Hola, fellow Kossacks.
First time reader or return visitor to the Visual Guide to DK4?
Either way, howdy-do!
You can read PART I here
You can read PART II here
You can read PART III here
Lessons learned from PARTs I & II & III: Daily Kos 4.0 may not be so different and scarifying as it may have seemed at first glance.
Onward, Kossacks, to learn what the new GROUPS can do for you...
So, yesterday we covered how to create a New GROUP, and how to Post a Diary to a GROUP.
There were many images. The comments were full of (surprisingly) non-vitriolic kossacks asking good questions, and some of them even got good answers!
Which brings us to the point where we are going to discover what all is possible with the new GROUP diary blogs...
First of all, the GROUP blogs can be about anything, just like our DK3 'group' or series diaries are. Here are some of the "groups" currently operating on DK3:
Saturday Evening Geek Out (SEGO)
Saturday Night Loser's Club
Indians 101
Marine Life Series
The Rachel Maddow Show
Why are there going to be GROUPs on DK4? What is the reason for them on DK4?
The Daily Kos has evolved over the years, just like any other organism on Earth, to adapt to it's environment.
Here is what the earliest verison of Daily Kos looked like, and Markos' very first posting to Daily Kos. It's so small and plain, isn't it? (that big white space underneath is the big white space that was filled with nothing on that first day. But it didn't last long.):
Here is a diary from two days before the site changed from "Moveable Type" to "Scoop" for a platform. Notice that the comments were in one of the 'floating' windows. These was the same version of 'comments' on most blogs at that point. The original DFA (Dean for America, presidential campaign of 2004) used this platform too, with the 'floating' comments windows:
Two short days later, October 15th of 2003, and that was the end of the "Moveable Type" version of DailyKos.
It was on to the "Scoop" version.
You should read this great diary by taylormattd, from August 29, 2007 - it is a Top Comments diary, but the top end is full of interesting information about the old "pre-scoop" Daily Kos.
You can find a great deal about the history of Daily Kos here, at the dKospedia History section...
So, the comments had moved onto the page and out of those annoying pop-up 'floating windows"... and things got busy in Orange Territory.
Graphic is from dmsilev's diary from Tue Jan 22, 2008
So, as you can see, the site has undergone changes in the past, big changes, and came out the other side stronger, every time.
Which leads me to why dKos 4.0 is so different from dKos 3.0, and what that means for all of you us.
A single blog, even a group blog, is still just a Front Page with other stuff. For nearly eight years, that format has worked well for this community.
But times have changed, and so has this Community and it's needs...
So Markos decided that the time had come to make another change to Orange Territory - and this time, it would be a fundamental change.
As of the rollout of dKos 4.0, the Daily Kos will no longer be a Blog or even a Group Blog - it will be a true Community Portal, with multiple blogs under it's headline banner of "State of the Nation".
[Here is where I make my public appeal to Markos to return the site's original motto, which I believe will be even more appropriate to the new 4.0 version than it was, even in the early days]
political analysis and other daily rants on the State of the Nation
So, what is a GROUP blog, and what can it do for you?
A GROUP blog is just what it sounds like. Instead of a single user posting diaries, it will be a group of users posting diaries, either alone or (here is something new) as co-authors! What? Co-authored diaries? Ok, so how does that work?
Well, remember, from yesterday's Visual Guide to DK4 PART III this image?
When you are a member of a GROUP, at least an Editor, you will be able to go into the Queue, and open a diary that has been written by someone else and edit it, and then put it back in the queue for publishing...
In fact, it appears that any number of Editors may do so, before a diary is finally Published. You just go to List View in your Group (see image above), and click on the title of the diary you want to Edit, and you'll see this. Notice that each time someone edits a diary, they must ALSO, after edits, use the Publication Manager to resubmit the diary to the appropriate queue:
But how will they coordinate those Editing actions?
Ah, now that is where the beauty of the new dKos Messaging will come in (once they get the darned thing fixed, right now, you still can't delete anything, so active Beta Testers are likely to have a boatload of Messages, many of which they can't remember if they read or not... anyhoo, this is what it looks like right now:
Ok. So Groups of users can work as co-authors on a single diary. That is going to be great news for those who work with LIVE BLOG diaries, right? How about all of our great community groups (Sara R's Community Quilts, Bookflurries, Bookchat, Garden Blogging, Saturday Morning Home Repair with claude - and all the rest of them...), what is GROUP going to do for them?
