I've read a lot of horrid, abysmal things pertaining to the tragic loss of Mr. Russert over the weekend. Some of which, I could not believe was surrounded by the familiar orange glow that abounds on my favorite web page.
For whatever reason, some folks seemed to go completely off their rockers in their placement of nouns, verbs and adjectives in their respective form boxes. Worse, they decided that the appropriate thing to do was to hit the submit button, reflecting a blatant disregard for the overall health, moral, and reputation of this community.
But....
In all of the nastiness and cruelty that some folks flung around over the past few days, a more powerful event began to take hold: Members of this community new and old stepped up to counter the nastiness, in effect, purging the tide of disrespect and revealing the nature of people who one may have wondered about.
The way this place is set up is brilliant. A huge weight is placed on self-moderation, meaning that overall, the garbage is filtered out by you and not by a tiny group of shift-working moderators.
Yes, there are abuses. Yes, things get hidden that shouldn't be. However, these problems from my experience are microscopic in comparison to the just moderation of comments (and diaries) because of your ability to reverse the decisions made; and as a result, even the moderation is moderated, ensuring a highly effective, incredibly sound flow of ideas. Therefore, something inappropriately hidden almost always finds itself unhidden, often after thoughtful debate to boot.
This place's greatness is highly dependent on you. Vastly overall, you have done an excellent job at separating the good from the junk, and I, for one am grateful. From my experience here, Kos doesn't like to step in, which I think is good; however, he does step in when necessary. I like to think that he waits to see if things work themselves out through the members; but I don't know if that's true.
99.9% of you are what makes this place what it is. For that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is your care for the life and breath of this forum that makes Daily Kos the envy of political blogging. I'm here because you're here. If you weren't, I'd probably still be playing Shockwave golf, blissfully unaware of my duty to stand up and fight for my beliefs.
I do admit that a smite button would be nice!
:)
;::::