Welcome, New Users, to The Daily Kos. This Diary is intended to help you orient yourself to the site and ask questions about how to use it.
In the Body you will find some links intended to get you participating more effectively. Also in the Body this week is a discussion of jotter.
After that you can ask me any question you want. I don't know all the answers so if you stump me, you do. I invite those wiser than I to contribute and correct (or raise a ruckus, just don't scare people).
No permission slips needed, join us at the deep end of the pool for adult swim.
Hello Devil. Welcome to Hell.
If your user id (hover your mouse over your name in any comment, look at the status bar in the bottom of your browser) is larger than 158206 you probably haven't had to opportunity to participate in one of my Welcome New Users diaries.
There are 13 of them that I consider the New Users Guide and I encourage you to take a look at the table of contents at least so you can see what kind of information is already available.
You know, it's not like I've ignored jotter in my Welcome New Users pieces. In addition to being the primary focus of Searches, I also put him first in my second collection of Power Users Tips both of which are part of the 13 part canon I like to call the New Users Guide to dKos.
But don't panic, I'm always happy to review.
Who is jotter?
jotter is a user just like you and I. He's not a Front Pager and doesn't speak for the site.
Before I came to dKos in April of 2005, three years ago, he was already capturing Whole. Entire. Days. worth of diaries, indentifying the number of unique commenters and recommenders, and publishing each and every day the 150 most popular, based on activity.
He called this list High Impact Diaries.
There have been minor refinements over time, and he captures other statistics too, but the most significant change from his standpoint I'm sure is when he was able to implement a new Search engine and automate some of his most onerous tasks.
In the fall of 2005 jotter was hired by Markos to replace the scoop Search Engine. What is scoop? It's the software that runs dKos. While its internal Search Engine is very good at producing pretty views it's not so hot at finding specific subjects. Tagging addresses some aspects, but it's not really intended for that and in fact because of Tag Proliferation soon became no more usable than scoop search.
So jotter found some database (and that's all dKos is fundamentally- one huge database of diaries and the comments dependent on them with some visual presentations strapped on) search software called swish-e and bolted that on like a turbocharger and a bottle of nitrous to the scoop software and tah dah-
dKos 3.x, the Great Orange Satan you know and love today.
The visual presentation is a combination of basic scoop elements (Your page, Your page/Comments, the Front Page, the Diaries, the Recent Diary List) many of which run off of its Search Engine as well as locally run advanced Java (Ajax) applets (The Evil Diary Editor, The Not QUITE As Evil Comment Editor, as well as the View Comments display) designed by peeder.
High Impact Diaries
So this is how jotter collects his lists. Pretty straighforward and transparent except that jotter has backend access to the database so he can tweak the Search Engine if it's producing weird results so it's not the kind of thing you can duplicate at home.
What I want to be at pains to point out is that jotter started as a regular guy with regular tools. He has dedicated himself relentlessly to this task every single day (with well deserved exceptions) and has taken great pains to make sure that his work is self explainatory and accessible to the casual user.
I find that admirable.
In fact I hardly know how I can make it plainer, but perhaps I can provide a different insight.
As a diarist you always want to know what kind of audience your diary received. You may whine and pine for the Reclist, but you should aspire to mere comments and page views.
jotter calculates a value based on the unique number of commenters and Diary Recommenders (called 'Connections' and labeled 'cnx') as well as the total number of comments. This is called 'Impact' and is just slightly different from the 'Impact' measured by the Search function, but this difference has no practical effect except in borderline cases.
Sorry, I too have had well commented on and relatively successful diaries (to my mind) that didn't make the list.
To the extent I resent this at all (and it's mostly not at all because I consider lively chats with a few intimates for an hour or two much more enjoyable than all day defenses of my more controversial opinions) it's because jotter makes certain statistics about your diary available that are hard to obtain otherwise.
Viewers is one I particularly lust after since it is unobtainable by regular users, even trusty ones. That is the number of unique logged in members who took the time to read you at all. If that number is smaller than you had hoped, please remember that a lot of members are not habitually logged in and that a lot of 'viewers' are not members at all.
Unique Commenters (tators) you can tease out yourself with a good eye, so can the 'Connections' (cnx). Number of Diary Recommendations (nrec) and Absolute Number of Comments (ncom) are built into every swish-e Search. Ranking is based on Diary Recommendations, not 'Impact'.
One individual diary statistic that is significant, but not obvious or easy to arbitrate is the bolding of the Diaries that made the Recommended List. jotter samples every five minutes. Now I would think there would be a log somewhere, but that's not the methodology. Additionally there is a culture here at dKos that tries to label each diary that makes the 'Recommended List' with the Tag I just linked. This is actually a great favor to the diarist as they may be too busy responding to comments to notice. These Tags have been known to capture some marginal diaries that jotter misses, but under no circumstances is the Recommended Tag to be used to promote the Recommendation of a diary. I consider it 'troll' behavior.
Another statistic in each High Impact Diary that receives a high profile is the number of new member registrations which some people obsessively track as a measure of the popularity of the site. Since so many accounts belong to people who have changed their handle for whatever reason I find it an inferior indicator except in the most general sense. I prefer keeping track of the Number of Active Kogs (those who write or recommend a diary or a comment) and Lurkers (logged in members who only read). There are other statistics but I don't understand them any more than you do so I suggest you ignore them.
Searches
Searches are simple. OK, maybe not so much. As I mention in Power Users Tips II, High Impact Diaries is the place I go to get my guru questions answered.
jotter is usually very helpful about untangling your complicated Search requests although a basic knowledge of the existing literature is assumed because this is an advanced masters seminar, not some 101 lecture hall colosseum.
You should bookmark (Power Users Tips I) common useful Searches. Things like Trolls so you can find every current controversy and stick your nose right in it. You should bookmark your Mirrors so you can stalk your stalkers and see who takes your name in vain.
dKos is Naked. Always has been. Your credibility rests on your History. If you have eyes that see you don't forget to check the box that says View Hidden Comments before pronouncing judgement.
Fossils like me who rely on the old scoop presentations and searches need to get with the new program before the adoption of dKos 4.0 as I expect that many database (scoop) searches will go the way of the dodo and polar bears and The Magic Bullet. Or complain about it, whatever.
The big wind up
So jotter is a most puissant wizard, far more so than I.
- jotter's Special Abilities-
- Omniscience
- Backend Access to download the database
- Tweaks to the Search Engine
- Extra Special Searches
- Mad HTML Skillz
- Multiple Diaries a Day
All hail the great and powerful.