I will, for a moment, quote The Simpsons:
Doctor: Mrs. Simpson, I'm sorry, but your husband suffers from a persecution
complex, extreme paranoia, and bladder hostility.
Marge: Doctor, if you just talk to him for five minutes without mentioning
our son Bart, you'd see how sane he is.
Doctor: You mean there really is a Bart?! Good Lord!
[...]
Doctor: Mr. Simpson, after talking to your wife, we believe you're no
threat to yourself or others.
Homer: That's the most flattering thing anyone has ever said to me.
Can I have it in writing, please?
Doctor: Of course. [hands Homer a certificate:
This certifies
HOMER SIMPSON
not insane.]
[...]
Every group has its crazy elements. I'm not going to tell you who the crazy are, because it depends on your perspective, and even though I actually have some training in psychotherapy, I'm still not qualified to judge.
But the thing is-- I've left other groups because they became too extreme. But that wasn't about the membership-- it was about the leadership. On Kos, I see sane, informative diaries, loaded with useful commentary and information. Some recommended diaries go off the deep end and sometimes the comment threads go crazy.
Here's the thing: I don't care. If I think the comments in a diary are falling off the deep end, I skip those comments. It's really easy to do. If I see a diary that tells me that Obama should never be criticized and we should back off, I may post one (generally sarcastic or snark) comment, but I'm not going to spend hours arguing with people about it. Similarly, if people are posting diaries which suggest that Obama be primaried, I might post a comment or two in the diary, but really, I don't feel the need to argue with that.
To me, the point of blogging about politics is not to blog about politics. It's not to bitch. It's not to complain. It's to challenge and think. It's to inform. It's to educate. It's to change something.
Every once in awhile, some of the Kos membership goes enough into the weeds that people post diaries suggesting that they will leave because of all those crazy folks or because of the "direction" the site is taking.
Here's the thing: I've never seen the "direction" of this site change. I've seen a consistent, rational, fact-based and informative front page ever since I've been here. The rec list? Well, the rec list comes and goes, changing with the wind. I've made the rec list posting about hummingbirds, Pete Seeger, phobic attitudes towards transsexuals, Whole Foods and, in one particularly entertaining incident, posting a snark diary about how easy it is to make the rec list.
Like the rec list, the sort of comment threads we get tend to vary tremendously, but the important thing is that I come here to learn. Some rec'd diaries are incredible. Some are, honestly, pretty horrendous (I count a few of mine among each of these categories). But that doesn't matter because the rec list is the side dish and sometimes you just don't like the side dish that comes with the meal. No matter what we do, when we have something decided by popular opinion, there will be people who don't like it. It happens.
So yes, this is a meta diary, and it's kind of a bitchy meta diary about meta diaries. But to me, it's simple: I don't care if you like the rec list or not. I don't care if you like the comments or not. The important thing is, do you gain value from this site? I do. If you don't, posting about how much it sucks probably won't change anything. Working to change the culture of the membership through posting material which gets their attention that is more interesting than whatever you think of as dreck on the rec list?
That's how you change things.
(which is kind of how the Kos birdwatchers have become a fixture here, even if sometimes people hate it when bird diaries make the rec list).
So, whatever-- I'm just going to post a photo I've posted a few times so far, 'cause I love Owls and so do a lot of other people:
Have a good night, everyone. I'm going to grab dinner and go play music.