Preface:
I was educated by someone who often makes comments on my diaries the other day that a diary about diaries which I wrote titled “Just Sayn': Look! Up in the sky! It's an article, it's a story, it's an essay, no, it's a diary” needed to have a META tag. I didn’t know what this meant so I looked it up. I thought this term was from how the tag is used in HTML. It is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary below:
(of something that is written or
performed) referring to itself or to something of
itsown
type:
________________
I wrote a diary yesterday which prompted a comment thread that was totally off-topic but which I found to be an interesting example of how our community of commenters interact with each other. It begins with a commenter posting a relevant a quote from a New Yorker article related to my diary and being taken to task for not posting a link to the article. Then there were nine comments not counting mine about putting links on what you post. You can follow the thread here.
This got me to thinking about one of the many things that makes Daily Kos unique.
One of the aspects of Daily Kos that is unusual is that the readership includes a group of commenters where frequent readers get to know each other.
There are at least a dozen readers who frequently comment on my diaries who I have gotten to know rather well though our online interactions in the comments to what I write. Some take me to task for various reasons from grammar errors to my opinions, and others add their opinions to mine, and some even complement me. If you’re reading this you know who you are so I do want to say that I appreciate all of you. That I can write the previous sentence in fact is another example of rare aspect of Daily Kos.
Another unusual feature is that you can see the diary posting and comment history of any commenter.
If you then click the poster’s name (below) you can see the posters profile and a list of all their diaries:
The group of readers who comment on Daily Kos regularly is no doubt in the many thousands though spread out over many stories and diaries. It is nowhere near the number commenting on to a given article or OpEd on websites like The New York Times or Washington Post which may have thousands of comments. I don’t ever see the names of commenters on those or other websites like HUFFPOST or RAWSTORY which enable comments who I recognize like I do on Daily Kos.
This wasn't true in the early days of the Internet when The New York Times began to enable comments on their stories when I began to put my opinions there. There was one commenter who I frequently engaged with online to the extent that we got to know each other and I ended up driving from the Boston area to eastern New York State to visit her.
If you search her name plus NY Times you can find some links to references to her since she also wrote letters to the Times with the earliest one from 1994. Here’s an example with her name blacked out:
Several years ago two people who lived in the Portland, OR area who I became acquainted with though their comments on my diaries came to visit me. A third planned to come but couldn't make it that day.
When summer comes and everyone is fully vaccinated I’m hoping some of the frequent commenters to my diaries who live nearby can get together.
It is noteworthy and possibly unprecedented for a website that Daily Kos also sponsors the Netroots Nation convention:
Netroots Nation is a political convention for American progressive political activists. Originally organized by readers and writers of Daily Kos, a liberal political blog, it was previously called YearlyKos and rebranded as Netroots Nation in 2007. The new name to reflects participation of a broader audience of grassroots activists, campaign workers and volunteers, thought leaders, messaging technology innovators and local, state, and national elected officials. The convention offers 3 days of programming: panel discussions on emerging issues in politics and society; training sessions to support more effective activism; keynote addresses from speakers of national stature; an exhibit hall; networking opportunities and social events. The event draws roughly 3000 attendees. Wikipedia
Unfortunately Wikipedia has a caution on the entry saying it reads like an advertisement and needs to be improved.
There you have it, my second #META tagged diary in three days. Now my question is whether what with all the major news breaking this weekend is if anyone will read it. If you got this far please take the poll. This will give me an idea of the number of people who read the diary. I warn you though, if you enough of you do it will only encourage me to write more diaries like this.