us, and keeps us altering our personal plans around Rescue shifts and editing stints. In a like vein, of course we've seen examples of Rangers rescuing the diaries of other Rangers; since we're some of the more active Kossacks, and our DKos "job" holds as a prerequisite a strong interest in good writing, it stands to reason that some of our own diaries would sometimes qualify for rescue, and it would defeat the purpose to say that Ranger-written posts are inherently unqualified for attention. We, all of us, compete for attention and hang time on the all-important community-derived lists just like everyone else – and the only advantage we might enjoy is the fact that our reading leaves us with a pretty intimate knowledge of what everyone else out there in Orangeland is writing about.
So what will the Second Year of Rangering bring us, the Daily Kos front page, or the community as a whole? I dunno – since the beginning, this whole thing has been permeated by a make-it-up-as-you-go-along kind of zeitgeist – but if we're operating by the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" maxim, I'd say the State of the Rangers is good and getting better. That doesn't preclude community members from adding suggestions, comments, or even flames, however – we'd love to know what we could be doing better, what you'd like to see more (or less) of, and how you think the idea of a community-based, community-oriented series like Diary Rescue might look after the transition to Kos 4.0. Patriot Daily, who's also been around since the days when we chiseled rescues onto stone tablets and hiked them ten miles (uphill in both directions) through 5-foot snow drifts to get them to SusanG on time, has something interesting thoughts about where Rescue could go, and what it might become:
I would love to see the footprints of recs and comments increased at rescued diaries.
One way to increase footprints would be if markos posted a list of rescued diaries in a box on the front page located in between the diary rec list and recent diaries list. Such prominence may ensure that more people would read the rescued diaries, and then more comments may be posted in the rescued diaries, and then more people would become familiar with the diarist of the rescued diaries, and our goals would be achieved!
I also think it would be sweet if from time to time different frontpagers visited and chatted at the DR comments. If Markos, Georgia10, Meteor Blades etc dropped in for a visit, the excitement level at the DR thread would skyrocket and hopefully also the interest in rescued diaries. You can feel the energy when Susan is in the thread and almost see the delighted faces of the diarists who were rescued that night. It’s magical – let’s have some more magic!
Also wish the time period of recs was expanded to accommodate DR because some diaries are rescued from the day before and by the time that DR is posted, the rec period may be terminated.
But most of all, we (understand that I'm going out on a limb here, speaking for all Rangers, but I think it's a pretty safe branch from which to make a group proclamation) would like to thank all of those who've supported us along the way; those who've written good diaries with the Rescue List, not the Rec List, in mind as the goal to be achieved; and, of course, SusanG, without whom none of this incredible experience would have been possible. The community that's assembled around the masterful prose here at DKos is like nothing on the right side of the blogosphere, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for allowing us to be a part of it.
Historically hip entrances to the Cave of the Moonbat can be found at Daily Kos, Progressive Historians, Never In Our Names, and The Impeach Project