Markos Moulitsas Zúniga formally opened Daily Kos for business six years ago today, and in so doing, changed the world.
His goals were not quite that lofty, perhaps, as he penned his first post, Day 1, on May 26, 2002:
I am progressive. I am liberal. I make no apologies. I believe government has an obligation to create an even playing field for all of this country's citizens and immigrants alike. I am not a socialist. I do not seek enforced equality. However, there has to be equality of opportunity, and the private sector, left to its own devices, will never achieve this goal.
Equality of opportunity was an excellent starting point, however, and the goals would grow to encompass the change needed to bring this about, and to elect those Democratic politicians who would dedicate themselves to bringing it about. There have been many successes along the way, and not a few failures. But the fight for opportunity, for transparency, for truth, for the constitution and the law, continues.
Happy Birthday, Daily Kos. We're celebrating all six world-changing years, over the flip.
First, you owe it to yourself to stop by kos's Happy Birthday Daily Kos! to pass along your own birthday wishes and read some others. There may be some cake left, and I just spotted some fireworks.
You'll also want to read about how Daily Kos came to be from the typing fingers of Markos himself, two years and change after the founding, wrote A brief history on August 5, 2004. Among the many fascinating paragraphs: the secret of his blogging success.
If you don't want to wait two years, how about two weeks? We have descriptions of and links to the first two weeks of Daily Kos posts—late May and early June, 2002—in Top Comments: Markos Unleashed Edition. (Yes, it lists the first post ever, the same one as used at the start of this diary. It's historical, okay?)
But those dozens ten two or three of you who have been following along for the past six months will want some new historical nuggets, so here are a few more from the first year or so:
At the beginning, no one knew who Kos was, except perhaps for some close-mouthed friends and family. He was completely pseudonymous, signing his comments "Kos".
Daily Kos first started out under the fishyshark.com web domain, a domain Markos had set up for his own personal site. It wasn't until June 28 that he posted Changing URLs announcing the new (and permanent) www.dailykos.com domain, having just moved the site there. The fishyshark.com domain forwarded for almost four months, but by October 23 he had set up that personal site, with a note directing behind-the-times users to use the www.dailykos.com URL to read the Daily Kos website.
Reconstituting fishyshark.com led almost immediately to the revelation of the meaning of Kos: the November 1 Open Thread told the world that Kos's name was Markos, since friends had used the full name in the comments on fishyshark. Markos what? Sorry. As he put it:
Don't bother googling my name, you won't find anything. That name is too common and I'm just not that important.
As Armando would eventually say: Heh.
Fewer than five months later, Markos revealed his full name to Forbes Magazine when Daily Kos was named the top 'war blog' by Forbes.com, so he couldn't keep it in the dark any longer...but he did make us go to Forbes.com on March 20, 2003 to find out.
Remember that November 1 Open Thread I mentioned, the one where we discovered Kos was Markos? That was only the sixth ever open thread on Daily Kos. The first one, inspired by MyDD, was posted as an experiment on October 27, and made a regular feature the next day. The idea was to take all the off-topic comments being made in other posts and give them a place where they belonged.
Eventually, some Open Threads specialized. Around the time the invasion of Iraq took place, there were Iraq War and non-Iraq-War open threads, and as the 2004 presidential race started heating up in the second half of 2003, there would be split threads between presidential candidates and everything but them. On October 6, a week before the site switched from Movable Type to Scoop, the Democratic presidential candidates open thread garnered 322 comments; the everything else open thread had 97. The next day, there was even a special open thread for the California recall election.
Daily Kos didn't receive very many comments at the beginning. The first post to achieve double digits was on August 8: Not your father's Gulf War received 12 comments, and the next post to receive that many was a baseball strike settlement diary on August 30. Kos's birthday post (September 11) had 16 comments, and the first to exceed 20 comments was September 30th's NJ Dems have GOP boxed in with 27 comments, including first-day offerings from future front-pagers Steve Soto and Steve Gilliard, and comments by Charles Kuffner, Hesiod, Nathan Newman, and Paleo. (The diary says 35 comments, but it includes 9 copies of a comment by HMyers, so I'm subtracting eight due to duplication.)
