(Maryscott, you dared me to post a diary, so here ya go.)
In the last week and a half, four diaries have appeared relating to YearlyKos and the YearlyKos fundraising drive. Although these diaries have been relatively well-received and the fundraiser is doing very well, it appears that there are still some issues that need to be addressed. In the last thread, penned by the inimitable Maryscott O'Connor, I made it pretty clear that I was not a supporter of yKos at this time, but I declined to elaborate as to why. Still, it's no secret that I've voiced some serious concerns over the handling of yKos.
In the spirit of Martin Luther tacking his treatises to the church door, I hereby submit the following list of grievances.
- Delusions of Grandeur, Part One: Someone PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong, but the idea of a DailyKos convention started out with the concept of a few dozen people gathering in a central place to finally get a chance to meet each other in person. We see each other in pixels every day, but meeting the person-behind-the-userID is a totally different experience. My first taste of alarm came about at the posting of the first diary announcing possible convention locations. Instead of a meeting of a few Kossacks in the Shoney's off I-85, the YearlyKos Committee (hereinafter referred to as the YKC) was looking at booking the entire Chicago Hyatt Regency for nearly a week, dazzling the crowd with high-tech information displays, and bankrolling appearances by Howard Dean and Barack Obama. As they have noted over and over, that's a huge (and EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE) undertaking.
- Floridifcation of the Location Vote: The one thing I'll give the YKC credit for was laying out a good financial case for Las Vegas. They made it pretty clear that Las Vegas is much less expensive than Chicago, and made the financial ramifications clear. In a most Democratic fashion, they gave us Kossacks the opportunity to vote on a location. As of today the poll on the original diary is closed, and the results are: Chicago 46%, Las Vegas 39%. In this country, we're used to close elections...this wasn't a close election. But the Supreme Court of YearlyKos Organizers has declared Las Vegas the winner. When this grievance was first brought to their attention, the official answer was that, even though the populace had voted, the SCOYKO had deemed Las Vegas to be a better option. If the decision had already been made, why was there a vote?
- Communication, Part One: About a week ago, a diary suddenly appeared under the screen name "YearlyKos," announcing a fundraising drive. The author of the diary simply stated that the Yearly Kos Committee was embarking on a fundraising drive, and needed $15,000 by November 19th. Perhaps I was the only one who felt this way, but I felt blindsided. No one had said anything about yKos for weeks. A few assorted Kossacks referred to it in their signature lines, but other than that, nada. Nowhere has anyone said anything about exactly what's going on with yKos. Just when it seemed that the idea of a convention had fallen by the wayside, we got hit up for money. When pressed to come up with an explanation of what the money was for, no one said anything. Only today, when asked for the third time in a week, did anyone bother to come up with a reason for needing $15,000. Now, we all know that Democrats get hit up for money all the time. Every five minutes, someone on dKos is asking for money for what is usually a good cause--candidate contributions, "thank yous" to the DNC and Harry Reid for his actions a couple weeks ago, medical care for an anonymous Kossack's wife, funding for a big cat rescue shelter, you name it. Democrats have become nothing but an ATM. For the most part, we're game. We're willing to pitch in, and we usually do. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, we're at least allowed the courtesy of an explanation. But the YKC simply demanded money and walked away.
- Stonewalling and Flat-Out Nastiness: When the original "send money now!" diary appeared, DailyKos poster "heterodoxy" posted an appeal for an explanation, and was rather rudely rebuffed and scowled at by several members of the YKC. I will be the first to admit that heterodoxy's comment history is rather scary--he or she seems to be a certified tinfoil hatter--but when you ask people to pony up a bunch of cash, don't you at least owe it to them to be nice to them? Downthread, I posted what I thought was a rather respectful and well-reasoned appeal for some answers from the YKC. A couple of my questions were given half-hearted answers, but the money question still goes unanswered.
- Financial Accountability: Speaking of money, no one has ever bothered to answer the question of how the YKC's expenses will be documented, and how (or even IF) the documentation will be available to those people who threw money in the donation can. Our good friend heterodoxy went so far as to suggest that the YKC was buying themselves vacations in Las Vegas on our dime--like I said, heterodoxy strikes me as slightly nuts. But as of this date, we have no way of knowing anything for sure. No one really knows who the YKC is (it's certainly not composed of any "high profile" Kossacks, those people who actually have a reputation to uphold), where the checks are coming from, or where they're going. In a comment on MSOC's thread, one of the organizers (FINALLY!) said that basically this up-front money was needed because the owners of the Riviera didn't trust the convention organizers (it wasn't phrased quite that indelicately). Well, gee, when the books are kept locked away and only one person has access and that person has nothing to lose, no wonder.
