Every so often for the next several months, the Listening Post will serve as an arena in which Daily Kos participants can discuss issues directly related to the way the site operates.
The first two Listening Posts - about DK rules and about Trolls - generated some excellent discussions. These have not been forgotten or shelved. Some of the ideas presented in the comment threads of those two LPs will make their way into a handful new rules, the reshaping of some old rules, and the eliminating of some rules altogether. After Netroots Nation, we'll be introducing an experimental process via Mixedink in which it will be determined whether some rules can be democratically written or rewritten.
Listening Post is not meant to be a place to reinforce on-going grudges. Or to demand recompense for some recent or long-ago slight or to renew fighting an unresolved battle. Don't come here demanding to know why xyz HRed you and no administrator did anything about it. Listening Post is also not designed as a free-for-all. Each diary has a topic of the day. Today, because Daily Kos can be a confusing place, we'll focus on newbie questions, on things you might not know even if you've been here six months or more.
Before you ask your questions, let me start by pointing to three things you may not have noticed.
On the right side of the page, in the Menu box, you'll find a link to Diaries. If you click on it, you can scroll through all the diaries in the order they were posted on the site.
Below the Menu box in the About box, you can click on About and see who the Contributing Editors and other staff members of Daily Kos are. This includes the real names of most people who post under pseudonyms, their biographies, and, in some cases, their photos.
In that same section is the FAQ. Although some items will soon change, reading all of it will give you a ton of information about how things operate here, including site rules, etiquette and other how-to information.
One more thing. You'll sometimes hear people talking about somebody's UID#, their user identification number. You can find it by rolling your mouse over a user's name in a comment. The lower the UID#, the longer the person has been registered here.
So, what's on your mind, noob?