Hey... I had mentioned posting this earlier, but I had wanted to wait until it was finished. This is my final paper for Democratic theory, on the nature of civic association on Kos. In dealing with the troll wars, meta, and everything else involved, this paper became a response to the Putnam notion that civic association and social capital are dwindling. If you head over to
West Massholes, you can read my other concerns, but I don't want to clutter this with them here... this is a labor of love, so any comments that people may have are not only welcomed, but would make me smile :) You could say this is a birthday present for the site's 4-year anniversary.
Social capital has drastically changed in the period following the dawn of the Internet. At the forefront of this discussion has been Robert Putnam, who cited drops in membership in social groups such as bowling leagues as indicating the end of civic association in its more participatory form(i). However, in the post-Internet period, a unique system of civic association has taken hold. People who based on the hierarchies of the world would never associate are now engulfed in constant discussion. Former United States Presidents and average Americans have engaged and discussed the issues of the day. For most tangible civic associations, this would be, at most, simply a stump speech, costing some corporation thousands of dollars. For Jimmy Carter (aka user 81380(ii)), and the Daily Kos(iii), it was March 23, 2006. Then, it was March 27, 2006 when President Carter answered many of the questions posed on the 23rd. In each case, individuals who would otherwise never interact with a former United States President, or other politicians or notable figures, did just that, as people as disparate as politicians and celebrities interact daily with political novices and poor MA students.
What this story shows could potentially be a repudiation of much of Putnam's thesis that social capital is dwindling. Rather than diminishing, social capital may have come to the internet, and taken up shop in an environment where individuals from across the planet can interact and leave opinion(iv). In places like the Daily Kos, individuals have the ability to diary, post comments, and even rate the comments they read, or effectively ban users who abuse the system to their own gain. In this, the Daily Kos has developed into a structured self-governing, internet community, where individuals have a say and take action to not only get their views across, but to better their community and prevent decay from the lack of order in place elsewhere on the internet. Most central to this development, both in terms of its self-governance, as well as the continuation of its internet community, has been the system of ratings, and the hierarchical structure, as well as its effect upon commentary on the Daily Kos. I shall soon explain what I mean by a myriad of topics, including "trolls", "trusted users" (also known as "TUs"), and "Front Pagers". For now, what is important to note is that the unique feature of Kos is its rating system, in particular the movement to an up/down vote on any comment designed to keep the flow of the community in place, in order to prevent what James Q. Wilson describes as the "broken windows thesis"(v). In using the "troll-rating" system, those with certain privileges on the Daily Kos are given the power to actually regulate the postings on the site, making the postings on the site at times markedly different than on other popular blogs, thereby creating a community that, unlike many online communities, need not have an administrator.
Clarifications and History
In order to best understand what is going on here, some clarification is needed not only in terms of the origins and make-up of the Daily Kos itself, but as well the different "web words" that will be thrown around here. In terms of Kos itself, Markos Moulitsas, a former US Army veteran who had been posting on MyDD, another prominent liberal weblog, began the site on May 26, 2002. What makes the Daily Kos different from other blogs was its usage of the "Scoop"(vi) software, developed for technology community Kuro5hin. In contrast to more traditional Internet moderated settings(vii), Scoop-run blogs allow for the posting and self-moderation of diaries through multiple systems. For Daily Kos itself, the two most prominent forms of this are found within the "Recommend" button, which allows individuals to decide which diaries are featured at the top right of the home page as "Recommended Diaries", and also the Recommend button under each comment, which can assign "mojo" or +es, which are used to determine status of users who make the comments. All members of the community have access to these two buttons. The system has also been put into place at a variety of other blogs, such as liberal blogs like My Left Wing, or conservative blogs such as RedState. Much of the workings of Scoop will be more thoroughly explored later, as Scoop is central to Kos' self-regulating communal aspect.