- The Cookbook: This is a minor one, but it's still a thorn in my side. The Cookbook was meant to be a big fundraiser for yKos. The authors of the cookbook put months worth of work into it, and are not accepting any financial remuneration for said work. All the money is going into the yKos kitty. Pretty generous, if you ask me. Furthermore, there are now close to (or more than?) 70,000 Kossacks. Figuring that 40,000 of them are still actively reading the site once in a while, that 5000 of those 40K are Republican trolls who just signed up for usernames so they could troll, 25,000 are casual Kossacks who have no interest in supporting a yKos convention, 5000 are too financially strapped by living in BushCo's America to afford a cookbook, and 20 of those userIDs belong to Darrell, that's still 4,980 people that should be buying cookbooks. Now, I was never good at math, but my calculator says that that's nearly $75,000 right there. But when the YKC had a perfect opportunity to push the cookbook, there was nary a mention of it until I brought it up. Like I said, this is minor, but it bugs me.
- Communication, Part Deux: Someone at the YKC busted their ass on this yKos website, and for the most part, it's nifty. It's a little too...yellow, but it's nifty nonetheless. One of the nice things about it is that it has a blog. Now, I'm guessing that the YKC members know a thing or two about blogs since they hang out here, but the yKos blog hasn't been updated in four days. Call me crazy, but if you're asking for lots of money during a fundraising drive, and you haven't met your goal, don't you normally ask for it more than once? Second of all, isn't the yKos blog a perfect place to answer some of these questions and provide occasional status updates on the progress of the yKos planning? If the Riviera sent a bill for $15,000, isn't this a good place to SAY SO?
- Delusions of Grandeur, Part Deux: As I said in my previous communiqué on the subject, the yKos Survey still baffles me, and I'm very insulted by it. Somehow, the idea of a meeting-of-the-minds has become the Bank of America Yearly Kos Convention Sponsored by Ford, with Technicolor Brought To You By AT&T (or Kia...or IKEA). Corporate sponsorship? Are you kidding me? All the time and energy we spend railing about the perils of the corporate media, all the time we spend belaboring the fact that Wal-Mart and Pfizer have the national media in their pocket, and you want to give some big corporation a piece of the pie? What about editorial control? You certainly can't expect one of my favorite Kossacks, JR Monsterfodder, to do a seminar on Taking Down Wal-Mart if the convention is sponsored BY Wal-Mart. Whatever happened to the Democratic ideal of the power of the PEOPLE, not the Corporation?
Confession Time: So here's the brutal honesty part of the deal. The biggest reason why I'm so totally put off and disgusted by the whole yKos deal at this point is because, quite simply, I can't afford it. I can't afford $400 for a room, $400 for airfare, $200 for food and incidentals, and an still-to-be-confirmed conference registration fee (Seriously, come on guys--is it $95? Is it $280? If you seriously want people to register and pony up cash seven months in advance, it's time to be honest about the registration fee.). On my behalf, the YKC has bitten off way more than I can chew. Amidst empty promises to keep the convention affordable, the plans have ballooned into a weeklong behemoth of epic proportions, encompassing thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of dollars. We're a blog, for cripe's sake, not the National Auto Dealers Association. More than that, we're Democrats. We spend our extra money on AIDS research, battered women's shelters, big cat rescues and progressive candidates...if we have extra money, that is.
See, I'm a member of a little nightly chat group composed entirely of Kossacks. We number in the dozens (thanks to Bill...I'll deal with you later, young man), and in talking to these (lovely, amazing, talented, funny, smart, dynamic, wise, and just slightly perverted) people, the general consensus is that no one's going to be able to afford to go to this thing, and that if they do, they're going to feel some sort of obligation to sit through the Microsoft Mind Meld Hour. Furthermore, the comments on the original fundraiser diary should indicate that this project has just become too big and too unwieldy. There were
dozens of comments from people who "just can't afford it right now," people who will "be happy to donate next payday" when they "have the money." If we can't spare $10 to throw into the yKos kitty now, how are we to be expected to spend $1000 on it next June?
I guess that's why yKos scares me. I'll take my whomps now.
(and Maryscott? I'll be checking the rec list for your name)