As I'm writing this, I'm bracing myself for a wave of flaming comments, but SOMEBODY has to say something!
Call me a cold, callous bastard. Maybe I'm just overly cynical already at age 23. Maybe if one of these things happened to me, I'd see things differently, but when I come to the Daily Kos, I'm looking to talk about politics and how to push the progressive agenda forward. I'm just getting tired of seeing the same kind of overly-sentimental diary being put on the Rec List every day.
I'm a huge advocate for free speech. You've got one diary per day, and damnit, you can write about whatever the heck you want. I'm sure it's especially cathartic to be able to vent right here in a familiar environment filled with people you know and care about. Somebody had some sort of major life event. Yes, I'm happy for you/sorry for your loss. It's great that the DKos is filled with such supportive people, you're all actually quite great for being there for each other through these times.
Still... why recommend these diaries? I'm foreseeing a future in which half of the diaries on the list are about some kind of personal drama, with real substantive diaries filled with political discourse competing for attention. Go ahead and write and comment in these diaries, but quit recommending them already! Especially when they're all filled with identical comments, day-in and day-out. Yes, congratulations. Yes, our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.
There's hundreds and thousands of people on DKos. We're all going to go through some personal stuff at some point. There's no need to help people draw attention to themselves when it happens. It also gives dishonest people the ability to make crap up just to see themselves on the Rec List. I know you've thought about it.
/rant.
Ugh. Let the flame begin.
UPDATE: Wow, that's a lot of comments. Thanks for your input, everybody. YES, I am relatively new to the community, but I appreciate the people who defended my right to comment on it; and believe it or not, I enjoy disagreement too, because that's what intellectual discourse is all about.
HERE IS THE PROBLEM WITH SENTIMENTAL DIARIES: Unlike diaries like this, where there are people who agree with me and people that strongly disagree, sentimental diaries have nothing objectionable about them. You don't recommend it based on its substantive, political value; nobody objects to a new baby! Everybody is in euphoric mode, so they naturally hit "recommend"! You feel like a dick if you don't recommend a diary in which somebody's parent died. They play to your emotional responses rather than your intellectual ones. It's too hard for political diaries to compete with.
So there, that's my point. Flame on.