Like or dislike, agree or disagree with, this diary, one thing any reader will have to admit: it's a real diary. That is, it's not an vacuous piece of fluff that the diariest spent all of 2 minutes on. I've got three (3) Meta subjects to go off on, but before doing that, I'd like to post a couple of pics, just to be mindful of what the site's really about. The Meta things are below the fold. Without further ado:
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As for the rest, below the fold . . .
I. Short Diaries
I'll take the liberty of quoting myself, and here and there quote a couple of others, in recent comments on this subject.
Short diaries push-down the efforts of others who actually try. That's what so disappoints and irritates me. It's not only lazy, it's inconsiderate of others. This is a recent thing. Cardinal backs me, and others, on this here, in a great Comment from a week ago on this exasperating subject:
It really is recent (the Short Diary craze)
When I did my study a year ago, there were almost none of these. It's a snowball effect -- if no one is enforcing the rules (or if the enforcers are ridiculed, and the ridiculers aren't called out, etc.), then the new style becomes the norm by example.
Hat tip to Kosniac Dartagnan who noted correctly that nowadays "(p)eople seem to think the Diary List is a message board".
DemFromCT made a worthy effort to get this new craze for short diaries staunched here, citing the [http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/DailyKos_FAQ#Writing_diaries
FAQ] on from D Kos on this:
Diaries should be substantive. A good guideline is that if you don't have at least three solid paragraphs to write about your subject, you should probably post a comment in an open thread, or in a recent diary or front-page post that covers a topic relevant to what you wish to write about.
Of course, if enough people keep doing their short, took-3-minutes-to-do (from start to finish), "Diaries", and the admin (or general opprobrium) here does nothing about it, then D Kos diaries could just evolve into something else; a "new norm" could take the place of the former standards (as Cardinal notes). To some, that would be a welcome thing. Not to me.
II. Sally Field
I like Sally Field. She got tongue-tied, but ended up telling it like it is at the Emmys in 2007: "If the mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any goddam wars in the first place!" Censored by Fox, surprise, surprise.
But, for better or worse, her most (in)famous acceptance remarks will likely as not always hers in 1985 at the Oscars: the sincere-but-saccharine, and rather-difficult-to-watch, "You like me!" speech.
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Looks like the "You like me" bug has infected D Kos, and then some. Now, whenever someone who's not an oldster gets a diary on the Rec List, a gushing, obligatory "Update" comes along going (I paraphrase):
Update: Oh wow! I can't believe it! I'm on the Rec List! Wow. Thanks everybody. This is so wonderful! I just posted this diary at my girlfriend's house, then ran to the store to get a quart of milk (2%, which was difficult to get used to, but after about 3 months I really did and now I simply can't drink whole milk any more!) and then go by the vet's to pick up some eardrops for my schnauzer, Spec, and, well, I came back home and, after making a couple of phone calls I log on and come over to Daily Kos and, WOW!, here I am on the Rec List!!! You really like me!
O.K., o.k., it really does no one any harm. But, jeez, it's kind of hokey, I think. Maybe it's just me. Seems like the cooler thing to do is to act least act like you've been there before.
I seriously doubt this makes it to The List. But if it should, I promise to not do the Sally Field thing.
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III. KICKED ASS! SLAMMED! OWNED HIM! RIPPED!
What's this (I think new) thing where, when Keith Olbermann, or Rachel Maddow, or some such person interviews a Republican of some sort or another and is not dominated by such Republican, we can count on one or more diaries that say, not that there was an interview and the Republican's arguments came across as rather lame, or that Maddow did a good job holding her own against a GOP Wind-up Toy, but, rather, that Maddow Destroyed the Republican hack! No she didn't. She just conducted a good, solid interview. Period.
According to Mark Twain in his "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses", Rule #13 of the "nineteen rules governing literary art in the domain of romantic fiction" (many of which also apply to blog diaries) states:
Use the right word, not its second cousin.
What say we work on that?
I should note that Rule #14 is "Eschew surplusage".
So I'll stop.
UPDATE: andysbg, in the comments below, nails it:
"DKos is losing the positive feedback loop that used to reward diaries that had a lot of research and effort put into them."
BenGoshi
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