Markos sometimes cleaned out comments not relevant to the post, as he notes in this comment thread on September 19, 2002. This leads to an interesting point about the comment archives: the number of comments listed as connected to a post may not reflect the number of comments originally written and published. Some comments will have been deleted by the admins due to being off-topic, spam, or trolling, and the comments total may or may not have been adjusted after such deletions. Most of the posts in the first three to four months will claim one or two more comments than are displayed when you actually click on the link.
Comment growth was rapid in October and November. Senator Paul Wellstone's death in a plane crash on October 25 garnered 69 comments; Your election predictions on November 1 received an even 100. This new record fell four days later on election day, first to Open Thread (136), then Congrats to Republicans (144), and the morning after's Some more early (and scattered) thoughts (179). New commenters billmon and DavidNYC first appeared in a less prolific November 5 post, Early numbers. The 2002 elections were now history, and our side didn't do very well.
Commenting flourished, and over the course of 2003 Markos picked seven people to act as guest bloggers with him, helping set up the first three—Billmon, Steve Soto, and Steve Gilliard—with their own blogs. The wellspring of talent never seemed to diminish; indeed, with the introduction of Diaries as part of the Daily Kos transition to Scoop software in mid-October of that year, the wealth of good writing—both comments and articles—grew faster than ever.
So where does the world changing come in? On many levels, it seems to me. Start at the simplest: people here at Daily Kos are changed by being at the site. They spend their time differently, they attain greater knowledge of politics, they donate to candidates they likely wouldn't otherwise have heard of, they support causes and call politicians, they canvas and phonebank. They find likeminded people, friends and communities, support and encouragement, tears and laughter.
We can help alter the course of political events: a goodly amount of seed money can get a campaign off the ground, energize a candidate, get notice from Democratic leaders. We might have a modest impact on a particular race, but that might make the difference between a tiny loss and a narrow victory: one of dozens of actions that together have a decisive effect on the outcome. That victory may produce the winning vote on an important bill; the loss, without us, an unbroken filibuster. The number of congressional seats in play in 2006 when the Democratic wave broke is one testament to this strategy's success.
The 165,000th Daily Kos account was given out today to a user named RightReason. With few exceptions, we're all here for the right reason: to make the world a better place, and to do so—in large part—by electing more and better Democrats. We have seen the Republicans change the world for the worse in the new century. This web site, and the writers and readers of it, are doing our part to make sure Republicans can do no more harm, and to push the Democrats into doing the right thing for us and for our world and country.
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We're making more history every day here at Daily Kos, and celebrating the immediate past by highlighting top comments from the past 24 hours, as emailed to the TopComments mailbox, and found by your diarist du jour. Thanks to all Kossacks who took the time to mail in comments. If you saw any great comments that are not mentioned here—and there were about twenty-five thousand comments to choose from—please link to them in your own comments below. The address of that mailbox:
TopComments AT gmail DOT com
(change " AT " to "@" and " DOT " to ".")
Anyone can submit deserving comments to our address—the direct link to a comment is available from that comment's date/time—as long as they arrive by 9:30pm Eastern Time. Please always include your Daily Kos user name in the body of your message, so we can credit you properly. Both link and username are important.
iampunha submitted the following nomination:
cn4st4datrees' comment here is brucking filliant. [Editor's note: the diary itself, by iampunha, is gretty pamn dood too.]
From BeninSC:
To light a candle ... such power it brings! I am nominating this comment from serrano for many reasons, some of which I explained in a comment below that one. Please read this comment, and if you have felt discouraged from making a more active contribution, in diaries and/or comments, or in the campaigns of your chosen candidates, take heart in Louise's fine spirit. Light your candle, and return to us, to yourself, to a world of hope and optimism and power. You are needed far more than you may suspect. WE need you. And you need yourself, too, in a state of power and light.
Sent by ScottyUrb:
Ivey476 offers up a joke fit for the times.
From noddem:
From The Red Pen's snarktastic diary, KibbutzAmiad and spookthesunset on Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
From the same diary, bmaples sums up nicely the addiction we all have to the Great Orange Mess.
MeToo sent this nomination:
From Brandon Friedman's excellent diary on the debate for a GI Bill which includes college benefits, where he writes
On Memorial Day weekend, Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) and VA Secretary James Peake stood side-by-side in Fairbanks, Alaska to showcase their opposition to--and lack of respect for--today’s newest veterans.
Dustbowl Observer comments on PTSD and Politics over Science.
