TIPPED, RECCED AND SHARED.
Apparently people have been seeing these words, not knowing/asking what they mean.
I hope this will clear up the confusion.
SECTION ONE: RECOMMENDING A DIARY
RECOMMENDING A DIARY—“RECCING”:
When you recommend a diary you MAKE THIS SPECIFIC DIARY MORE VISIBLE ON DAILY KOS.
Your recommendation says: this is one of the 12 best diaries on the site right now and I think it deserves to be promoted to the recommended list, where it will be more easily noticed, and visible for longer.
The rec list is the heart of community participation at Daily Kos and works better here than on any other site I have ever visited. The rec list is a snapshot of what is important in the news right now, so if you see the same topic on the rec list more than once, that is significant.
The algorithm is secret to make it harder for spammers and trolls to game the system, but we do know that ten recs in one minute have more value than 25 recs spread out over an hour.
Some authors are popular and have admirers who rec every diary they write even before they read it on the assumption that everything they write is worth reccing. It is a good idea to read a diary before recommending it, however it is possible to recommend a diary without opening/reading it.
HOW TO RECOMMEND A DIARY:
Under the diary title on the right you see the number of comments the diary has received and the number of recs the diary has received next to an orange star in a circle. Click the orange star to rec the diary. The circle will reverse color and become a white star inside an orange circle.
You are recommending the diary as a whole—either because you agree with it, think it is funny, want to encourage discussion on this topic, or some other reason you want more people to notice it.
EXTRA INFO:
Members of the press, staffs of elected officials & candidates, and political commentators monitor the rec list of this site. Once a diary is on the rec list it is likely to be seen by powerbrokers on both sides. Think of those 12 spots on the rec list as our way of telling the powers that be what we think is important.
We can also use the rec list for personal stuff and light hearted stuff as well, because that kind of caring for one another builds connection and a connected community is a stronger community.
There is only approve/neutral for a diary. There is no way to say: “I dislike this diary”.
You will sometimes see seasoned users wish for this option, also known as the “smite button”.
PITFALLS TO AVOID:
Do not add the recommended tag manually. Do not remove the recommended tag manually. Let the site system do it automatically. Violating this will subject you to site discipline.
If you are not sure whether you have recced the diary and you click the star again, you will UNREC the diary, and you can’t change your mind and re-recommend later. If a diary is open, you can hover over the star and see the name of everyone who recommended the diary. Look for your name in orange. If you don’t see your name, you have not recced yet.
TBM FREE ADVICE, WORTH WHAT YOU PAID FOR IT:
Language such as “recommend” or “votes to add to rec list” could appear next to the star to indicate what the star means. Then everyone could easily see a diary has 75 comments and 49 votes to add it to the rec list.
Perhaps people could receive a limited number of diary recs per day so they will realize how valuable they are. Just to throw a number out there, I am suggesting newbies get 12 recs a day and TUs get 25 recs a day.
TBM is one of those would LOVE a smite button, perhaps restricted to superusers only (kos has said repeatedly over the years that we will never get one).
SECTION TWO: TIPPING A TIP JAR
RECOMMENDING THE FIRST COMMENT BY THE DIARY AUTHOR—“TIPPING”:
When you recommend the “tip jar” you GIVE MOJO TO THE DK USER WHO WROTE THE DIARY.
You can approve by tipping, stay neutral by doing nothing, or, if you are a trusted user, you can flag, meaning something about the author (or the diary) violates community guidelines.
Your tip says: I like the author of this story. I like the way s/he writes, or the topics s/he writes about, and I want everyone (including the diarist) to know that.
Tipping any comment gives “mojo” (community participation credit) to the person who wrote it. Mojo is another fantastic feature of DK. You can have between zero and five bars of mojo, which indicate your level of participation on the site.
When you get three bars of mojo you become a “trusted user”, meaning you can downrate comments as well as uprate them. There is lovely site history here which is too long to go into, or a topic for another DK BASICS diary.
Some authors have admirers who tip every tip jar automatically (and every comment) they write. It is a good idea to read a diary before tipping the tip jar, but if you decide later to remove a tip it is easy to do so.
HOW TO TIP A DIARY AUTHOR:
Find the first comment in the diary by the person who wrote the diary. The system automatically adds a tip jar for everyone who is not a staff member.
Staff members do not get a tip jar for stories that public directly to the front page. But some staff members publish their diaries to the recent list first, and those do get an automatic tip jar. They have infinite mojo already, and don’t need the ego boost of seeing lots of tips in the jar, but they may want to know who their regular readers are.
If you hover over the recommend box of the tip jar (or any other comment), you will see the names of all the people who recommended it, with your name in orange.
EXTRA INFO:
Flagging the tip jar is the only way to show disapproval of a diary, so sometimes you will hear people refer to “flagging the diary”. Trolls used to come here and write inflammatory diaries and then not post any comments so there was no way to indicate disapproval. That’s why the system automatically posts the tip jar now, so there is always at least one comment by the author of the diary that can be flagged.
