DK4 beta is an amazing site for which all involved should be very pleased.
However, the combined effects of removing our recent list from the DK4 FP and a right to post unlimited diaries can have negative impacts on both our general community and our sub-communities.
Some view our recent diary list as just a list. I held that view when I joined DK 5 years ago. Since then, I've come to view our recent list as our DK public forum or town square that is the base of our community, and our "Grand Central Station" that provides connecting roads to sub-communities. These connections may drown in the flurry of unlimited diaries allowed under DK4.
DK4 has features to promote community projects -- such as group diary capability, private messages, twitter-type followers and the creation of groups. These tools will be the new way to inform kossacks about diary postings, rather than the recent list. These tools could strengthen community and sub-communities if used with a recent list with one-diary daily limit. However, if our recent list is buried in gridlock, then these tools may yield a more cliquish site with decreasing general community interactions.
Historically, public forums were an "open place of assembly" or agora (a "place of gathering" in Greek)
or "meeting place" where people could gather to hear public announcements, discuss politics, bond with their community, learn and debate. The public forum is a place to exchange ideas and stimulate thinking about the social, legal and political issues of the day. People gathered to distribute informational leaflets, solicit signatures for petitions, or share news about their personal lives.
I view our recent list as our DK agora that is the meeting place that links all our sub-communities to join as one general community. This is where we can all meet and interact with each other, and it is the primary mode of inviting anyone from our general community to join us for a chat in our diaries.
I make a lot of trips to DK during a day, and the first place I visit is our recent list. By scrolling down that list, I quickly learn who is visiting DK, what is happening in their lives, what issues are important to them. One of my fav writers, Land of Enchantment, has posted less frequently for a while now. When I scroll down and see she has posted a diary, I smile, happy to see her here. The other day, I saw that actress/political activist Mimi Kennedy posted a diary, and I again smiled, remembering our phone chats prepping for our recent DK Poli GOTV blogathon, and how she said she would continue to blog at DK afterwards.
Even if we don't have time to read diaries, scrolling down the recent list is like strolling down the town square - we learn about what is happening in each others' lives – little moments here and there, but life is made up of shared moments. We learn about the hardship of losing jobs, or the loss of a loved one (both people and pets). We learn and share the little details that bring community to DK – a community that sets us apart from any other online blog.
Community is the heart of DK. People have met and bonded as friends and sometimes lovers. We have our share of fights, but we tend to work through them. Dedication to community and political activism can be seen in how many of us contribute hundreds of hours working on regular series, blogathons, fundraisers, diary rescue (rangers and jotter) ... the list is really endless.
DK4 would be better if our recent list agora remained on the FP because issues of importance are located on the FP, and there is no better way to honor our community than to have us located prominently on the FP. However, should FPs want to relocate our agora to an inside page, it would be disappointing but not the end of agora as long as we nix the new right to post unlimited number of diaries.
When we post a diary now, it shows up on our recent list, and then anyone in the community who is interested can join the discussion. If I post an environmental diary, I will post at DK GreenRoots google to provide notice, and some might join me that first diary-sitting hour, but many drop by scattered throughout the next 24 hours. If I post a diary on politics, law, human rights, or my rare meta, I don’t have an e-mail list. Regardless of diary topic, most of my traffic comes from my posting on the recent list because that is how people find out we have posted.
The problem with unlimited diaries is that it bursts apart all the benefits we now have from our recent list, whether it is placed on the FP as now, or relocated to an inside page on DK4. We lose our agora because there will be too many diaries to browse as the recent list becomes a traffic jam, moving quickly as more and more diaries are posted.
My understanding is that we should not be concerned about unlimited diaries or relocation of the recent list affecting our community because DK4 has a few lists to highlight good quality diaries that otherwise might be missed. There will be a continuation of our Recommended List in its current operation of selection by our community.
DK 4 also has a Community Spotlight, which is the new name for ongoing or live Diary Rescue throughout the day.
And, DK 4 has a Feature Box of diaries selected by FP'ers that "will be like promoting something to the FP."
But how does a diary land on the rec list in DK4? How do people find out that a diary has been posted so that it has a shot of making the recommended list to gather more eyeballs and discussion? The recent list, whether on FP as now, or a FP link to an inside page with DK4, will no longer serve its traditional function of providing notice of diaries because with no limitation on number of diaries posted, the recent list will be a jammed times square on new year's eve. What happens to our stroll through our agora?
DK4 does have a number of features to follow topics and diaries that Susan described when someone asked about the chances of good diaries being seen by our community:
More rescuing, more ways to find different content. Right now, if you come on site at noon, you're only seeing on the Recent Diary list the diaries posted in the last half hour or so (there can be 50 posted in an hour, easily). You'll have more ways to follow topics and diaries written on them since the last time you visited. You can follow favorite writers and see who THEY follow and recommend, so you can find more new writers that way. People will be having their own "pages," i.e., blogs, where they are republishing diaries THEY found to be good, etc. Much more cross-connecting and community curation of good stuff, and more new ways to find it.
So, there is a twitter-like feature on DK4 with followers, and there is also a feature to establish groups, like an environmental group. The features are great, but the problem with relying upon these features to provide notice that you have posted a diary is that you are essentially asking your friends or acquaintances with shared interests to read your diary. The benefit of posting a diary on our FP recent list now is that you are inviting everyone to join, regardless of friendship, acquaintanceship, commonality of interest, or any other factor. Your diary is open to all when it is posted on the FP recent list rather than sending out invitation only notices to specific groups. The benefit to community and diarist is a discussion of the substantive issue from a wide variety of perspectives.
DK4 also has an extensive tagging system to help find diaries on different issues. At the bottom of the FP there are 10 or 12 main tag categories. This is the tag page for Environment, and you can see there is a system of related tags, and there are options to find more lists on different aspects of this tag: Most Recent, Best of Tag, Current Red'd, Prolific Authors, All Time Rec'd, and Recommended Authors.
These new features of tags, "twitter" followers and groups are beneficial tools to organize sub-communities, but I think their real value to our general community lies as tools that complement an agora recent list unimpeded by unlimited diaries. These tools can't replace the public forum benefits of a recent list that enables interactions within our entire community that is also the bridge between our entire community and our various sub-communities.
There are benefits from having unlimited diaries and a recent list not on the frontpage. We should see fewer pie fights from diaries spill out onto the FP and fewer meta storms because people will have to work to find those diaries. That's good news weeding out troll diaries and disruptive diaries, bad news for promoting good diaries.
Under DK4, a recent list expanded with unlimited diary postings will likely nix our key vehicle for connecting with our community. People will need to rely upon DK4 twitter-followers, groups and tags to find the diaries they want to read. Some might create e-mail lists to send out when they post diaries in an effort to try to get people in their comments that first diary-sitting hour. Front-pagers and rescue rangers will be diligently working to find the good diaries on the new avalanche of a recent list. Meanwhile, the diarist is sitting there waiting that first hour for people to find his/her diary. Maybe in an hour or two the diary makes one of the coveted lists of Recommended, Spotlight or Feature, but by then the diarist may be gone, not able to spend 2 or 3 hours sitting their diary. The connections established by the recent list agora are broken and the train has left the station. Not that my opinion counts, but I vote no on unlimited diaries.