One of the hardest things for some people (I’m one) to do is to ask for help. I have not done any research into it. I’m certain there are hundreds of essays explaining factors pertaining to it. (Is referring to them an instance of asking for help?)
More below.
Top Comments recognizes the previous day's Top Mojo and strives to promote each day's outstanding comments through nominations made by Kossacks like you. Please send comments (before 9:30pm ET) by email to topcomments@gmail.com or by our KosMail message board.
I’m sure we want to feel competent, self-sufficient. Maybe we don’t want to feel indebted to another. Maybe we don’t want to admit that we need help with things. Maybe we have a hard time saying thank you, so we don’t ask for help so we won’t have to say it.
Once upon a time, in Top Comments, we DID ask for help. We asked for help finding quality comments made on the site each day. I think that was one of the best moves we ever made. I remember the earliest TC diaries, when folks quite naturally asked: what makes a comment ‘Top?’
There is no objective standard for topped-ness. We read a comment, we perceive something appealing about it, and voila! It appears in the diary that night! Of course, inclusion in Top Comments does not mean that there were not hundreds of comments made on any given day that may have been ‘better’ in some sense than the included ones. And diarists within the Top Comments community hold no monopoly on comment judgment.
So we opened submissions from the community for top comments. And the community has responded quite astonishingly, with literally thousands of comments over the years. A time or two I have tried to write Top Comments diaries with explicit thanks for recent submissions, trying to mention the submitter and the person whose comment was submitted, to give renewed recognition to both parties for the real gifts they gave us. I have not done that in quite some time, but I’m thinking I may try to resuscitate it from time to time.
Many of you who visit us nightly have submitting comments. Many of you have made comments that have been submitted! We appreciate every element of help when it comes to comments! Many of you have highlighted quality diaries, in whose comment threads quality comments appeared, thus bringing those diaries additional attention, adding, in many cases, to the richness of those threads.
To us that seems win win!
I have written Top Comments diaries about the ‘art’ of comment mining. Carnacki, the founder of Top Comments, liked to peruse the comment recommendations of select Kossacks, thinking that, busy as many of them are, comments they recommended stood a good chance of being high quality comments.
My technique of choice is to search for ‘highlighting’ comments. People read comments and say Wow! Or Well Said! Or Excellent comment! Things like that. When I first started that, I included the comments in the diary as my own finds. In a sense, I DID find them. But then it became clear to me that those who marked quality comments FOR us to find deserved the credit for that, and comment highlights now appear under the name of the person who brought them to our attention.
Of course, highlighted comments are hit and miss, as well. The possible searches to find those may be infinite, and the searches are not automated in any way, not systematic, not conducted consistently. I wish! Maybe someday mik, our Top Mojo hero, can help us with an algorithm to find a goodly number of those every evening, but I confess it is beyond me (and that we have never asked mik or anyone else for help with this).
Tonight, I would like to ask for your help with comment mining. You guys have helped with these on so many evenings, but we haven’t really ASKED you for this in any recent way. If you would like to be added as a member of the Top Comments group, we will be happy to oblige, no commitment required. If you would like to be added as an occasional diarist for us, we would be completely delighted! We’ll name a … hmm. We’ll name a comment after you! Or a diary! We’ll name a diary after you!
But need help, we do, and, tonight, it seems to me to be time to ask explicitly for it. These are trying times, as you know, and banding together helps. Not can help, DOES help.
Now, if you are putting your time into a local campaign, by all means focus on that! We need your help there more than we do on Daily Kos! Make the fight as powerfully and compellingly as you can, and accept our heartfelt thanks for it! We’ve never needed it more!
Thanks for all you do, and for all you give!
On to tonight’s comments!
Brillig's ObDisclaimer: The decision to publish each nomination lies with the evening's Diarist and/or Comment Formatter. My evenings at the helm, I try reeeeallllyy hard to publish everything without regard to content. I really do, even when I disagree personally with any given nomination. "TopCommentness" lies in the eyes of the nominator and of you, the reader - I leave the decision to you. I do not publish self-nominations (ie your own comments) and if I ruled the world, we'd all build community, supporting and uplifting instead of tearing our fellow Kossacks down. Please remember that comment inclusion in Top Comments does not constitute support or endorsement by diarist, formatter, Top Comments writers or DailyKos. Questions, complaints or comments? Contact brillig.
From brillig:
Laura Clawson’s diary Texas lieutenant governor blames a lot of things for school shootings. Guns don't make the list. prompted skralyx to list a few other things. And generated a thread!
[see? We really, really DO need your help here!!]
TOP MOJO
Top Mojo for yesterday, May 20th, 2018, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary on FAQing Top Mojo.
Top Pictures for yesterday, May 20th, 2018. Click any picture to be taken to the full comment or picture. Thank you jotter!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Image perms do not permit inclusion in Picture Quilt
|
|
|
|
|
|
|