For starters - none of them have to do the work-around of multiple users using a Group UID sign-in... and remember which UID they are signed into the site as, and mistakenly post as that group instead of as themselves (I've seen this happen more than once).
It will make the diaries, and the issues and projects and events that many of them work on easier to manage and plan.
They'll be able to use the dKos Messaging, instead of outside email, and use it in real time, while online Daily Kos. They'll know that someone is trying to reach them, because of this handy new tool that is in DK4. The Header Messaging Link and New Message Notice:
Whether you are on the DK4 Main Homepage
or on your Profile page
or anywhere else on DailyKos.com, you'll see this persistent feature and know if you have "NEW MESSAGES" or not.
Pretty cool. But I must show you this message from kos from yesterday. I do not want anyone to have unrealistic expectations of the new tools upon launch...
Keep in mind
That messaging is very rudimentary right now. One of the first orders of biz after DK4 is stable is to overhaul it. We have some pretty cool ideas of where to take it.
by kos on Mon Feb 07, 2011 at 02:04:48 PM PST
So, it won't work as I'm describing on day one... but soon... and it'll make all of the work done by GROUPS and their users much, much easier to coordinate.
OK. So the new GROUPs are going to be great for those who already are involved in Groups or Group activities.
What else?
Oh, my. I haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet.
Are you one of those people for whom Daily Kos has become your Go to place for things like:
Breaking News Stories
Latest info on ongoing crisis and events worldwide
Upcoming political races and candidates
Well, then GROUPs may not appeal to you...
Unless you are also one of those people who sits at your computer wishing there were some way to involved.
Because with GROUPs comes community activism, on subjects from national to local issues.
How will that work?
I'm hoping that it will work like this...
This is the Profile for my GROUP Citizen Lobbyist-USA:
See the Description?
"National level planning and co-ordination group for Admins of the 50 state-level Citizen Lobbyist groups."
That is how, at least in some version of this frame...
Where there is a site-level group, for the Admins of the 50 State-level groups (Citizen Lobbyist-WA; Citizen Lobbyist-OH, etc...) to coordinate events and issues and projects.
They'll take this information back to those groups for discussion and bring back good community responses on those events and issues --- and it will all work together to create the ability of kossacks to move our ideas and issues off the page and into the real world.
For instance, let's take an event from the Citizen Lobbyist-USA all the way down to Precinct-level action...
- Citizen Lobbyist-USA group diary posts, with a concurrent Message sent to all admins (and their backup Editors) to come and discuss an upcoming event in the diary.
- The event in question is a nation-wide, single day, one-time event. Each Congressional District in the nation is going to send 1 to 20 people to a local office of each member of the US HOUSE, with a copy of a letter from Daily Kos members on the issue at hand.
- The USA-level group will work with the 50 Admins (and they in turn will work with groups at the county/congressional district level) to set a date that will work for all (that will take some planning, let me tell you).
- After all facets of the event have been discussed and all changes or alterations to the original plan have been made, the event takes place.
- After the event, the USA-level group will have a 'post-action" diary to discuss what worked and what did not work, so as to learn from their own mistakes.
Under this organization style, no one person is stuck with all of the work - or all of the decisions, either. It turns an event into a community effort.
Good ideas will percolate up and be heard, and be responded to.
I believe that this type of action is the real reason Markos has decided to change the fundamental structure of this site.
I hope that enough of you will think so, too, and choose to join one of the Citizen Lobbyist groups (either the USA Admin level or one of the sub-groups, in your own state).
The 2012 election cycle is already underway.
If we, as a community, want to help work to save the progress made during the past few years, we'll need to start soon to fend off the coming wave of TbagR candidates and their off-kilter philosophies of what America should look like and how it should behave.
Change is coming - are you ready for it?
I invite anyone who is interested in my Citizen Lobbyist GROUP, at any level, to post a comment and indicate which level of participation you are interested in (admin or editor and which level state/Congressional District/local).
To quote from my all-time favorite political blog post, and it's author, the late Steve Gilliard:
"It is time to stop looking for an accomodation with the right. They want none for us. They want to win, at any price. So, you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?"
You can read the post that quote is from HERE. Go read it. It will warm your blood and get your dander up!
Tomorrow, in PART V, I'll address TAGs. I know, I know, you can't wait for tomorrow!
See ya then...