The Daily Kos itself is classified by Markos himself as "a Democratic blog, a partisan blog. One that recognizes that Democrats run from left to right on the ideological spectrum, and yet we're all still in this fight together."(viii) In this, we can already recognize that the pluralistic nature of the blog is relegated only to Democratic elections and the movement towards helping the Democratic Party. As we shall see, this will have an important impact on the forms of ideas on the site, through the rejection of certain ideas as un-Democratic (as opposed to undemocratic), or the ignorance of other ideas. The Daily Kos is also considered a "reform blog"(ix), designed to fight for change both outside and within the political sphere, even within the Democratic Party itself. To this end, along with their work to help Democrats win, Kos itself and individual Kossacks have been involved in many upstart campaigns against established Democrats, including Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX-28) and Senator Joseph Lieberman (CT), in fact helping Lieberman's 2006 Senatorial challenger Ned Lamont achieve 33% of delegates at the Connecticut Democratic Party Convention(x).
Many of the terms that have appeared before and afterwards could potentially be daunting. However, clarification should help those not "in the know" best understand not only what is going on, but also understand the gravity of what is going on at The Daily Kos and in the blogosphere in general. The two different levels of status are determined by a variety of factors, not limited to how long one has been on the site, quality of work, and the amount of "mojo" one receives. At the same time, all of this is also determined through an unknown mathematical formula, to make sure that the program cannot be manipulated.
What separates one group from another is the increase in buttons that an individual has access to in terms of rating comments. After your standard internet "newbie", the next level for a Kossack (to use the term used by community members to describe our/themselves) is the "Trusted User". Trusted Users are members of the community that make meaningful and workable contributions to the community as a whole. The path to becoming a trusted user is known only to the formulas determined to track who is a "TU", but for the most part, the primary way to gain this status is through consistent posting and the accumulation of mojo through good comments(xi). Once one receives this status, two major changes are made to their account: first, they receive the ability to "troll-rate" comments they find to be offensive or wrong, and second, they can also see comments that have been "troll-rated" and removed from view for the general community, under the "Hidden Comments" button. While this system is in place to separate the trolls from the more respectable users, some individuals have hung around long enough to become Trusted Users, only to turn around and make diaries designed to annoy and bring about arguments. More discussion and thought shall be given to the "TUs" later, though it is important to acknowledge them now because of their central importance to the Kossack community.
Furthermore, there is one other form of elite that shall be explored more thoroughly in the discussion on structured and unstructured natures on Daily Kos. The "celebrity", "star", or "spokesperson", an individual who receives multiple recommended diaries and notoriety for their work, develops through both formal and informal channels of association, something that is central to the understanding of the nature of Kos' different forms of associational life.
A Special Understanding of the Troll in Internet and Kossack Life
When I have spoken of these individuals, the thought of trolls must bring up certain visions of fairy-tales and weird creatures. While neither of these is the case, the purpose of the troll on the internet is similar to the troll under a bridge. His goal is to disrupt the normal course of events through doing something that could potentially bring about anguish and anger. More specifically, an internet troll is along these same lines, in that it is
"someone who comes into an established community
such as an online discussion forum and posts inflammatory,
rude or offensive messages designed to intentionally annoy
and antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow
of discussion"(xii)
On Kos, these have taken a myriad of forms. In terms of the most obvious, some have taken inflammatory names (one used Zyklon-B (xiii)); others have simply used GOP talking points or repeated attacks made in regards to public figures. dKosopedia, the Daily Kos Wiki, breaks trolls down into three groups: trollers, who have full understanding of not only what they are doing, and are doing it simply to cause controversy; ethical trolls, which "is anyone who claims or practices an ethical or political rationale" (xiv) while trolling; or a "New Troll point of view", a troll that holds a dissenting opinion and does so because it sees the group as a whole having a "groupthink" point of view on certain issues(xv). Finally, one group that transcends all of these is the right-wing troll, also known as the "Freeper". Their belief is that by bringing their right-wing/Republican views to Daily Kos, that they are ethically and morally opposing some concept, and are fighting against some form of groupthink.(xvi)
The Internet Community and Civic Association
While, as we shall see, the ratings system of Daily Kos makes it unique in terms of self-governance, the internet has in fact begun to change the forms of "social capital" in society. Tocqueville views associations as "simply in the public assent which a number of individuals give to such and such a doctrine and their commitment to help in a specific way to make it prevail,"(xvii) linking this right further with the very freedom in American society. He also sees it in terms of the protection against tyranny, through associating with others, in order to "take the place of those powerful individuals who have been swept away by the equality of social conditions."(xviii) In theory, the internet and political internet associations would fit, due to the ability of disparate groups to come together, as well as the ability to help take the place of the individual with a larger group that can influence change. However, Tocqueville's analysis (or at least the neo-Tocquevillean analysis) does not recognize political association outside the singular group. Shapiro (1997) (xix) notes that Tocqueville refused to see civic space beyond that of either tangible capital or White Europeans speaks to his inability to see space beyond that within the capitalist European purview. What we have seen is a breakdown of this very wall in the terms of modern association, away from specific tangible groups and into the more highly abstract.
