I am ek hornbeck. Yes I have Cliffs Notes and if you bother to read them and then read me you'll find out I'm exactly like that.
Among the things I do to amuse myself here at "The Big Orange", the largest political hate site in the world, is write Diaries for new users to help them learn how to use the features of the site in a series called Welcome New Users. I'm also a notorious participant in our evening Daily Show/Cøbert Repørt Diary.
I'm sorry Countdown fans, you don't have a daily Diary here yet, but I've found that if you want something done, best do it yourself.
Which is why I invite you to "join me below the fold."
UPDATED! per LoE- ALL TIMES EASTERN!
"Below the fold?"
When you write a Diary, there are several parts. One is the Intro and another is the Body. In some views only the Intro is visible, so people who have used the site for a while have take to calling that "Above the fold" just like a newspaper.
Just like with any online community of long standing (and some people have been here for 4 years or more) relationships have formed and we've developed our own shorthand ways of talking about things. Some of these definitions can be found in our Kossary Glossary in the Deee Kosopedia, d, K, o, s, o, p, e, d, i, a.
Don't mess with the elephants.
There are a couple of things that are important to understand about the culture of Daily Kos in order to understand why BillO can call us a Nazi/KKK hatesite and Stephen can say- allow people to express themselves in a free and open forum.
First of all, this is a website dedicated to the election of Democrats. We're getting kind of good at it and so are a threat to the party he supports.
Also, while it's not a core part of our mission, I think you'll find a general consensus that 98% of the Main Stream Media suck and it's all dead as dinosaurs and dodos anyway. Which threatens people who are gatekeepers of all sorts.
So Pappa Bear has no reason to love us.
But it is also true that unlike the #1 Threat to America's site, Daily Kos is open to anyone with an email at no cost.
I'd invite you to look at the front page of Daily Kos except you've already seen it.
If you've found me at all it was most likely partway down that column on the right side, the sixth orange bar down labeled 'Recent Diaries'.
Over on the left side are what are called Front Page Stories written (for the most part) by people we call (wait for it) Front Pagers!
They also have administrative responsibilities.
People are allowed to write Comments on those Stories and do all the time. In fact there are over 18,000 a day, not just on those Stories, but also on the somewhat over 250 Diaries that people like me write every. single. day.
That's a lot of words.
And we have our disputes, some of them quite heated. During these disputes hurtful and hateful things are said.
Hateful things are also said by people who join just for the purpose of harming the site, sometimes in the form of trying to make us appear to endorse hateful positions.
THE ONLY OFFICIAL POSITION OF DAILY KOS IS THE CONTENT OF THE FRONT PAGE STORIES!
The only people who speak for the site are the Front Pagers.
Hateful content is dealt with in 2 ways- by the actions of the Front Pagers notified by users, and by over 2000 Community Moderators that we call Trusted Users. If 2 or more of them agree, they can hide hateful Comments without the assistance of an Administrator.
The predominant method of communication here is snark. Things don't always mean what they seem to. If you don't understand something it's ok to ask questions, but not pester. Some people just want to be left alone.
If you find yourself in a disagreement, the best thing to do is express it politely and extract yourself.
"I'm sorry, I don't agree. Have a nice day."
And find some other Story or Diary to be in. There's plenty of content.
__________________
Now I said I'd written some Diaries for new users to help them learn how to use the features of the site. There are some in particular I'd like you to read-
And if you signed up yesterday you won't be able to post a Diary for about a week yet, which will give you plenty of time to read these-
And if you've finished Deathly Hallows and are looking for another challenge, here is an outline to the first 12 volumes of my New Users Guide. It should keep you busy until the upcoming Potter Apocrypha volume.
I'm not spoiling that for you am I? Nah, you watch Countdown.
One of the good features is that they have links to lots of other useful Diaries for New Users right at the top. I especially recommend you read the selected portions of the FAQ for official information about rules and such.
__________________
Now let's get to that Cøøl Cøbert allow people to express themselves in a free and open forum stuff.
I'm inclined to ignore all that sinister left hand page crap but it has some Stories that are invitations to Community participation.
Open Threads happen at 9 am, 3 pm, and 9 pm every day. These are intended for questions, general observations too short for a Diary, and other purposes like alerting the Community to a news event.
