In the beginning, Daily Kos was an ordinary Movable Type blog: stories initially written by Markos—with guest bloggers joining in after seven months at the beginning of 2003—and comments attached to each story, popping up when clicked on. Comments were signed, or not, depending on the whim of the person posting. Trolls sullied the comments with a fair amount of impunity. The more popular Daily Kos got, the more the web site creaked, and the more cracks appeared.
The decision was made in spring 2003 to move to a more robust platform because Movable Type just couldn't handle the load; by June, Scoop was selected. Movable Type should have been retired within a month or two—HaloScan comments had to be substituted for the native Movable Type comments because the load was too great—but it wasn't until mid-October 2003 that Daily Kos moved off the Movable Type platform to a new, Scoop site, and the material on Movable Type was archived. There are nearly 17 months of great writing in that archive; you can find it if you look. And you don't have to look as hard as you used to, as you'll see if you jump now.
The Daily Kos site using Movable Type was retired five years ago today; the final post announcing This site is closed was posted at 9:26am eastern time on the morning of October 15, 2003. The closing message in that actually says October 15, 2004, but that date is a typo, as you can see from this Wayback Machine snapshot of the old site from October 16, 2003.) It was actually a Wednesday, too: five years ago, also a Wednesday, October 15.
Normally, I'd be writing an article dealing with the highlights of those first 15+ months, the excellent articles and comments...but there's a debate on, and I can't concentrate on both. I'm not even sure I've written four coherent paragraphs here. Instead, I'll point you to two earlier top comments articles: Top Comments: The Road to Scoop Edition, about moving from Movable Type to Scoop, and Top Comments: Scooping Daily Kos Edition, which finishes the tale of that move. You can also go to the dKosopedia's Daily Kos History page for information and pointers to dKosopedia articles and Daily Kos diaries. There are also links to the various guest bloggers from that year in the timeline on that page. If you do so right now, you can read them and listen to the debate and go through what I'm going through as I type this. Or you can read it later and avoid distraction and confusion.
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Many of you told me about excellent comments spotted on Daily Kos by sending them to me here at Top Comments. Thank you all! (I notice none of you did so during the debate: I know what you were up against.) The address of our mailbox for top comments submissions, if you see more tonight or tomorrow or in the weeks and months ahead:
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.
Casual Wednesday submitted this nomination:
I want to nominate Mr SeeMore's brief comment on Bill O'Reilly that was attached to cc99999's diary The Spin Zone: O'Reilly's Electoral Map. The image of BillO claiming that McCain won the election with a blue America map behind him had me rolling with laughter. Well, let me rephrase, an Obama landslide map. I think I remember Fox using red for Dems and blue for GOP in 2004.
From Man in the Middle:
I liked dweb8231's double analogy in StuHunter's GOP Rats Deserting the USS McCain in Titanic Proportions even thought the metaphors got thoroughly mixed.
bubbanomics sent:
In response to a newly-registered troll, Luthien Tinuviel reveals the answer to an age-old mystery.
From LaughingPlanet (with a sardonyx write-up):
In david mizner's diary "I'm Voting for Obama Even Though He's a Terrorist", Sun dog is also still voting for Obama.
Dump Terry McAuliffe wrote:
gloryous1 had the best commentary (with photo) on how bad the stock market has gotten.
From St Louis Woman:
Oh my God. An (almost) serious discussion about campaign leaks became hilarious when Jaime Frontero and Jyrinx jumped in. Funny, funny, funny.
Blue Waters Run Deep sent:
While perusing the recent diaries, waiting for the debate and the "Who Won the Debate" polls, I found this GEM by dawnt, Sign Thieves Caught Red-Handed Stealing Obama Signs, which shows how to turn the Rs evil deeds around and MAKE MORE MONEY FOR OBAMA! Snud's great idea is TRULY a LOL Great Idea for the Day! [Note from editor: diarist dawnt also nominated Snud's comment, and added it to her diary.]
From sardonyx (me):
First pvlb feels sorry...but later has reason to be thankful.