Rather than the Tocquevillean view of civic space and the Putnam belief in the bowling league and tangible social capital, we are beginning to see the formation of different forms of associations, connected not by personal interaction, but rather by wires, or in some cases, by an ever-present wireless internet. One alternate thesis that contradicts Putnam's view of these forms can be found again from Shapiro, who argued that the reality of civic association was much larger than the Putnam view of the evils of television, as Putnam "assumes a unitary social order from which citizen action is provoked," (xx) recalling Tocqueville's ignorance towards specific less structurally organized movements such as abolition movements in Philadelphia. In arguing against the Putnam thesis, Shapiro sees association as "more pervasive and differentiated with respect to locale; it arises in connection with many aspects of everyday life." (xxi) Furthermore, in using hip-hop culture as a case in point, Shapiro identifies a case that is seemingly outside the state's purview. The associations created are not regulated in the same way regulation occurs in a bowling league or a civic group like the Elk's Club. Yet they are associations all the same, with formal and informal structures of membership, and structured aspects, as well as the covert, more structureless aspects, as explored by Freeman (1974)(xxii). In this, Kos is very much an association: a large group of individuals have come together to argue and work towards a common goal: the end of GOP control of Congress.
At the same time, one wonders if this sort of capital stretches beyond the checkbook democracy Putnam was so worried about (xxiii), disconnecting individuals and instead allowing someone to be connected to a civic association, but only in terms of donation. There are many cases where the checkbook is the rule. Daily Kos is no exception, as the focus of some diaries, including front-page diaries, is on donations to certain candidates. Considering the goal of Daily Kos to be a site designed to help bring about Democratic elections, and considering many of these donations go to candidates selected by the netroots, there could be reason for concern, if this were the only reason for the existence of Kos. However, these can be countered by noting the more expansive work being done through the use of sites like the Daily Kos. Candidates who would otherwise have no way to reach outside donors or volunteers beyond their own websites have not only used Kos extensively, but have also coupled it with their own resources. (xxiv) Furthermore, sites such as MeetUp are designed specifically for the purpose of bringing about tangible group meetings where people can discuss specific topics. So, while Putnam's thesis does allow us some concern, there is also much hope.
However, while groups have vastly changed in terms of non-political arenas, it seems that Daily Kos may be a very different animal than most blogs or message boards. Kos' uniqueness is drawn from the use of Scoop, yet even here, because of the size of Kos, as well as its readership level, it may be much more unique. As I shall explain, the Kossack form of governance allows it as a community to differ greatly from standard moderated websites for a variety of reasons.
Structured and Unstructured Kos
While the Front-Page users, and in general any poster who receives regular featured-article status, are important to the Daily Kos, the Trusted Users are arguably the single most important part of the self-regulation of themselves take the form of what the community takes, and are central to its nature and status as a structured, self-regulating internet community. Their ability to not only view "hidden" comments, but at the same time also rate and determine who are and who are not trolls, hearkens to the concepts behind a structured governmental system. In this, as Jo Freeman (1974) notes,
"A structured group always has a formal structure and may also have an informal one. An unstructured groupalways has an informal, or covert, structure. It is this informal structure, particularly in unstructured groups, which forms the basis for elites." (xxv)
Kos itself has both the formal and informal structures of hierarchical system. In its formal system, certain individuals have the ability to rate others comments in the negative based upon their time at the site, as well as their posting habits. These "Trusted Users" use their power to best regulate the site. As shall be explained, the reasons behind this self-regulation are designed to protect the site and to keep order through the protection against trolling, though this does not always turn out to be the case, as has been found in the recent trolling wars. At the same time, the elites created are, as Freeman finds, more invisible elites. Becoming a Trusted User on Daily Kos is only recognized when one user can see the "Hidden Comments" and "troll" button, as well as the "Add/Edit Tags" button. However, there is no announcement to the community as to who is a Trusted User. Furthermore, after a few troll ratings, a comment disappears from view for most individuals. However, if a comment receives both pluses and minuses, the comment can be seen to a point, indicating whether or not the individual(s) trolling the comment made a valid move in rejecting the comment for community consumption.