Around midnight there is the Diary Rescue Story which highlights user Diaries of the past day the team of editors considers under appreciated. Some think them the best content on dKos, I'll let you judge for yourself.
Open Threads are posted at other times by Front Pagers, but they're not as predictable.
At the bottom of the Diary Rescue Story you'll find a link to that day's Top Comments Diary. This Diary is put together by a different team of editors and highlights some of the most humorous, touching, or true Comments that have come to their attention. It also contains a Top Mojo list of the most popular Comments of the day and publishes around 10 pm.
Top Comments is from the 'Recent Diaries' List on the right hand side, just where Stephen would want it to be and you found me. Directly above it is a list of the 8 most popular Diaries at the moment labeled Recommended Diaries.
A collection of the 150 Highest Impact Diaries of the previous day is published daily by jotter. It doesn't have a set time for publication, but is usually in the morning.
A good place for New Users to get their feet wet on dKos is in Diaries that self identify as Community. These are the places we go to chat about things other than politics.
I list many of them here in Community Diaries. Some are about a particular topic like What's for Dinner, which is about food and cooking, it's helpful if you stick to it. Others are more general, like Ask a Kossack.
One that appears Monday - Friday, mostly in the morning but every alternate Friday at the confusing and enraging time of 6ish is Cheers and Jeers. klamothe does an excellent job of describing it here.
Other people contribute when the proprietor, Bill in Portland Maine, is away, I have myself. Permanent guest hosts are AAbshier on Monday and a rotating cast of rascals and reprobates on Tuesday (when did that change?). When BiPM hosts it appears on the left hand side. Lefty.
Bill in Portland Maine is considered dKos' "Dean of Snark" but I'll disagree with him on this- 'C&J' is not a kiddie pool. Given that the level of snark is right at your chin and some people will stay up all night sharpening their teeth and claws I'd have to rate it at least Advanced Beginner.
I was a Water Safety and Lifesaving Instructor. I know these things.
Since you're probably more media oriented than most and stay up later, I'll direct you to some other Diary series you might like.
- Wednesday late night is Rimjob's Totally Irrelevent Crap, a compendium of Showbiz and Celebrity Rumors and Gossip. Sort of our own 'Keeping Tabs'. BTW, congratulations on your anniversary but after 29 Diaries don't you think you should put a series tag on it?
- Saturday late night you have Sunday Talk, founded by the much missed Al Rodgers now continued by the incredibly talented Newsie8200. This is the week's top stories as well as news about the news media along with, of course, the upcoming lineup of puffy headed pundits.
- Newsie8200 sometimes favors us with her presence in The DAILY SHOW/COLBERT REPORT/OLBERMANN RERUN Spoiler thread, hosted by TiaRachel (Tia, we need one of those tag things too). This sausage grinder of snark celebrates our boys (and girls if you ♥ Sam Bee) each night they're on, while they're on. I have described the experience like this.
- For you hard core types who stay up late enough for Olbermann re-runs I spoil the heck out of them. But there's more than enough evidence he reads dKos too. Why just the other night in Overnight News Digest my last featured story was the Third Worst Person In The Wooooooorld! the very next day. That den of thieves belongs to Magnifco, I just work there. It usually goes up around midnight.
But if you just can't get over our enormous hate I invite you to look at these Diary series-
- Saturday nights around 8 WYFP goes up. That Diary is specificaly for our members to talk about their personal problems and get some sympathy, and hopefully help for them.
- Sundays at 7 to 8:30ish pastordan (usually) publishes Brothers and Sisters. I'm a die hard atheist as my character analysis suggests, I don't bug him so much but I like him. He says funny things like "Every time you visit Street Prophets (dKos' sister site for matters of faith and politics) a hamster gets it's wings."
- Finally, if you want to understand a little bit about why we're so upset about the direction our country has taken, I invite you to look at I Got The News Today (abbreviated IGTNT), Diaries that document the sacrifice of our casualties in Iraq. It's not the only issue, but it motivates many of us.
I hate 100 comments for reasons most of you can't even understand yet, but I'm willing to take one for the team.
Welcome Cøbert Natiøn and Olbermann fans to Daily Kos. Each day is a Great day.
All times Eastern. Check your local listings.