Pandoras Box displays this lovely picture, unfortunately never realizing that vacantlook would find evidentiary proof. Alas. ( ;-) )
ksh01 points out a certain resemblance between David Frum and another character, then downthread posts a denial from said character of any blood relationship.
fearisthemindkiller wants to hear this exchange in tonight's debate; if it is, I count up $1K in legal donations, and an illegal $2K one. (I rather doubt this money will exchange hands.)
Finally, we present today's top mojo—those comments which have received the highest number of recommendations from Daily Kos users—as supplied by your humble diarist using his own revision of the amazing cskendrick's mojo-to-Excel magic.
First, Top Mojo excluding search-identifiable tip jars, first diary comments, and Cheers and Jeers:
1) They can stop inciting it though! by fedupcitizen — 234
2) Obama, the Zen Master, by GOTV — 209
3) And don't miss the Greenwald link by Jabelson — 187
4) The comment on Morning Joe by Granny Doc — 166
5) Dang, is Rachel Maddow by pikkel — 162
6) What a list, StuHunter! by doorguy — 150
7) hakuna frittata! by D Wreck — 119
8) Work 4 It! by StuHunter — 109
9) so sad and disturbing by MadAsHellMaddie — 108
10) I watched it in disbelief and by the end I had by psilocynic — 108
11) David Who? by Hedwig — 107
12) Still, rec this up by xsonogall — 100
13) asdf by fhamme — 97
14) Well... they ain't too bright: by Snud — 96
15) So it's the bottom 10 percenters by Crabby Abbey — 95
16) I noticed... by Big Blue — 94
17) Are you kidding? by mellowinman — 90
18) They really said that? by Muzikal203 — 84
19) Couldn't have said it better David. by Ex Real Republican — 82
20) The next 8 years are going to be hard on that by Yoshimi — 82
21) I wish I could rec this diary 1000 times. by psilocynic — 81
22) why don't we use the appropriate vid... :) by Statusquomustgo — 79
23) My husband is a Republican refugee. by voracious — 73
24) He didn't create racism by writerswrite — 72
25) Bigots are Everywhere by Mr X — 71
26) Thank you for posting this. I can't wait to read by awcomeon — 70
27) Disney is so going to sue your ass. by JeffLieber — 69
28) Thanks kos, and thanks to the community by Jed L — 69
29) I loved how she said something like by MadAsHellMaddie — 69
30) John Cole posted this hilarious segment by DelRPCV — 67
31) I was on the edge of my seat throughout. by pikkel — 67
Top Mojo with No Exclusions:
1) Tips by Keith Olbermann — 952
2) Tips For Obama by StuHunter — 925
3) Tips for someone else's great comment? by Olon — 833
4) tip jar by okayokayokay — 631
5) Tip jar... by Big Blue — 607
6) tips by thereisnospoon — 540
7) Tips by david mizner — 456
8) tips by hekebolos — 436
9) tj n/t by Kula2316 — 408
10) Tip Jar by ihumanable — 388
11) More faces of the Great Depression by David Kroning — 368
12) This is an adaptation of something I wrote... by JeffLieber — 356
13) Welcome! by noweasels — 235
14) They can stop inciting it though! by fedupcitizen — 234
15) Yikes by Rockpopple — 226
16) Obama, the Zen Master, by GOTV — 209
17) And don't miss the Greenwald link by Jabelson — 187
18) The comment on Morning Joe by Granny Doc — 166
19) Dang, is Rachel Maddow by pikkel — 162
20) What a list, StuHunter! by doorguy — 150
21) Nice by sgilman — 140
22) delete by fhamme — 133
23) hakuna frittata! by D Wreck — 119
24) Sorry. Tip Jar by TFistJabr — 119
25) Today's ,,,ty by lamzdotes — 113
26) Work 4 It! by StuHunter — 109
27) so sad and disturbing by MadAsHellMaddie — 108
28) I watched it in disbelief and by the end I had by psilocynic — 108
29) David Who? by Hedwig — 107
30) Still, rec this up by xsonogall — 100
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