For the last year, Daily Kos has been working hard to improve an already powerful tool for activists and bloggers, even supporting an effort to take the Daily Kos experience offline with the new “Connect! Unite! Act!” team. The upcoming version (DK5) is being designed to make publishing your writing even easier. Soon anybody with a story to tell or breaking news to share will be able to post a diary more easily. All these new improvements will likely tempt more Democrats and activists to signup.
I know Mr. kos wants to
attract new users to the site, but really, how many more do we need? It seems like everyday somebody new is signing up and posting a diary or comment. Take
BlueDuPage as an example. BlueDuPage signed up just over a week ago and has already
posted 6 diaries. Sure they are well written and the community loved them, but these newbies seem to be breeding like feral cats, and just like kittens, they are annoyingly eager and curious. Can we get these new users fixed?
And all the questions are overwhelming. GirlSwimmingInASeaofRed is swimming in a sea of questions with her diary, “New girl and I have questions about questionable ads that I get here?” I refused to read the diary; I’m not the Shell Answer Man. Who is going to answer all these questions?
As the official Daily Kos plumber I spend most of my time down in the basement keeping an eye on the maze of intertubes and I can tell you, they can’t take much more. It doesn’t help when you have the likes of Charles Gaba (
aka Brainwarp or wrap or whatever) with all his counting of stuff;
soon everybody wanted to come see his numbers. Do we really want all this attention?
Things really get ugly in the afternoons with the sudden
influx of cat pictures; it can take hours to break the clog caused by the hairballs. Recently a bleeding-heart named
Susan from 29 was caught teaching others how to embed photos into comments, she even had screen captures explaining it so clearly
now anybody will be able to post photos. Is this really behavior we should be promoting?
New user InFlagrante was caught in the act while trying to spread Fox News spam with the diary, “Why a lot of Fox is good for us.” At least that is what I got from the title. Many people seemed to be taken in by this tricky newbie, but you’re not going to catch me watching Fox News. Can we really trust all these new users?
Now, thanks to kos’s new “same day signup” policy, any old wildlife biologist can just blow in here and start
infusing reality into the Bundy Bunch surreality show. I didn’t read the newbie’s entire diary, all the talk of endangered tortoises and regulations were just too boring compared to freedumb and tyranny. Should we allow “experts in the field” like
Blue Tortoise to just signup and write a diary anytime they want?
Speaking of knowledgeable newbies, now we even have users with firsthand knowledge of Nigerian issues. I’m sure
AfrikanManikan means well, but is there any room left for more thoughtful and intelligent comments?
Well, according to the Top Comment crew, I guess so. Do they realize they give credibility to the newbies when they include comments like 1988HawksFan’s first ever comment in the list of top comments of the day?
An even more disturbing trend I see, is a gang of experienced users who have been conspiring to help the newbies. Gang leader nomandates of New Diarists along with cohorts JaxDem and MKSinSA, recently provided technical and editorial advice helping brand new user Wolfbrooks infiltrate the Recommended list, and that was just part 1 of a 3 part series. Should newbies like Wolfbrooks even be allowed on the Recommended list?
Obviously, my effort to contain the flow of new users is failing, and how could it not with gangs of do-gooders running amok on the site doing good stuff. Just don't blame me when the whole thing overflows into the streets.
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A big shoutout to those who helped find today's cast of exemplary new users; smileycreek, nomandates and peregrine kate. Thank you much!
Below you will find helpful information that I was forced to include by the powers that be.
Wanna follow us around or send us a kosmail?
Click the ♥ to follow us in your Stream, or click Send Message to send us a private kosmail. Please note you must be a registered user for one week before you can send kosmail.
Please also check out the buddy system over at the New Diarists group. While WNU and New Diarists do quite a bit of cross-pollinating, there is one essential difference between us: Over at New Diarists you can request a mentor who will help you learn how to write and publish a diary that won't get you publicly consigned to Worst Diary Hell at the GOS (Great Orange Satan, as we are affectionately known among wingnuts). Just send them a kosmail asking for an invite! Also check out their Resource Diaries. Note: The New Diarists groups also welcomes experienced diarists who would like to be mentors.
Got questions? Comments? Ideas? We're all ears-- just join us in the comments. And remember: Since this diary is for New Users no question is too basic, no matter how long you've been here!
For More Helpful Diaries, Check Out Our Archives:
Everyone is encouraged to review some of the previously written goodness that survives here in the DKos archives, going back to WNU founder ek hornbeck and including the list of teaching diaries republished to our Group page.