I believe, but am not sure, that the autoban pays more attention to flags on tip jars than flags on other comments. If a new user gets their tip jar flagged, that gets the attention of the autoban bot as well as admins.
I believe, but am not sure, that a comment is hidden once it gets twice as many flags/hide ratings as recs/upratings, plus one. So a comment with one rec needs three flags to hide it, a comment with two recs needs five flags to hide it, a comment with three recs needs seven flags to hide it, etc.
While you can see who has recced a comment, you can no longer see who has flagged a comment. This was done to prevent groups from from coming together to gang up on people they did not like and hide their comments.
Trusted Users get five flags a day, which makes folks very careful about how they use them.
If you see a diary that is obvious spam or some other violation of site guidelines, the best thing to do is FLAG THE TIP JAR. That will get spambot/admin attention quickly, especially if it is a new user.
PITFALLS TO AVOID:
Do not flag/downvote/hide top jars or comments for mere disagreement. Flag only for violations of community guidelines (available in the Rules of the Road, or ask someone who has been active for a while).
TBM FREE ADVICE, WORTH WHAT YOU PAID FOR IT:
TBM thinks trusted users should get (WAY) more than five flags a day. Some news stories/periods of the year bring out trolls and it is easy to use up five flags quickly.
Perhaps the number of flags could also be pegged to bars of mojo. Five flags for three bars, 10 for four bars, 25 for five bars.
SECTION THREE: SHARING TO SOCIAL MEDIA
SHARING A DIARY TO SOCIAL MEDIA—“SHARING”:
When you share a diary to social media you HELP THE BEST AUTHORS AND DIARIES GO VIRAL.
Your share to Facebook or Twitter brings the diary to the attention of everyone who follows you on Facebook or Twitter and if they share it with their followers then the reach of the diary and the author and Daily Kos as a whole is greatly magnified.
I am an old fogy and not a Facebook user but I recognize its communication power and am reconsidering getting on Facebook for 2018.
I am using Twitter more and more and enjoy having a way to easily tweet my own diaries to my handful of followers there.
HOW TO SHARE A DIARY:
Click the blue f to share on facebook or the blue outline of a bird to share on Twitter.
Right now I am not seeing the share icons, so maybe this feature is disabled during times of high site traffic, but you can always share a diary manually—copy the url of the diary into a twitter post or a facebook post.
EXTRA INFO:
DK5 (the fifth site upgrade) was designed to make it easier to share diaries to social media and expand the political communication power of the site.
Diaries that are great will get TIPPED, RECCED and SHARED to spread them as widely as possible and encourag more good writing among the same lines.
PITFALLS TO AVOID:
Make sure you trust the truthfulness of a diary before you spread it on social media, since it harms the reputation of the site if something false is shared widely. Share diaries by staff members and other trusted/vetted authors who have a reputation for fact checking and some investment in being held accountable.
If a diary you shared turns out to have some major problem, it is a good idea to remove your social media shares as quickly as possible, again to protect site reputation.
TBM FREE ADVICE, WORTH WHAT YOU PAID FOR IT:
Viral diaries are absolutely crucial to the 2018 and 2020 elections and the equally important special/local elections in 2017 and 2019.
Social media shares attract more people to Daily Kos, raise the influence profile of the site, and when done well enhance our reputation as a place to discuss general strategy and drive support to specific candidates.
Last but not least, the Democratic Party had HORRENDOUS MESSAGE DISCIPLINE in 2016. To be fair, it has gotten a little bit better since inauguration day, but we missed an opportunity last year and the road ahead is a rocky uphill climb.
As a result, it is even more important to have quality message discipline here at DK, especially in diaries we share widely offsite. This means:
- avoiding right wing talking points and framing language in our own writing
- flagging them when others use them
- fact checking talking points and memes: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
- pushing back on fake news/stories that have already been factually discredited. EVERY TIME.
- crowdsourcing the most accessible/memorable language for Blue Team talking points
- helping to bridge the gap of poor messaging in the party by encouraging one another to use the phrases and memes we create here
- expecting a basic level of journalistic quality in the diaries we promote most widely
BOTTOM LINE:
I have been thinking about doing a series like this for a while. Ursulafaw’s rant, plus a rare complete day off (my last for quite a while, I’m afraid), made today the day to start.
DK could also use an updated/updatable glossary of various acronyms and other Left Blogistan shorthand and I would be happy to work on one (and in fact have already started one).
If you have a topic to suggest for DK BASICS let me know in the comments and I will consider writing it up in the future. I enjoy this kind of thing so I am open to suggestions and curious about what people want to know more about.
This is the busiest part of my work year and I will have very few precious moments of discretionary time over the next few weeks. But helping the DK community communicate more effectively is essential to the central site purpose, and it will be 2018 before we know it.
So I will give as much time to this as I can, because preparing for #BlueWave2018 is literally a matter of life and death.
in this world it still takes love
talking ‘bout change just ain’t enough
we gotta show what we’re made of
these times are gonna get rough
get the word started
right now