In terms of unstructured basis, portions of the formal structures, as well as word of mouth, help create what Freeman calls "the star system" (xxvi). In this system, individuals are needed to become spokespeople for society at large, or for a specific area. Freeman finds that these individuals become spokespeople, and thereby "stars" through three areas of "mass group opinion: the vote or referendum, the public opinion survey questionnaire, and the selection of group spokespeople at an appropriate meaning." (xxvii) In these methods, individuals who would otherwise be regular people become "stars", and the standard-bearers on certain issues for Daily Kos, bringing information to a wide audience.
The star system can be seen at work through Kos. Most structurally, they are the Front Page Posters. At the end of every year, Markos Moulitsas asks for suggestions for individuals who will become posters on the Front Page, the most prominent and front and center section of The Daily Kos. These individuals, when selected, do become the strongest voices of Kos, and in effect, become the spokespeople for the site and their views (xxviii). This has translated into a variety of effects. One example of this in the extra-Kos community can be found in 24-year-old law school graduate Georgia Logothetis, aka Georgia10, who has been a front-page poster since the beginning of 2006. As a result, Georgia's work has been read by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people on a regular basis, leading The Chicago Reader to refer to her as "the woman who may be Chicago's most-read political writer."(xxix) Others, such as Markos himself, have legitimized candidates and challengers in elections, including the aforementioned Lamont, as well as Ciro Rodriguez (TX-28), Jon Tester (MT-Sen), and Francine Busby (CA-50). While none have as of yet won election, each campaign has received major contributions through the netroots ActBlue page set up by Markos for this purpose(xxx).
Less structured forms of elite development are also in play at Kos. For some, particularly politicians, acceptance and immediate "Recommended Diary" status is simply a click and a diary away. Recommended Diary status also depends upon the quality and importance of the work someone has done. Stars in specific fields, such as Jerome a Paris in oil and gas areas, and more recently righteousbabe (xxxi) in the area of high school LGBT areas, are also the norm on Kos, though some of these are also front-pagers. The stars, with the exception of the Front Pagers, have no more power on the site than the regular posters. However, it is their spokesperson ability that makes them unique, the ability to speak for a population on something, and as a result, to become the "celebrities" of Daily Kos.
What does the star system say about the structure of Kos? At its most mundane, it highlights the formal and informal structures that make Kos work. Celebrities are made and broken through the system of recommendation. While the Recommendation and + system can make someone, Kos' Scoop system is equally important on the other end. While making sure that the right diaries and the right information is presented to the community through self-regulation and an informal selection of important works, on the other end, the self-regulation of the site, and of the potential for trolls, is equally important. In this, Daily Kos separates itself markedly from many internet forums.
Kossack Trolls: General Regulation and Self-Regulating Principles
The self-regulating features of Daily Kos manifest themselves with the help of the system itself. However, these are not the first line of defense to keeping an individual from trolling. At sign-up, the Kos registration system does not allow an individual to post any comments for 24 hours, and then does not allow them to post a diary for a week. Furthermore, the site requires an email address for sign-up. The latter part is not nearly as much of a deterrent as the comments restrictions, primarily because of the prevalence of free email sites including Hotmail and Yahoo Mail. The registration part, on the other hand, is designed to deter individuals by requiring them to first wait a period before they begin posting. While this is not much of a deterrent either, it does keep certain types of trolls, such as those that are based on quickness out of the system.