From your diarist sardonyx:
In MaccaJ's diary Kindergarten teacher has class vote disabled boy out, ggwoman55 has an excellent comment that ends, simply,
It's hard being different when you are just a little guy or girl and want to be the same as anyone else.
Thor Heyerdahl writes a memorial comment to Daily Kos posters gone to the great beyond in kos's Happy Birthday Daily Kos! He later turns it into a diary, which you can find here.
From JeffLieber's excellent diary "Schvartze", Dallasdoc writes The country is changing, generation by generation, to which I (sardonyx) say thank goodness!
No Top Comments diary would be complete without that day's top mojo—those comments which have received the highest number of recommendations from Daily Kos users like you. Today's top mojo is supplied by sardonyx, using his own revision of the amazing cskendrick's mojo-to-Excel magic.
First, Top Mojo excluding search-identifiable tip jars and first diary comments:
1) That teacher needs to be fired. by LJW — 227
2) station wagon by Carnacki — 173
3) It's starting to get out there a little by turneresq — 162
4) Does Ffranco realize... by sistermoon — 141
5) as a conservative republican by Schwa SF — 136
6) I work in public schools, by Leap Year — 120
7) Strongly disagree... by 4thepeople — 118
8) Seriously. by Lava20 — 108
9) I have Aspergers by Matt Z — 102
10) They should say no by IhateBush — 99
11) Peace and love to Station Wagon by Dallasdoc — 99
12) The supers are supposed to be party LEADERS by newyorknewyork — 95
13) matt n nyc, 8/4/07 Heartbreaking by begone — 95
14) Sen. Ted Stevens would build a bridge to nowhere by jhutson — 94
15) Moran! That NEVER fails to crack me up! by Nonie3234 — 89
16) It is called bullying. by Donner — 84
17) Thanks! by jcnossiter — 84
18) In memory of by monkeybiz — 81
19) Well, at least he's honest about his by kovie — 79
20) Bill's come undone by WahooMatt — 79
21) From a Fellow Clinton supporter... by LiberalVirginian — 78
22) She has a lot of support among by nicweb — 77
23) I am an academic by Heart of the Rockies — 75
24) Well, I'll be optimistic by Sean O — 75
25) beagleandtabby by cosmic debris — 75
26) No, now wait ... by bmaples — 75
27) Krugman's coming around ... by Bronxist — 72
28) Papachach's wife by Mber — 72
29) She's probably a Conservative Republican... by Frank Costello — 71
30) no biggie! by jenontheshore — 70
31) I agree... by Donna in Rome — 70
Top Mojo with No Exclusions:
1) Tip Jar.... by Palamedes — 600
2) Tips ... by bmaples — 549
3) "I read it so you don't have to" tips? by The Red Pen — 402
4) Tip jar by Brandon Friedman — 292
5) Tip Jar - Remembrance by Thor Heyerdahl — 290
6) despicable by danger durden — 276
7) Tip jar... by stefanielaine — 276
8) Mojo for Peter Menzel, a remarkable photograher by Asinus Asinum Fricat — 247
9) On a long weekend, Monday... by JeffLieber — 243
10) That teacher needs to be fired. by LJW — 227
11) I'm serious by kid oakland — 221
12) Tip Jar by Avenging Angel — 195
13) station wagon by Carnacki — 173
14) It's starting to get out there a little by turneresq — 163
15) <Applause> n/t by sockpuppet — 154
16) Does Ffranco realize... by sistermoon — 142
17) Tip Jar by jpmassar — 141
18) as a conservative republican by Schwa SF — 136
19) I work in public schools, by Leap Year — 120
20) Strongly disagree... by 4thepeople — 118
21) This is Crap Reasoning... by Larry Madill — 118
22) In memory of by monkeybiz — 111
23) Seriously. by Lava20 — 108
24) hell. fuck. no! by Webslinger — 107
25) a moment of silence and reflection by clammyc — 106
26) I have Aspergers by Matt Z — 102
27) They should say no by IhateBush — 99
28) Peace and love to Station Wagon by Dallasdoc — 99
29) The supers are supposed to be party LEADERS by newyorknewyork — 95
30) matt n nyc, 8/4/07 Heartbreaking by begone — 95
© sardonyx; all rights reserved
All quotes are the property of the original authors or the websites that held them