Community Spotlight is the new home of the venerable and respected institution of Diary Rescue, brought to you by the volunteer Kossak posse of Rescue Rangers.
We check every diary posted to Daily Kos in search of top-quality writing offered by unknown authors, writing that has slipped by in the ever-rushing torrent of Diaries without gaining enough eyes. We pledge to the Kosmmunity that, if you have the goods, you will be noticed. We hope to encourage new voices as they emerge here, finding themselves. We don't Rescue established writers with a following, nor professional writers who share their work at Daily Kos.
Unlike our previous incarnation in DK3 (RIP), where we presented a daily summary of Rescues, we will be updating our Community Spotlight box throughout the day, as new dairies are posted and we find the hidden gems amongst the muck. All of our previous Rescues can be viewed by clicking "next" in the Community Spotlight box, so be sure to check on what you may have missed as our list refreshes and grows.
What you'll find in Community Spotlight is the best work coming from unknown Kossaks who deserve our support and encouragement for their efforts, continuing SusanG's, our Ranger godmother, who started it all, tradition.
People, I'm getting a lot of emails asking for diary rescue on behalf of self or others. While I don't really mind this (it actually doesn't help your cause much though since I take a look at all diaries regardless), I'm finding I need to make something clear. The purpose of diary rescue is to help overlooked diaries authored by active Kossacks gain readership and comments. The criteria for selection is that the pieces show originality, critical thinking skills, research and are well-written. Obviously, this is subjective and not all will agree with my choices. But hey, I'm trying.
I want to help the writers gain a larger audience and, in turn, to continue to provide the community with original writing. The more people we have coming to the attention of readers here, the more variety of recommended diaries we are going to have. We'll also be nurturing the next generation of political writing talent, whether it's in short humor, research, historical pieces or analysis.
This is not to say if your diary doesn't make it, it was necessarily poorly written, or that the information provided in it was not important. It means, for that given day, there was a whole lot of stuff that piqued my subjective interest and that I wanted to share with the readership.
A lot of the emails I'm getting are about how important a certain issue/campaign/candidate is and that it must be brought to the attention of the community. Fine. I agree. Bring it to the attention of the community in comments on diary rescue, or in any or all of the (at least) three open threads that are posted throughout the day.
from Unitary Moonbat on the 1st Anniversary of Diary Rescue in 2007:
"Making editorial decisions along these lines can be among the most difficult parts of being a Rescue Ranger. I think all of us have encountered times when we wanted to rescue an otherwise-unqualified diary because it happened to be about an issue about which we personally felt needed to be highlighted, or others where we disagreed vehemently with an author's premise or argument but had to admit that the writing was good enough for rescuing. In any event, that's part of why we have editors."
Of course, "good writing" is a subjective judgment, and can come in many venues: fiction, poetry, personal memoir, actual journalism, opinion, even rants, if sufficiently Hunter-esque. We try to make allowance for the vast cultural differences that exist from region to region in America, that not everybody speaks the same language nor comes from the same traditions. Each Ranger makes their own choices, based on our guidelines. We are not a group mind, by any means, and we have pie fightshash things out amongst ourselves at our secret round-up corral, always dedicated to our mission.
The Rescue Rangers' Home Base is the group "Community Spotlight" page, where you can see who the Rescue Rangers are, and where you can see which Rangers (it takes two) have Rescued a particular diary, if you are curious. Here will be listed every Rescue we have made, the permanent record.
We hope you will find value in our offerings. Many well-known names at DKos first came to your attention because we Rescued them. We hope to continue to surprise and delight you.