Moderator capabilities are not sufficient at dailykos as it stands. The good thing is, a conceptually simple remedy is available: Distributed moderating. The existing highly centralized moderating powers are not enough. The mass of diarists need increased power compared to the commentors who visit their diaries, to actively govern and prevent their own diaries from being derailed and going off into the weeds or withdrawn completely by a minority of shit-head behavior at dailykos.
I propose that the dailykos system be tweaked to give additional power to everyone to tend the flower-gardens they themselves made by effort of their own hands and minds and sweat. Many hands make light work.
Please, Kos & Co, please elevate the power of the masses of underclass writers at dailykos to:
- enable a
diarist to unilaterally "
kick" any commenter from further posts to a specific diary-article of their own; and irrevocably mark for public display, the offender's comments in that same diary-article as being written by a person who was kicked from this diary-article;
- enable a
diarist to unilaterally "
ban" any commenter from commenting in their diary; and show the list of commentors who were banned at this diary.
This request is philisophically along the lines of letting people participate in governing themselves, that is, of themselves, by themselves, for themselves, at dailykos.com.
That should be enough. Today there is symetrical power between vandals and diarists: diarists and the commenters today can be trapped into a discussion which is not about the diarists subject, to the dismay of the diarist. The commentor has too much unchecked power to put crap on nascent flower-beds. The problem is especially bad if the crap-heads get there before other normal cooperative people get there, as a tone is set, and it is contrary to the tone of the diarist's work, or even an attack on the diarist's morality.
Assymetrical power is needed by the diary-writers to enable them to keep the flower garden from getting trampled by those who would stomp on some of the flower gardens they walk by. People make flower-gardens with their effort and sweat, sometimes many hours worth of effort. Diary writers then put their work on public display. Diaries are not places to piss on by those who are inclined to lift a leg and piss on other people's work as they walk by, uncontrolled. Diarists need increased power to police their own diaries a little more.
If left alone, someone else's dog shit remaining there on your flower-bed, cause the value of your house to go down.
Furthermore, some unsavory neighbor's pile of dog-shit that remains in your own front yard flower-bed in public view of passers-by, lowers the value of the whole neighborhood, this one being dailykos.
Somebody has to clean up the poop that lands in their own front yard flowerbed by the more shitty neighbors among them. Give the diary-entry's owner the power to clean their own flower-bed. It's a known empirical fact of observed psychology that broken windows attract more broken windows, and the process can happen quickly.
Yes, I am criticizing an existing aspect of the dailykos.com system and its community, as the above has summarized.
My subject line above contains a concise synopsis of the thesis. I had to put it right up front. I did that at some risk. Now, I am worried you may not get to the part of the article which more firmly establishes the reasoning and evidence as to why it's needed.
The synopsis is needed because I am aware that, by criticizing the dailykos system, I may potentially draw distractive, retaliatory "getting personal" comments about me from others, who share a love of the dailykos system, as I do, even though "me" is not the subject of this diary entry.
Examples of ad-hominem attacks that may well appear here in my diary entry too, like your neighbor's dog-crap on showing up on your flower-bed:
- "Dailykos is free, right?" Some will say in return that I fail to give enough respect to those who provide it to me at such a good price. They are imputing the inaccurate negative assumption that I "don't appreciate," so I have a moral failing in my head. In other words, the problem is mine. As if. Do you know what happens when you assume?
- "Dailykos took a lot of work to make this good system, look at the good work they did to make this site, right? Look how busy they are too. Look how little money and people they have to do what they have done." Some will say I have failed to give enough respect. Again, the imputation of negative character in me. As if. . Do you know what happens when you assume?
- "Look at all the good things Dailykos.com provides." As-if I don't already acknowledge that by being here and writing here.
- "I don't have that problem. Maybe it's you that's the problem. You brought it on yourself." That's the nonsense logic that you haven't been murdered yet, so therefore the crime of murder does not exist. You don't see dog-shit in your flowerbed, therefore dog-shit is not existent in flower-beds globally.
- Why don't you go somewhere else then, some will "ask." You don't like the system, so leave, they will falsely claim about what thoughts are in my head. As if!, as they say. They might not being looking for an answer really, they might just want to slap me verbally. But there is a reason. The reason is because some don't abandon what we love, we improve it further, we build on it, and you have no authority to kick me out. Responsible behavior does not mean abandoning is always the right solution. Parents do not abandon children that spill milk, or use pot, or get a bad grade. Citizens do not abandon countries that have some screwed up policies and some screwed up politicians. They criticize the shit they see, as a necessary part of the progression along a process of improvement. Spare the rod, spoil the child.
- Why don't you do something constructive yourself then, some will "ask." "They haven't seen me do <something>." They might not be looking for answer really; they might just want to slap me verbally. But there is a reason. The reason is because acknowledgement of glitches and sharing them with others to get new perspectives is a necessary part of the progression along a process of improvement. . Do you know what happens when you assume? You might assume I haven't done something. But do you really know, before even asking?
As outlined above, I will therefore feel some desire to preemptively clarify some of my thinking in advance, to try to dispel some negative assumptions and attack forms toward me, which a minority of people may desire to formulate. I will try to tell you what I did not say, so as to prevent the diary from being taken off the track.
Preemptively defending against negative assumptions imputed into another person's thinking can become very long winded.