Beyond this point, once a troll or someone who engages in trolling behavior has an account, they are accountable only to the other users on the site. Many trolls or trolling-individuals (xxxii) have complained that "the Kos Administration"(xxxiii), Markos himself(xxxiv), or Armando are behind the deletion of comments and the banning of users. However, in coming to these conclusions, they neglect the fact that "hidden comments" and banning in most all cases on Kos occurs because of the self-regulating nature of the Recommend and Troll buttons. Comments are not deleted. Rather, they disappear, only to be readable to Trusted Users, who also have the singular authority of regulating and watching for trolling users(xxxv). In this, the design of the system is similar to what James Q. Wilson and George Kelling saw as the repudiation of "broken windows".(xxxvi) In this form, the allowance of trolling on the system, and the inability to act on it, would lead to a breakdown of the system itself. For Wilson and Kelling, the presence of neighborhood police patrols in New Jersey did not necessarily show much shift in terms of actual numbers, but did show a more positive outlook towards the neighborhoods themselves and the police at large. In this case, the caring for the community, as the neighborhoods did, led to the quick replacement of broken windows, and through that, a more developed community.
Informally, other measures are taken to deal with "troll diaries", which themselves can be hard to deal with because actually deleting or removing them cannot be done by Trusted Users. For the most part, users will add a variety of different topics having nothing to do with the topic at hand. Among these include recipes, pictures of Pootie (the cat who protects the Daily Kos), general snark (sarcastic satire), and other different weird, yet at times funny events. (xxxvii) While these actions do nothing to actually delete diaries, they do help to improve morale within the community while deterring future outbreaks (due to the troll-diarists' realization that everyone is ignoring their comments). As user budhydharma notes, it "Tends to cut down on repeat offenders and is a hell of a lot of fun, too." (xxxviii) Furthermore, the creation of camaraderie does help build on the associations within the Daily Kos, which can be seen as helping to keep diarists in line in terms of their work, as well as the work of the commenting individuals.
For the moment, I would like to briefly compare two vastly different communities, just to show the major differences. Daily Kos, with its self-regulating trolling system, is able to remove comments from users that are considered highly inflammatory and incredibly disruptive and obscene. While this cannot also be done user-wise on diaries themselves, these can still be deleted. On the other end of the spectrum, due to its size, the Yahoo News message boards are unregulated and unchecked by any form of moderation. (xxxix) As a result, facts and reasoned opinion are not a viable option here. Instead, racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, anti-Arabic, and generally nasty comments are not only prevalent, but the norm. While I concede that Yahoo News is an extreme case, at the same time, even more moderated boards are subject to editing and deletion of comments by moderators. The more hierarchical democratic nature of the Kos system lies in its ability to allow discourse to the extent where no single moderator has control over all forms of writing.
March 2006 and the Switch in Ratings System
However, while the intent is there, it seems that troll-rating at Kos has become a much more controversial forum, particularly following changes back in mid-March 2006 designed to change the Kos Scoop system. The most fascinating change came in the form of a change from a 4-3-2-1-0 vote on comments to an up or down vote (xl). The significance of this can be found within the current nature of troll rating, where comments that would before receive 1s or 2s now consistently receive troll votes. (xli) What was once simply a bad comment is now a trollable offense. Comments that would in the past receive 1s for disagreement now receive troll rankings. The result of this has been community anguish over the usage of the troll ranking, with TUs debating how to use their rating power, whether to vote to go after certain comments, or whether not to.
While trolling can be subjective, due to the ever-changing nature of what is designed to be an annoyance, trolling has also been used in flame wars to show displeasure with ones opinion on certain points. The up-and-down vote has become of late a major issue in the Kossack universe, with different individuals taking different sides on what merits a troll rating, and what does not. At the same time, these issues have been debated before, with the 4-3-2-1-0 rating system a central part of these same debates. Previous "meta"(xlii) diaries help us best understand these. User ek hornbeck dealt with this issue, noting
"that's how Ratings are supposed to work. There are those who suggest (shudder) that cliques are developing. I say this is not surprising in a community of 50,000. They gang up on people who's opinions differ from theirs and 'troll rate them to oblivion'."(xliii)
The effect that both the up/down and its previous form, as well as the abilities that Trusted Users have in regulating what is and what is not shown in terms of comments, is important to understanding the power of the trusted user in the form of self-governance.
