I've been tempted to write a meta diary for some time now. I've resisted since the urge generally comes on when someone responds to one of my comments without having read all of it, or having misinterpreted it, and I figure it might be my fault somehow. But tonight we've had these two diaries posted by fazel. The first one got 18 recommends, and it wasn't until the second post that it seems we caught on. More musings below the great orange widget.
Okay. diary 1 had an image that's the type of thing that gets emailed around by people who think every email message needs to be forwarded. Obama is standing on the Constitution, Clinton and FDR are applauding, and everyone else (lots of presidents and other important people are standing around looking concerned. Nobody recognized the little guy stooping to gather up the pages as James Madison, but that's okay. The Constitution trampling is an ancient American trope, first used to vilify Andrew Jackson by his opposition, and used against other presidents like Andrew Johnson too. I guess that looked like a game (Where's Waldo, I suppose), which explains why the commenters were so nice.
Then, there was diary 2, which many of the commenters recognized as a right wing litany. I found it odd immediately that there was no tip jar. I guess the poster didn't want to risk it getting hate-rated, and, in fact, the first comment suggested it was liberal purity trolling. No recommendations for this one. We're very good when the fourth posting gets the intention of a diary correct. The next 34 comments deconstruct the right wing piece, and I have to admit I contributed to this too. We're very polite here, unless it's something about Ron Paul, but then those you can recognize right off.
However, when a diary was posted Wednesday night about an anti-gay letter signed by 30 American religious "leaders" with a list of the major denominations and their members, the denominations with signers in bold, it got TWO hate ratings, because people couldn't understand -- and didn't ask about -- the list, one, I think, because his/her denomination was listed, not in bold, and said denomination was NOT homophobic. I don't get it.
Do I have any recommendations? Read critically. Do NOT feel that if you've read a diary you have to comment on it. Think before you post a comment that insults the diarist, or the commenter you're replying to -- do you really want to hear from the diarist or the commenter? Because in most cases you will.