Am I the only person on DKos who finds "Trusted User Status" to be a little reminiscent of Maoism? While I can understand Kos' desire for a self-policing site, I can't understand the fervent desire to be one of the "watchers".
More after the jump, if you're interested in either my reasoning or an opportunity to tell me how wrong I am.
So, maybe it's the terminolgy. The existence of "Trusted User" status seems to confer a position of less trust on the rest of us. Well, that's okay - why should any of you trust me, anyway? I'm fine with "Untrusted User" status. Especially since I've spent some time as a trusted user.
Slow progress on my book led to a flurry of postings a couple of months back. I made a few well-rated comments and all of a sudden I was a trusted user. Wow! Validation! It was great, right up to the moment when I wanted to make a comment that might not have been so well received by the rest of the users. I caught myself editing my comment, something I'd never done before. What did I care, as an untrusted outsider, if something I said roiled the feathers of a dozen or so keyboarders in their dens? But now I had something to lose. Something I didn't want in the first place, but nonetheless...
I ended up making the comment anyway. Got a couple of 4s. But I didn't visit DKos for a while after that. I let the whole thing drop. It's not my place to be trusted here. Others, as others will, feel differently about this, hence "Mojo-diaries". This is an anti-mojo diary. No tip jar attached.
p.s. Sorry if this was covered in the comments of one of the mojo-diaries (I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels this way, but I can't bring myself to sift through the comments of the mojo-seekers to find like-minded kossacks).