There are an infinite number of things which one did not say. I could spend my whole life telling you what I did not say. Imputing negative assumptions into other people's heads in front of an audience is an attack form that is very, very popular once you are sensitized to detecting it. The attack form largely works, unfortunately. It's used all the time.
As you might be noticing, you might get turned off by having to read some overhead before you get to the meat of a diary's subject, meat which is deferred by the assumption-dispelling attempts up front, such as this. Diaries become less interesting with up front disclaimers, harder to read, too much noise with the signal. People stop listening. The message is not heard. Overhead is happening right now.
Alas, despite the precautions, I predict I will fail to prevent this diary from going off track from commenters that would invite others to follow them off track.
That a diary will tend to go off track of the topic at the hands of a minority of bad commentors, from time to time, not always, is the subject of this very diary.
Did you see that? I said "not always." I did not say "always." I did not say "more than half of the time." I did not say "a lot." What I did say was "from time to time." Most of you did not really need to hear these repetitious disclaimers about what I just said and did not say, and so the disclaimers are kind of annoying and bulky to the article's total size, bad things both. You are less likely to get to the point of my article, having been annoyed or scared off by bulk.
I feel I understand some of the motivation for retaliation felt by members of a group. Understanding is not the same as acceptance. I did not say I accept it, or encourage it.
You as a reader, maybe most readers and commentors and diary writers, naturally of course feel a degree of belonging and ownership to this group you participate in, called the dkos community.
Unfortunately some, a minority, may also perceive any criticism of the group they belong to, in this case dailykos, as an attack on your group, and thus, this is key, an attack on yourself as well.
When you, any person, perceives an attack on yourself, you may then be motivated to express some retaliation, in this case back onto the diarist, in kind, tit-for-tat, or maybe trying to escalate it in an attempt to "win," meaning personal retailiation increases. Unfortunately, it's in a public forum, where reputations are made, or not. Unfortunately, it's some other diarist's article-space to which they feel some justified right to keep clean and free of dog-shit in the flowergarden.
This article is a constructive criticism of dailykos. Did you see that? I said "constructive." Can criticism really be constructive? Can you believe my integrity when I say I am being constructive?
My intent is to improve a particular aspect of dailykos in a particular way. Mine is a narrow subject as I have defined my diary entry. The subject of this diary is precisely what I define it to be, having expended the intellectual effort to write this diary entry in the first place.
The diarist, every diarist, needs the power to reserve and enforce the right to define the scope of the subject which he initiates.
Today's design aspect of dailykos, where the powers of moderation and governance are no higher in the diarist than in the commentors at the diarist's diary, is not sufficient.
Wayward comments in today's dailykos are derailing diary articles.
Regular-status diarists suffer more of the problem. Those invited to be Front-Page writers and Recommended Diaries writers enjoy the benefit of potentially more attention to moderation by the dailykos central moderator. Practically there is no way for a central moderator or a small group of them to manually attend to and moderate the thousands of new daily dailykos diaries which are submitted every single day by the massive underclass of regular users.
Now, to be clear, mind you that the majority of dailykos users are cooperative and polite. This is mostly true with any group of smart, communicative people. Sure, misunderstandings happen. While misunderstandings are potentially important subjects of discussion, this diary entry is not the place.
So, again, most users usually are cooperative and polite meaning they stay on subject and avoid derailing the diarist's chosen subject.
However, like any group that is large enough, some people still get the urge to make trouble. Not everyone cares to cooperate all the time, fact of life.
Alas, in a "diary" article, like with any creation they come across, a troublesome minority of members sometimes will still go ahead and break the windows of the creation, and shit on the grass, and piss on the foundation in public, metaphorically speaking. It's a shame. Increased policing can ameliorate the problem, which is a good thing, a happy circumstance, just waiting for application.
In fact you yourself are with all mathematical probability, one of the non-troublemakers, a good person. Most of the commentors are not troublesome. Most commentors are helpful, and we need you here. Your comments are a big part of what makes this virtual idea creation engine called dkos great.
Please, please know that much of what criticism I say will not apply to you, good friend. <-- See that? Please remember I said that. I love most commentors. They are great.</p>
However, that there are troublemakers roaming around breaking other people's stuff, might well be demostrated by example in this very diary. Watch the comments in this very diary.
What is trouble-making in a digital forum, as opposed to bricks and mortar? There are unlimited ways to make trouble. I won't talk about all of them, here. Please allow this diary entry to stay focused.
The type of trouble-making that this diary is limited to, is about a minority of commentors that derail discussions which are created sometimes at significant labor cost to the diarist in user "diaries."
OK so now here is where I was going to lay out the central meat of the story, the demonstration of the problem in detail by examples, and the reasoning as to why my solution is a good one. But I won't.
I have run out of time to continue, and you probably have too. I wrote too much protective disclaimer and I ran out of gas. I was going to present detailed evidence of actual destructive comments at one of my own diary entries that I had to so far as to completely withdraw due to some commenter who shit all over it early on, before other readers got to it. He ruined my whole entry irrevocably. Nobody else ever got a chance to read or maybe enjoy any of the ideas I had presented in that diary entry, removing the opportunity of others to form opinions. That's a shame when other people's opportunity to review ideas, is removed from them, by neighborhood vandals.
Thanks for reading.