Individuals that claim the living, breathing democracy sometimes miss the forest for the trees. I understand if it ain't broke, don't fix it but if it ain't broke doesn't mean we can't have regularly scheduled maintenance checkups. Maybe the regularly scheduled maintenance checkups are people getting in a tizzy, people suggesting `radical' alterations and people unhappy about the usual suspects: disappearing diaries into the sea, gaming the system to make the rec list and profanity.
I even saw a comment last night concerning the Open Thread phrase where a reader was disgusted every time she saw "chew it up, spit it out" and didn't even want to click on the open thread. Now that (no offense to you ma'am) is definitely in the extreme.
On the flip.
Feldman posted a diary yesterday,
Obscenities in Diary Titles: Enough Already in which he said:
I'm putting a poll up here, because if I am wrong, I will back down. But I think most people in the diaries would be much happier if we just agreed to not pepper our titles with 'fuck.'
Of 2,745 votes cast, 71% agreed. I'm not using mandate language or `the tribe has spoken' but it does seem that at this particular time, the time at which x number of people cast votes, the living, breathing democracy agreed with his point. Now maybe Feldman was gaming the system by appealing to the after church voters, in which case, put Frameshop on the DNC payroll and let's get to work on '06.
MaryScottO'Connor whose fan club I am a member (we're all getting tattoos at the mall Friday) posted a diary in response, Profanity, Propriety, Censorship & Semantics Redux . In discussing the idea of well, profanity and propriety she says:
This is a bizarre and Byzantine topic, really. Far greater minds than mine have struggled for millennia and failed to arise from the muck with anything resembling a definitive resolution.
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Because it comes down to one word, man. FREEDOM.
Exactly. Freedom to suggest that maybe we not use profanity as much in the titles.
"It's the first thing many new visitors see" was one comment on Let's Chew Up the Open Thread Motto and Spit it Out while another said, as I alluded to earlier
Even though I don't even understand what it means, it offends me. Seriously, I feel insulted every time I see it. It makes me not want to open the open thread.
I don't know how you can be offended if you don't know what it means and be insulted but that's another story beyond extreme.
RedDan followed with a post Peer Review on Kos: Raising the Bar. He was jumped on with both feet and nothing was spared (maybe I'm a bit sensitive from holding the wife's purse in Ann Taylor sitting the shoe section but damn).
Finally, on the rec list now is Surprise, surprise, surprise! Daily Kos is broke again.
In it, mentaldebris talks about the cyclical nature of members decrying obscenity or controversy in diaries and that the site isn't what it could be. He goes on to say that it is what it is, that is not broken, that he too saw a time when he was ready to give up before the quality rebounded and became phenomenal.
DK is not perfect, but DK is NOT broken either. It ebbs and flows with personality and vibrancy.
Then
Now there's a suggestion that Daily Kos should become more professional. Profanity should be curtailed. Diaries should be reviewed and must pass some sort of community muster to be published. You must be this smart or this clever to post here. Blech.
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The moment the diarists are graded on their work will be the day when all the color drains from DK.
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Kos seems to instinctually know (99% of the time, at least) that to impose overt control would destroy it. Were it that all the community members felt the same. As I said before: "We can't dictate style, although we sure as hell can suggest it."
I understand wholeheartedly where mentaldebris is coming from but that wasn't the spirit in which RedDan suggested what he did [If I am wrong, correct me]. Every suggestion from profanity to peer review is not to grade diarists, to say you must be this smart or this clever, to say that I have a standard to which you should adhere. They are just that, suggestions. They don't require a `take my marbles and go home' response, simply a little understanding as we've been here and we've seen this before.
I'll end with melvin responding to the `kill the open thread motto' diary by saying aren't we being a bit solipsistic today. I think we are when we don't seek first to understand before being understood.