I think I said most what I wanted to say about how I value this site in a comment yesterday:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The problem we face is a problem that all modern new media interactions face: how to make our own rules, how not to need authority to make moral judgements, to condemn others when we should know better ourselves.
Of all the internet forums I've ever experienced in nearly 20 years, DKos is the closest to perfect, and then descends into total mind fuck. It's like that line from Sartre's Huis Clos: "Hell is other people." But let's not forget Milton's version of Inferno, which was set within site of Paradise to make it more hellish. Hell is other people, only because heaven is also other people
Many of the biggest problems over the last two years have been
fake identities: people purporting to be poor and black, or young and gay, and gaming the a liberal community on key issues of identity. This has caused endless dissent among several key communities, and led to a dysfunctional breakdown in communication.
I think it's no coincidence that these false identities, zombies and sockpuppets come to the fore during a key part of the election cycle. Whether it's disturbed individuals using politics to gain attention, or political operatives using disturbing personal stories to sow dissension, doesn't matter in the end. Intentions can be unfathomable. What matters is putting an end to the cycle soon.
My humble suggestion is prompted by Kysen's comment about the recent debacle, reiterated by Meteor Blades:
Trust but verify
After many trolls, legal cases and flame outs Twitter have developed an effective system of
verified identities. Indeed, DKos was in advance of this when frontpagers started using their real names several years ago. Others, like myself, or Deoliver had identities that were easily traced through their profiles. But many people prefer, for work or personal reasons, to have their identity hidden from the community.
It is because of the latter that sock puppets and Operation Chaos trolls thrive. They swim in the sea of anonymity
My suggestion is that, for the next incarnation of DKos trusted users should have to provide some kind of proof identity to the admins. They would still keep their anonymous handles, but the admins would know these are real people (just as they already know much more through storing IP addresses).
For those who prefer not to give any information to the admins, they get normal user status. That means they can't see hiddens, but apparently a majority of users here aren't trusted users anyway. Kos has said he plans to do away with mojo, so there must be some other way of achieving TU status.
Now I can foresee several objections to this: the biggest would probably be the administrative time taken to verify TUs. I have no idea how Twitter does it, but I do notice that new users, even with low followings, are getting the big blue tick.
The other problem is that even the big blue twitter tick on Twitter occasionally gets gamed (the famous fake Wendi Deng scenario at the beginning of the year is one) and there's no absolute way to have a failsafe system. However, I think the beginnings of this would deter many trolls, and it would also tamp down the flame wars: people tend to tamp down their language if they are identifiable
Anonymity+Internet+Audience=Dickwad
Anyone who doesn't like providing info to admins can still post, they just won't be able to hide other people's comments. Anyone who wants TU status an still remain anonymous.
Thoughts? Flames? Bouquets? Brick Bats?
But before I close (and I'll be gone for a few hours) let me just add
DKos is one of the most successful and advanced online communities in the world. It's been doing things for years main stream sites are only beginning to do now. And yet we're being gamed, and led to a point of mutual distrust by ingenious ratfuckers. It's a tribute to the importance of this site that it's happening. But it will also be a great credit to the community if we can solve it.