A hundred or so years ago – in Internet time – only a few Daily Kos diarists posted tip jars to gauge reader sentiment for what they had written. Over time, this more and more became standard practice. Some people have piled up so much mojo via their tip jars that they could buy half a dozen châteaux if only they could figure out how to convert it to hard currency. As in any community, false myths arose. Such as: nobody should post a comment until the diarist posts a tip jar; or, tip jars cannot be "hide rated." Nowadays, the newbie or any other diarist who fails to post a tip jar is likely to get a reminder to do so by the third or fourth commenter. In the case of trolls, those reminders have an undercurrent of dare to them: Our donuts await you.
But smart trolls never post a tip jar. And they never comment. Thus can they defeat the autoban that is an important aspect of community policing.
No more. Starting today, tip jars are automatically added to every diary posted at Daily Kos. Everybody gets one: the newbies, the shy, the forgetful, the trolls.
This should not be taken as the go-ahead for vendetta-minded hyena packs to get rid of diarists whose opinions they don’t like. The rules for hide rating a diary will apply in the same way as for a comment. Hunter described these extensively in his Exegesis for Troll Ratings 18 months ago. You can find a condensed version in the FAQ here.
Let me extrapolate from his guidelines. When you HR someone’s tip jar, what you are saying is that the diary is so disruptive, so inflammatory, so false, so damaging to our community that it isn’t even worth debating but should be deleted from any discussion. Unfortunately, inevitably, we will always be a target for such diaries. They deserve to be HRed. And for exactly that reason, tip jars that receive large numbers of HRs will come under special scrutiny from site administrators. On the other hand, a hide rating should never be used (in a tip jar or a comment) to express disagreement with a poster’s opinion.
A poorly written, ill-argued, tendentious diary may be the product of a troll, or it may simply be an upstanding member of the community having a bad day. When the latter seems to be the case, the best way to deal with the matter is probably a barbed comment or two.
Hide rating a tip jar is not intended to be used against anyone but the most obvious and egregious of trolls. To reiterate, if it's simply a matter of not liking the point of view in a diary, don’t tip or recommend the diarist. Make a comment. Debate. Challenge. Argue. Persuade. If your definition of obvious and egregious is consistently not the definition used by the rest of the community or by site administrators, expect your rating ability to be suspended.
We know that the addition of automatic tip jars will disappoint some Kossacks. Unlike comments, diaries cannot be hidden no matter how many HRs are attached to a tip jar. That is why a number of Kossacks have sought the installation of a "Smite" button. Something with a lightning bolt attached. Just exterminate offending diaries. That’s not going to happen. Adding a nuclear option could escalate what are now occasional outbreaks of ratings abuse into ugly conflagrations.
Imagine what would happen during primary season. Advocates for Candidate Q zap a diary written by a supporter of candidate J. Supporters of J begin zapping all the diaries written by anyone who clicked the Smite button against their favored candidate. Q supporters escalate by zapping all pro-J smiters. Soon the spiteful smiting spills over into other diaries. Retaliation rules. Gangs of the smoted on each side patrol 24/7 until all that remains on the Recommended List are cat diaries. Much as we love our pootie pals, there is no upside to that.