Kossack Community: Acceptable and Unacceptable Ideas
As mentioned before, the nature of Daily Kos is related to its status as a Democratic blog. However, it does have characteristics that make it a pluralistic community insofar as this pluralism is designed based around Democratic principles. The troll ratings are not used to silence those within the Democratic spectrum, as long as they engage in civilized discourse. In his work on pluralism, William Connolly notes that one of the natures of pluralist view is "our image of culture encourages us to embrace certain things in this particular place, to be indifferent to some, to be wary of others, and to fight militantly against the continuation of yet others." (xliv) Connolly therefore identifies the pluralist ideal as something beyond simply accepting a diverse number of ideas, rather also focused on identifying which ideas are acceptable in society, and which ones are not. In Daily Kos life, certain ideas do receive a higher level of credence than others. The questioning of sources and integrity is central to Kossack life. It was the Daily Kos (more specifically, user Oregon Guy) that brought down RedState cofounder and Washington Post blogger Ben Domenech (xlv). The sources used and the work in general are central to the acceptance of an idea in the Kossack universe. Furthermore, the ideas presented are important as well. Those ideas coming from outside the Democratic sphere are trolled due to the annoyance factor, as the site's mission is to help Democrats get elected, as opposed to Republicans and Greens.
What of these other ideas, however? Cathy Cohen (1997) offers us a fascinating take on the rejection of certain ideas by the Kossack community. In her work, Cohen identifies that as certain groups (in her case, the LGBTTSQ community) have moved towards the mainstream, the more extreme elements of a movement, which had previously been considered and part of the larger movement, are shelved in favor of the more benign and less controversial aspects, or the "inclusion"(xlvi) , as Cohen describes it. On some level, Daily Kos is about rethinking the policies used by the Democratic Leadership Council to elect Bill Clinton President in 1992, including playing against their traditional allies in minorities. Decisions made by the DLC and strategists been used in bringing the Democratic Party towards "inclusion" in the larger political spectrum. At the same time, the Daily Kos is not immune to these concerns of "inclusion", rejecting ideas that in some communities would be addressed, relegating them to troll diary status because of their conspiratorial nature. One of the most consistently trolled type of diary concerns 9/11 conspiracies, the two most notable being the reasons behind the collapse of WTC Tower 7(xlvii), or whether the Pentagon was actually hit by a plane(xlviii). Authors who post diaries arguing either of these theories is dismissed as a crackpot, and if or when they post "Tip Jars", they are immediately hit with troll ratings. Other diaries, such as those using dubious sources(xlix), are also hard hit. While the prevalence of posting these diaries has led to repeated rejection of these diaries, and therefore an aspect of trolling itself (the annoyance factor of repeated posting of discredited ideas), the rejection of ideas does bring up the questions of what can be included in a community such as this, and what cannot.
Conclusion
What does all of this say about the Daily Kos and ideas? Central to acceptance of ideas on Kos is a guided structure of what makes a good diary, and what does not. In that, the structured rules(l) outline what makes a good post. In these then we find where the ideas do lie. While Kos itself does not welcome all viewpoints, that was never the case. The point is to be an epistemic community for Democratic elections: to embrace the likes of viewpoints from those held by Dianne Feinstein to those held by Barack Obama, Howard Dean, John Kerry, and Russ Feingold. There are disagreements on what end this must take, as there are in all communities. What is important here, though, is the self-regulating factors in place. Time will tell us whether the enforcement through the up/down system has an effect upon the nature of trolls and troll-rating. In some way, it already has, though even my own history at the site (around 4 months) gives me only a small view of the much larger issues that are going on within.
While the self-regulation speaks to a small portion of the democratic nature of the site, Daily Kos is not a democracy. It cannot be, and it should not be. The effect of a democratic Kos would in effect drown out the message and ideas behind Markos' intentions in the first place. Daily Kos would denigrate into a level of unregulated insanity, with troll-rating occurring because all groups of Trusted Users did not agree on specific points of each comment. The reason self-governance is designed to work on Daily Kos is to further the message of the website and its creator. It is a Democratic (party) weblog. In creating that standard, Daily Kos requires some form of moderation to keep its mission in place. The Trusted Users, rather than a more autocratic or authoritarian form of governance (such as a moderator) are that governance. It is not a perfect fix. There is the ever-present possibility of individuals abusing their power and rating down comments that they do not agree with rather than those that they feel are offensive. To protect against this, Kossacks must be vigilant and rate comments in the best interests of discussion in terms of the site's mission.
