Some comments about Kos'
note, and conspiracy theories in general. The usual caveats apply; I can't speak for Kos or anyone else, yada yada, etc. And another caveat applies; I don't know who Kos banned in this round, but as his diary states, if you feel you got swept up undeservedly, drop Kos a line. Banning is reversible.
In a nutshell, here is the dilemma. The problem with rampant uninformed speculations is that they do, in fact, damage the community. It is the goal of the community at large, and of Kos, and of all the site "frontpagers" that this community be a useful news, research, and advocacy tool for the Democratic party at large and for progressive interests in general.
There is a difference between informed speculation -- that which uses the available facts to arrive at a "reasonable" conclusion -- and uninformed. And, as you are about to point out, there's no well-defined definition of "reasonable", and in the real world
all speculation is based on at least some small kernel of fact. But like pornography, you will (usually) know it when you see it. Also like pornography, it is largely determined by the standards of the surrounding community:
Reasonable Speculation: The London bombings are consistent with al Qaeda methods and motives.
Unreasonable Speculation: The CIA copied al Qaeda practices and set bombs in London.
Grounds For Banning: Asserting that both theories are equally valid.
The point of that last one should be obvious. Even where, in the future, there may be severe disagreements as to how "reasonable" any particular speculative post may be, it is the people who cannot make even rudimentary judgments to separate "credible" and "incredible" theories, and do not understand the basic rules of evidence, that are most disruptive to the conversations that the rest of us wish to have. Credibility is earned, not given.
Here's another example:
Reasonable: "There are news reports suggesting Israeli intelligence had hints of the attacks and warned British officials." (This one's reasonable to suggest if you have evidence, e.g. an actual cite, but at this point has none I deem credible, by the way.)
Unreasonable: "Israeli intelligence warned Israeli citizens but not the UK." (This instantly presented one is a rehash of every jackass anti-Semitic 9/11 theory that still trolls through right-wing racist websites, just repackaged with the word "London" copy-and-pasted where "New York" was. Consider the source, before you post.)
Grounds for Banning: "Those sneaky Jews let the bombings happen." 'Nuff said.
It works very simply, and there are almost no DailyKos users that do not understand the central point already: the more incredible a claim is, the more evidence must be presented to defend that claim. Are there ever actual "conspiracies"? Of course. But it is faulty logic to present a list of past conspiracies and assert -- as at this point, a number of posters did -- that since any conspiracy happened to be true, that that proves your your conspiracies are also true. Doesn't work that way.
So here's the most important rule: If you are speculating wildly, say so. If you have evidence, present it. If you demand your theory be taken seriously without evidence, or say you don't need evidence, or claim your theory is equal to those theories which do have evidence, you're going to get called on it. Those posters which continually engage themselves in such arguments need to find more appropriate websites.
This isn't meant to "punish" particular posters, although the net effect may be that. It is instead meant to reward and encourage factual news, analysis, and advocacy, and increase the "signal-to-noise" ratio of the site, even as it continues to grow at a breakneck pace.
When visitors come to this site, we want to provide them with trustworthy content. Neither Kos, nor I, nor the vast majority of users on this site benefits from having well-researched, well-supported essays and stories fight for diary space and attention with less well-researched theorizing and accusations. It damages the credibility of the good pieces to be presented in the same forum as bad ones. Therefore, we are going to make a more concentrated effort, with your community help, to discourage the bad ones. The bad ones waste community energy and frustrate better efforts.
We all want to encourage and reward the contributions of posters such as SusanHu, SusanG, georgia10, mcjoan, teacherken, bonddad, and all the countless others here who do well-researched, valuable contributions to this site, including personal reflections, humor and snark, narrowly targeted news of interest, and breaking action items, and have caused this site to become the largest Democratic blog, and largest progressive/liberal blog, on the Internet. We're going to guard that status, and that power. If you call that being "mainstream", you're absolutely right.