Remember Poblano? Nate Silver, aka Poblano, posted here before he started his own blog, long before the gig with the New York Times. Poblano became an overnight sensation on the user side of the page because of the exceptional quality of his analysis but as far as I can remember, his work was never picked up on the front page. Nate's new numerical methods of assessing polling information were setting a new standard in political analysis, but Kos didn't promote his writing here. Kos blew it.
Now Kos is blaming the community for following his example by banning someone quickly....because the site lost a huge story. All the eyeballs and credit are going to another site. An editor here could have checked out the Romney videos posted by the autobanned diarist. But neither Kos nor editor did anything until they discovered the videos were posted here first, then buried by the autoban. Whether the diarist was banned or not, Kos always had the power to front page the diaries containing the videos. But, no, he blamed overzealous users for jumping on a new diarist who behaved in an unusual manner. That's pretty rich coming from a guy who has banned long time users for innocently uprating one comment. Kos' quick trigger finger set the example followed by the vigilant trusted users.
Kos continues to blow it. Jed is an excellent political analyst and writer when he takes the time to do it well, but the non-stop political trivia swamps out other talented writers and bigger stories. The collapse of Arctic sea ice this September is as big a story as the collapse of Mitt Romney, but is there any mention of it on the front page. Of course, this is a blog about politics and elections, but what is a bigger political problem than the collapse of stability of the climate of the northern hemisphere?
And where does Kos think California's going to get water when the storm track moves north? There have been 3 major western droughts in the past 10 years. BillaurelMD has explained how wind patterns and sea surface temperatures in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific are triggering western droughts. These patterns last for decades. Western droughts can expand to the midcontinent, affecting food production and food prices. By the time the patterns change, global warming will make the western drought permanent by killing much of the western mountain forests and melting much of the snow. But does Kos even think about the ramifications of the desertification of the west and the great plains? Apparently not, based on the content of the front page.
Remember the Fishgrease boomer diaries on the BP gusher in the Gulf? Rachel noticed, but Kos didn't.
Why oh why hasn't Kos promoted a teacherken education diary to the front page?
In my opinion Kos has been taking regular users for granted for years.
And today he blamed us.
Kos, take responsibility for your actions and for your neglect.
You blew it.