Enthusiasm and Optimism are our national ethos, and no one ever got elected, or won fame by being a harbinger of doom. We have a whole constellation of epithets for such people from classical antiquity to modern pop culture, from "Casandras" to "Chicken little." Well, I'll take my chances to discuss what we will be giving up in the next week, something that has been the central element of this amazing web site, the unique Dailykos Diary. While the name remains, the substance will be quite different.
"Most of the action takes place inside of diaries. These are written by users, and then read and commented on by other users."
The preceeding two lines are in quotes because they are taken from this authoritative . compendium the FAQ of this web site. This description in the FAQ, has been revised over the years, but also has been shaped by the hundreds of thousand of diaires that have flowed down the recent diary list.
The formal guidelines codified the rules and the traditions of this medium, this "diary" that was to become so much more than the official guidelines
There are 26 rules, some are technical but others convey a philosophy, something that evolved over years of use. The first one is really an overlay, a way of defining all of the other principles. This first rule shall be abolished, for reasons that have never been adequately explained by the one person who is making the decision.
1-All users are limited by the system to one diary per calendar day.
This first rule is not even neccessary if there were ways to enforce the more subjective other rules, such as
4-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.
The thought and effort in defining and formulating these guidelines is self evident in their reading. And although we are only days away from the discarding these guidelines, the source of "most of the action" there is no new set of guidelines to take its place. With the elimination of the one diary a day limit, the requirement for substantiveness is also obviated, as I would guess is the limits on duplicate diaries. All of these guidelines are to be replaced by the requirement that diaries are endorsed by a single Trusted User, as if this catagory is so refined as to eliminate it being bestowed on someone who has not internalized these values.
The claim that nothing is changed except external formatting simply isn't supported by the removal of what had been the definition of the self described central element of Dailykos. This is not a bug, or an oversite in a new revision. In DK3, the guidelines, while often ignored in principle, represented the values, the consensus of those who participated here. There was no capacity for individual's removing a diary which didn't follow these principles, only the words in the comment, "delete this diary" with a reference to the guidelines that were being breached.
The one a day limit is no limit all if the requirement for substantive material is to remain. At the very least it should remain as a strong suggestion, with the presumption that more frequent submissions should be in an "open thread"