I take a nice, refreshing week or two off from DailyKos, and what do I come back to find? Not only is some guy named O'Reilly equating this site with people who, by most measures, were among the worst human beings of the last 100 years, but "mainstream" news apparently says similar, if far less extreme and more civil, things. Not that I haven't seen such things before, but for some reason, this evening I feel compelled to respond.
This post is not targeted to the regular DK community. You all probably already know everything I have to say. Instead, this is targeted to those many good people out there who don't know enough about DK to judge how sound it is or, more importantly, whether it's OK to use the site. My message is simple: Come on in, if you'd like. The water's fine.
Update: Several of the commenters are finding this to be a defense for O'Reilly. While I am motivated in part by his words, I intend the defense for "those many good people" and not O'Reilly or anyone else in particular.
Let me try to enunciate some of the myths that seem to exist about this site and try to dispel them. I'm hardly the most expert person on this matter, but I think I've got at least some sense of this. To those who know better than I, don't hesitate to correct me in the comments.
Before we begin with the myths, let's note that already, we see one of this site's (and other similar sites') strongest attributes: The built-in peer review in the comment system. My favorite example of this is a nice little post I did on Sheryl Crow & climate change in which I made the same factual error as several major news outlets, but, thanks to commenters here, my mistake was quickly caught and corrected, whereas the major news outlets left their mistakes in place.
And with that, let's begin.
Myth #1: DailyKos is only for extremist partisanship.
OK, some such content can be found here. But overall, I'm pretty impressed by the writing, especially that which makes its way to the top. The political commentary and analysis is thorough almost to a fault (when I follow it regularly, I feel like I know too much). Projects like Energize America are, to my eye, very respectable. The annual YearlyKos convention looks to me like grassroots political engagement at its finest. And there are regular doses of 'the rest of the world' such as this travelogue or the ever-popular garden blogging. Garden blogging??? Surely you're joking. Nope. See for yourself. Garden blogging.
Meanwhile, my own experience here is noteworthy. I'm not even a political partisan, let alone an extremist. My views come from philosophical ethics (specifically, utilitarianism). I write here because I recognize the importance of the public sector and desire to contribute to it. That DK happens to be partisan is, for me, unimportant. Have I been driven away for lack of commitment to party? To the contrary. Take a look at my DK page. Not a single partisan post, yet all were at least well-received in comments and several drew strong positive response, including a post inquiring about GOP online communities, which even drew a comment or two commending my 'outreach' (in addition to some comments critical of 'the other side', but hey, I'd expect no less from what ultimately is a partisan site). So:
- This site serves well as a forum for discussing a wide variety of topics, in addition to its partisan activity, and the partisan activity is often very reasonable.
On we go.
Myth #2: DailyKos is a waste of time.
If regular web pages suck spare time away like a vacuum cleaner, blogs do so like a black hole: There's no escaping. OK, that's an overstatement, but it's still true that it's easy to spend way too much time here. But is it time well spent?
Let's see here... I mention that space colonization deserves attention for the important role it may play in humanity's future (a view shared by, among others, Stephen Hawking), and what do I get? Comment from some person who knows far more about the topic than I do, and from whom I've learned much. To be sure, not everyone on this site can teach me as much as FerrisValyn, but there's no shortage of useful information to be offered by commenters here. So:
- This site is a place to get your questions answered. If you're in the business of knowing things (and who isn't?) then you could do far worse than spend time here.
Continuing...
Myth #3: DailyKos is dominated by out-of-touch wackos.
My guess is that most outsiders to DK would be surprised to learn the demographics makeup of DK, in particular the age distribution (predominantly middle age instead of under 30) and education level (predominantly college graduate or more). It turns out DK users are actually kinda normal. Not completely normal- in particular, we are more politically active than normal- but wackos we're by and large not. Lots of good, smart people here, just trying to help out. See for example these recent posts:
- Global Warming: Seven Generations, not Seven Years ... by A Siegel, whose tireless efforts on climate change cannot be praised enough: "the real battle turns to "what should be done". Global Warming should not be a partisan issue." Yeah, um, I agree.
- YearlyKos Convention 2007 & Science by DarkSyde, who does more for science education and awareness than, well, let's just say he does a lot: "How fantastic does it feel to be part of a community which not only embraces science, but is happy to invest these kinds of precious resources in it?" As a science educator myself, I'd say, pretty darn.
One interesting aspect of the users here is that they are mostly anonymous. Not all online communities are this way, especially the more academic ones. I'm certainly in the minority here posting non-anonymously. I'm sure many, such as this commenter, remain anonymous out of concern that being associated with this site would hurt their personal or professional life. I wish this wasn't so. Isn't civic engagement supposed to be a good thing for citizens of a democracy to be doing? That's why I post in my own name: I want credit for the work I'm doing. So:
- There's good people here. To join this site is not to lower yourself to some filthy floor of public discourse but to raise yourself to among many unsung (and sometimes sung) leaders. (See also this.)
Myth #4: DailyKos is too large to be useful.
It's true that this site is utterly massive. And I think it's fair to say that not all content here is stellar. But where this site stands out from every other site I know of is its combination of technical bells and whistles and its battalion of users dedicated to highlighting the good content, sometimes hiding the ugly content, and making it easier for you to find what you're looking for and helping you use the site in general. (See for example this and this.) So:
- Of all the general interest political sites out there, at present, this site does stand out in terms of the experience it offers.
To all the regular DK users reading this, go ahead and add your own thoughts in the comments. To all the community outsiders seeing this, if I haven't persuaded you to write here, hopefully I've at least dispelled some of the myths about the site and left you with a better understanding and impression of it.