To this point, there is one area that I have not addressed well, or at best, addressed in passing. What makes a good Kossack citizen? This topic would take up more time, and would be harder to explain, than the ones I have attempted to understand here. Does simply signing up and getting a password make one a good citizen? Probably not, as some do this to cause anguish in the community through trolling. What level of troll-rating, or what policy on trolling, is the one to follow? Does not signing up, yet still acting on action alerts made by users, make one a good citizen in the internet society? The rules of Kos may give us a guide to this, but even then, with the changes in voting on trolling, do comments that once received "1"s now receive troll ratings? Furthermore, are Trusted Users required to troll in these sorts of situations? Some, including some of the more administrative members like Armando, would say yes. Others would say that it goes against the pluralistic ideal of allowing multiple Democratic ideals in the community. On this point, the community has not and likely will not come to a consensus. These battles are constant, and deserve far more attention than the time I give them here, and what it exactly means to be a Kossack in the greater Kos community.
Finally, I must note that I wrote this as a labor of love. Regardless of the problems that may be seen with the Daily Kos, it has reawakened my own political citizenship. I interact with people I would never interact with otherwise, and discuss things in a forum that, through by Putnam and Tocqueville's understanding, would not be a civic association. What I see, however, is very much a working civic association. People discuss issues that are of importance to themselves and others, and do so to bring awareness and discussion from the larger community. In participating in the system, I have also seen the ability within these civic associations to make change. If a system like Kos can turn Ned Lamont, an unknown cable executive, into a progressive star and a viable candidate versus a former Vice Presidential candidate (li), then it does do something to the politics it is meant to do, bring about change. In this process, everyone from Jimmy Carter to that aforementioned 24-year-old Masters' student have a say in the larger associational pie.
References
i. Putnam, Robert. "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital." Journal of Democracy. 6(1). January 1995. pp. 65-78
ii. "Jimmy Carter". http://www.dailykos.com/...
iii. Much of what is mentioned throughout the rest of this paper can be found on the Daily Kos website http://www.dailykos.com I include links to specific diaries when appropriate.
iv. I do concede that the internet is closed off to certain individuals, such as poorer families and those without access. At the same time, the potential is there for different forms that go beyond Putnam's original thesis, which is my concern here. While I concede that many people don't have access, I'm more concerned with discussing the Daily Kos community, and not simply the American community.
v. Wilson, James Q. and George L. Kelling. "Broken Windows: the Police and Neighborhood Safety". Atlantic Monthly. March 1982.
vi. "Scoop (software)". http://en.wikipedia.org/...
vii. This refers to either moderated blog comment systems like that at Atrios (http://atrios.blogspot.com), moderated message boards run by a few moderators, or unmoderated message boards (ie Yahoo news boards)
viii. dKosopedia. FAQ. http://www.dkosopedia.com/...
ix. Ibid
x. While no one source exists definitively linking the two, Markos was one of the first people, along with user Political Junkie to highlight Lamont's campaign, back in January 2006. http://www.dailykos.com/.... Since then, Markos has appeared in one of Lamont's advertisements, and has furthermore diaried more than a few times supporting Lamont.
xi. One way to accumulate mojo quickly is through daily postings on Cheers and Jeers, which are usually highly read, and bring about mojo in the area of 20-30 "recommends" based upon time one posts.
xii. "Internet Troll" http://en.wikipedia.org/... (I concede that due to its own editable nature, Wikipedia may not be the best source, however communities generally accept this definition.
xiii. Zyklon-B is the gas used by the Nazis to gas Jews during the Holocaust
xiv. dKosopedia: "Ethical troll". http://www.dkosopedia.com/...
xv. dKosopedia: "New Troll point of view". http://www.dkosopedia.com/...
xvi. dKosopedia: "Freeper". http://www.dkosopedia.com/... (Note: The word itself refers to the Free Republic website, one of the more colorful right wing talk websites.)
xvii. Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy In America. Penguin Classics. London, England. 2003? p.220
xviii. Ibid. p.599
xix. Shapiro, Mark. "Bowling Blind: Post Liberal Civil Society and the Worlds of neo-Tocquevillean Social Theory." Theory and Event. 1(1). 1997.
xx. Ibid
xxi. Ibid
xxii. Freeman, Jo. "The Tyranny of Structurelessness". From Jacquette, Jane ed. Women in Politics. Wiley. New York. 1974.
xxiii. Putnam.
