I’ve been thinking for a while of writing a diary titled “This Site Has Lost Its Mind,” prompted by coming on here one day and seeing Rachel Maddow portrayed as “just like Fox News.” (!)
Instead, I will simply note that my Daily Kos reading habits have changed. I used to visit the site once or twice a day, reading most of the FP stories and many of the Recommendeds, including all the comments. I often posted comments myself, and also posted diaries, some of which hit the Rec list.
Now? Now, I drop in every few days, scan the FP headlines, then scan the Rec list. If there is a story that interests me, I read the story. Only. I almost never read the comments, and I rarely comment myself.
Why? Because more and more, this site resembles a cross between a shark feeding frenzy and the inside of a locomotive factory.
The attacks on our candidates are constant and vicious. The attacks on each other are constant and vicious. Persons that I have read for years, who have written valuable work and provided valuable insights, are trashed as soon as they post a diary. Writers whose work was recognized for clarity and compassion have left, swept under by the tsunami of vitriol.
Some say that this is being caused by trolls and plants, sent here to blow up the community. I have no insights into that, but here’s one thing I DO know: Just as in the physical world, online communities develop a culture, a shared sense of “this is how we do things around here.” I have seen this community, and others, fend off trolls and attacks because the regulars enforced the culture, and told the offenders “that’s not how we do things around here.”
That culture has changed, or so it seems to me. What once would have gotten called out is now celebrated. Responses that would have been hidden quickly are instead the source of dozens or hundreds of counter-comments, and up-rated to keep them from being hidden.
You may say it was like this in the Howard Dean days, or in the Obama-Clinton days. I beg to differ. There is a difference in quantity, and a difference in quality. The hatred is more open, the dismissal of our shared humanity more easily accomplished. In short, it is now painful to read this site.
I do not pretend that this diary, or ten more like it, will change the current culture, or stop the mud-slinging. I assume it will drop off the bottom of the diary list, and the death match will continue.
I hope, though, that at some point, the bar fight stops, and people look around and ask themselves “Is this the site we want to have?” Perhaps we can then start rebuilding a culture that lives up to our ideals.