It's Primary Season.
Actually, it's Republican Primary Season because we aren't having one, yet voices in the sky are complaining about Pie, Flame Wars, Meta.
Well there is simple answer.
It's below the squiggle.
We are all Liberals, well mostly, there is the odd troll who pops in to provide some amusement, yet we rarely seem to be on the same page.
Obama The Great, or Obama the Great Sell-Out. It depends upon your point of view but whichever side of the argument you fall, you are not "backwards in coming forwards" to express a view.
Israel deserve a secure homeland, and so do the Palestinians. It's a no-brainer but you would think that each side of the divide is ready to bomb the other .... even here.
It gets a bit tiresome, quite frankly, and those are but two examples.
Those Diaries, and some of the Diarists are designed to do little other than show one side of each argument, in the sure and certain knowledge that the other side will rush headlong into the breach.
Why folk do this is beyond me, but I do know how much it irritates everyone else, because they write Diaries saying so. Then people rush in to fling Key Lime or Normandy Apple with barely disguised glee.
Primary season is going to turn into Election Campaigning, and what is the prospect for the Rec List then? huh?
Do you want the most visited part of the site to be where you go for solid information and expert analysis, or do you want it to really be it's nickname, The Wreck List?
The answer to the "Problem Child" List is really simple:
Write better Diaries
I am currently boycotting the word "Posts", but I'll probably bow down eventually.
If you don't like the Diaries on the Rec. List, then write something that will fill a slot with writing you prefer. We could have a new slogan:
"More and Better Diaries"
It's a medium term project but those folk who are here for less than stellar reasons, and who have polarised sections of our community can be replaced. Write Diaries, good Diaries .... thoughtful and well-researched and they will be Recommended.
What is more, they will help you build a following of others who like what you have to say, and want it in their streams. Gradually you will supplant Diaries that play to the ever growing peanut galleries with your words, your names.
Nothing is forever. The current list of Rec List regulars is not the list it once was. People change, move on, move around and they do that a damned sight faster if they are starved of exposure.
Starve them with prose. Suffocate those Diaries with positive messaging and don't suffer fools in your comment threads either. Make your points and move on. No one can fight if they have no opponents.
This is still a new medium and many of us are still learning how to, and how not to use it. Comments that suggest that the Great Orange Satan is past it's sell-by date are simply comments looking for a reaction. If they are persued to their logical conclusion then we simply vote to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
It can be done. It is possible to take the most contentions subjects around, stick that Diary on the Recommended Diary List and enjoy comment threads that run to hundreds of comments, yet do not attract the negativity, and serve to educate some and support others. It only takes twelve people to do that and the users who prefer to engage in the negativity have nowhere to go.
This Blog is not going to become Huffington Post. In that place, despite the talent they employ, the negatives are contained by strict moderation. Because the site is not going down that route then if you want rid of that which you dislike there really is only one way to do it. Replace it with writing you do like. That means we need more Diaries, and we need them to be better. Markos' approach doesn't sit well with everyone. Broadly he eschews moderation. I think it's a high risk strategy but one that may have an extremely beneficial side if he can make it work.
Because the site doesn't moderate what we do, we have to do it ourselves, and if we do it by drowning out the noise with better writing, the payoff will be enormous. We will have a Blog that is positive, active and inviting to those who seek honest interpretation and analysis. There isn't another medium or website that currently offers that, so why don't we strive to be the first, and be the best?
That is what we are trying to do, surely, and it can be done, you just have to write well.
Some will disagree with some or all of this. That's just fine by me. When you do so you might want to acknowledge that a problem does exist in the eyes of many, and offer your own alternate solutions.
Some will think that it's okay to fight with each other. After all, politics is a rough business and the "knock down drag out" is simply par for the course. That would be fine were it not the same folk doing the fighting, making the same points to the same opponents. All that achieves is nothing. By all means continue, I don't mind but others do, so you might want to take it to firedoglake or somewhere. I'm confident Jane wouldn't mind.