xxiv. Most notable of these would be Indiana Congressional Candidate Barry Welsh (IN-06), who is running against Rep. Mike Pence. Welsh has used Kos to not only keep individuals informed, but to coordinate with others on his extensive 50-state strategy map, hearkening Howard Dean's call for the same strategy. http://www.barrywelsh.org/...
xxv. Freeman p. 204
xxvi. Ibid. p. 208
xxvii. Ibid. p. 208
xxviii. Even former front-pagers receive this sort of push. Former FPer Armando can usually bring in about 200-300 comments for one of his diaries, based upon the topic at hand, and regardless of how much he writes in said topic (note: I expect to be troll-rated in my own tip jar for this line).
xxix. Hayes, Christopher. "Who is Georgia10?" The Chicago Reader. April 28, 2006. http://www.chicagoreader.com/...
xxx. Netroots Actblue. http://actblue.com/... ActBlue is a progressive donation site designed to help individuals donate to Democratic candidates.
xxxi. While Jerome has a history, the inclusion of righteousbabe may be a little early, this link enlightens us to the impact she has already had- http://www.dailykos.com/...
xxxii. I distinguish the two only because all "trolls" are fully aware of the disruption they are causing the community, while one cannot be sure if newbies who do not understand the system are simply upset because their work or arguments are disagreed with, or if Armando rubbed them the wrong way.
xxxiii. User "Andy Kreist" (homophone for anti-Christ) posted "DailyKos Administration pro-Israel Bias Leads to Abuse", partially arguing to this effect http://www.dailykos.com/...
xxxiv. This excuse has been used many times
xxxv. It is important to note that there are site administrators, including user Peeder. However, these individuals are not meant to be concerned with the moderation of the site, but rather the technical data involved in the running of such a large weblog.
xxxvi. Wilson, James Q. and George L. Kelling. "Broken Windows: the Police and Neighborhood Safety". Atlantic Monthly. March 1982.
xxxvii. This author occasionally asks for the winner of a hypothetical fictional fight between disparate characters (i.e. this usually involves Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Buffy, Wolverine, Chuck Norris, Conan O'Brien, and other random individuals)
xxxviii. http://www.dailykos.com/...
xxxix. Because stories change on a regular basis, heading to http://news.yahoo.com, clicking on a top story, and then going to the bottom of the page and clicking on the "Discuss" button will give the best sense of a general set of opinion and discourse on the site.
xl. Moulitsas, Markos. "On Tap". http://www.dailykos.com/...
xli. To contrast, My Left Wing (http://www.myleftwing.com) uses a system based around a 0-11 ranking, where 11 stands for "Truly Fucking Superb"
xlii. Meta diaries refer to those diaries that deal with inter-Kossack dealings (i.e. trolling, etc.) There is also the meta deity, Meta-Jesus. The CW on Meta-Jesus is that when troll wars or other flame wars are going on, he cries for the destruction on Kos.
xliii. User: ek hornbeck. "Naked dKos! w/poll." http://www.dailykos.com/...
xliv. Connolly, William. Pluralism. Duke University Press. Durham, NC. 2005. p. 42
xlv. Oregon Guy. "Ben Domenech - Plagiarist." http://www.dailykos.com/... (Domenech had plagiarized from P.J. O'Rourke's books for his articles for the William and Mary newspaper The Flat Hat in 1999 and 2000. Further investigation uncovered other articles plagiarized, including reviews done for The National Review. Domenech resigned from the Post days after this story hit.
xlvi. Cohen, Cathy. "What is this Movement Doing To My Politics?" Social Text. 61. Winter 1999. p. 111-118.
xlvii. Borepstein presents us the WTC-7 diary http://www.dailykos.com/... dmsilev has the response http://www.dailykos.com/...
xlviii. http://www.dailykos.com/... is one of the many diaries arguing this point
xlix.
http://www.dkosopedia.com/... offers us the best discussion, with Markos' take on certain more off-the-wall conspiracies that hit the site following the London bombings last summer. The new FAQ will reflect the post-Wayne Madsen citing incident about Karl Rove's indictment, which led to many recommends by the dKos community, and an angry, now deleted diary from Armando.
l. dKosopedia-FAQ-Writing Diaries
li. YouTube gives us a sense of the coverage, from CNN.