I've been thinking.
The number of diaries on dKos has long exceeded 300 per day - on slow days.
The vast majority of them are silly polls, personal stories, psycho-babble, or purport to "Break" news. The most insidious of these so-called "diaries" discuss political events! They spawn unfettered debate, discussion, and even disagreement!
This must be stopped.
In a site of over 50,000 community members, there is too much danger that someone - anyone! - will post something that is outside of our "community norms", not progressive enough, too radical for the mainstream, left-wing nutty, or "unrealistic." Let's face it - Daily Kos is popular, and its popularity has made it very visible. We must hide from the shining light! We must put our freaky ideas under a bushel basket. We must be mainstream! For fear of negative attention, only conformist opinions need apply. And because we cannot control the free-flow of ideas, WE MUST THEREFORE BAN DIARIES.
It's not such a bad idea. I mean, don't we all have something better, more productive, we should be doing? Instead of posting diaries, we should be registering voters! In fact, those of us reading diaries are wasting time too! And if there were no diaries, we could all save a lot of time by not having to post comments. In fact, we should ban comments too.
Let's face it people. This site is not for learning or sharing ideas. I mean, we already all know what the fuck we're talking about, and we know that our ideas are better than the other guy's ideas - in fact, we know that our ideas are better than ideas appearing in those dumb diaries. The simple solution is to stifle the diarists, which means all of them of course.
Most problematically, when diarists post conspiracy theories or <gasp!> unrealistically optimistic pieces, we cannot resist the urge to debunk them or to talk them down from the enthusiastic edge. Sometimes we join them in their enthusiasm or their optimism. This has got to stop, as it is opening us up to ridicule from the not-Daily-Kos world. These are serious times, and this is a serious website. We are dour, and we cannot not stand for this.
Then there are the double diaries. Sometimes we see "Breaking" news three or four times! Sometimes days later, the slow-on-the-uptake, those who didn't get the memo, the idiots who didn't study the past 600 diaries over a 30-hour time frame happen to RE-post old news! This invariably leads to "Say duh, dumbass!" diary-police comments. We cannot resist, therefore the choice must be made for us: no more diaries.
And here's more: the more diaries are posted, the quicker other (obviously more important) diaries disappear! We simply cannot be trusted to police ourselves, to moderate, to conform, or to just shut the fuck up! Daily Kossians love to talk, all right, but we'll put an end to that.
The diaries themselves lead to other problems. People are presented with an opportunity to recommend other people's thoughts to the Daily Kos community! These so-called "recommended" diaries purport to contain radical ideas such as examples of Republican hypocrisy, action alerts, or news of importance. Sometimes, some freaky shit gets recommended though. This wastes everybody's time - reading, posting, commenting, it's like a black hole sucking us in. The only answer is to ban diaries to free us from the shackles of debate and the mutual exchange of ideas. Who wants to exchange ideas anyway? It's like exchanging bodily fluids. Ewww.
In any event, reading these diaries takes valuable time away from the Daily Kos community - time that should be spent doing much more valuable and important things. Like knitting. Or calling your Senator. Or writing a letter to the editor. While knitting.
The sub-species of diaries also has developed that is infecting the brains of Daily Kos denizens with humor, satire, wit, and rants! And the commenters in these diaries rant as well. People bitch, complain, pat one another on the back, and celebrate life milestones in the diaries and the comments to these diaries. The diaries frequently contain many hundreds of comments, sometimes containing pictures of cats. This had led to a breakdown of community spirit and morale.
The diaries themselves have sparked a series of meta-diaries. First, there were GBCdK diaries. Diarist held the DK community hostage by threatening to depart, never to return, thus leaving one fewer voice for us to listen to and to contradict. Some of these diaries have led to snark wars. Then there were dueling-ideas diaries ("I'm right!" "No, I'm right!" "No, you're both wrong" "Get over it, all of you!") These were followed by the conformist/group think diaries ("You shouldn't be writing diaries like X!" "We have a responsibility not to recommend this stuff!"). To avoid these problems in the future, the only answer is to ban diaries altogether.
Clearly, the diaries have been a collosal failure. Instead of working in their communities to elect democrats, advance progressive ideas, and sway public opinion, the Daily Kos community now does nothing more than sit on its collective butt and WRITE, and READ, and COMMENT, and RATE, and RECOMMEND!
THIS HAS GOT TO STOP! BAN DIARIES NOW!
</snark></sardonism></irony>