Honestly, my writing is not so hot. I've made the rec list only twice, and that by piggybacking on the merits of Obama & the Breaking meme. Atrocious as my style is, I need the backing of a secret cabal to make it to the top. I telepathed a plea to Hamsher, but she refused mereley because I criticized her tactics. Luckily, there's a private Facebook group that can help.
Kossacks for a Reality-Based Dailykos
We're Progressive Democrats who wish and work for the best policy while realizing the incredible challenge that is overturning the status quo. Since the public option failed, one group has lined up behind varying daily attacks on the President and what remains of the healthcare reform bill. Our group is set up to recommend diaries on DailyKos that seek to educate and improve and oppose diaries that seek to deceive and destroy without merit.
For a by invitation-only group, that's a pretty open-stated way to "recommend diaries on DailyKos" & "oppose diaries."
Why bother to labor through reading a well-written diary by a stranger (or a poorly written one by myself) when there's an easy alternative?
This has been a long-time coming, but I suspect won't be lasting a long-time. If airing it in the open doesn't deflate this secret group, then DK4 will. How did all this drama begin? Who knows anymore, but here's an arbitrary starting point....
ONCE UPON A TIME, there was (and still is-despite the best efforts of many to the contrary) a kossack named Slinkerwink. Being myself a relative newbie of only a couple of years I can't be sure, but I think she signed up around the time of the Harding administration.
Anyways, after years of diarying here, she decided to augment her income by working for-or on behalf-or in tandem (or however you wish to characterize/mis-characterize it) with FDL's push on HCR. Great controversy eventually formed around that relationship while it lasted. That controversy only became more heated as the debate around healthcare went in the direction that it did & Hamsher's system of alliances outreached to Darth Vader & his minions.
Lot's of feelings got hurt. Some people felt, or were indeed, dissed. A tendency emerged to try to divide the site neatly in half. Most resisted that futile attempt-but others threw themselves into it wholeheartedly.
Eventually, Slink apologized for what she felt was her personal part in non-partisan downward spiral.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
I acknowledge I’m not perfect, and I have failed a few times in keeping my cool and I’ve said or rather, written things that I have regretted. I would like to apologize for that.
Some heard that apology, but chose to ignor it.
Slink expressed disapproval of Hamsher's Norquist alliance.
Some heard that disapproval, but some chose to ignor it.
Slink stopped working with FDL.
Some heard that separation, but some chose to ignor it.
Some continued to be filled with an unreasonable fear of FDL's infuence here (& not just a rejection of their tactics in the larger world).
Some people have seemed to have decided that cutting off ties with FDL was not enough-they would have to take matters into their own hands-& away from the prying & meddlesome eyes of un-informed kossacks who could not be trusted to self-correct.
Our group is set up to recommend diaries on DailyKos that seek to educate and improve and oppose diaries that seek to deceive and destroy without merit.
Does that mean that they don't enter enmasse to oppose diaries that "deceive and destroy" if said diaries have merit? Oh, the weighty questions of doctrine that must assail our guardians of discourse on FB.
Mind you, the people on this group are not Martians. They're good people who care deeply about our country and this site. Some of them gifted enough to make the rec list even without the help of a private FB group. Unfortunately, they've let unreasonable fear drive them to working in private to protect the rec list.
In the thread where the existence of this group was disclosed by critics of it, some of its members sought to explain why it was needed & wasn't reflective of the same tactics they had opposed Hamsher for. One of them even foreshadowed his own GBCW diary later in the day in response to the group's revelation in public.
mahakali Overdrive
That's it... I'm leaving this forum. I'm so tired of this stuff. Honestly. The drama here is beyond anything I would ever deal with in my personal life. Ever. This level of drama is the stuff of nightmares. I no longer recognize the site I joined two years ago.
I won't even leave you with my worst thoughts. In fact, I wish you all the best in your future.
Another one explained why the group was neeeded.
CatM
Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. If people didn't try to game the system and the rec list, it wouldn't have become an issue.
So, a lot of you belong to FDL and have your mission....
What that member meant by "a lot of you belong to FDL" I do not know. Nor do I know if she would include Meteor Blades, who despite his severe criticisms of Hamsher's recent tactics, still values some of the writers there.
I will not stop reading FDL. There are too many good things on that site.
(Disclosure for those whose perception of the obvious is impaired by fear of the other: I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Communist Party FDL, nor do I have any connection with Hamsher. I take that back-I'd rather plead the 5th.)
Really people, FDL is not, I repeat not, a threat to DKos' precious bodily fluids.
FDL doesn't control this website or the rec list. If you believe otherwise, please check out the overwhelming rejection that Cenk Uygur's diary on a proposed alliance with bigoted teabaggers received. DKos doesn't need its own version of homeland security to protect us from "FDL terrorists."
Anyways, back to the group that would protect us....
In what must've been one of the greatest unrecorded moments in the history of DailyKos irony, Slinkerwink tried to join the group, but was banned from it instead.
CatM
If we had honestly felt that your intent in asking to join was something other than golddigging for information that you could use to threaten people with running to MB with, as you often do on Daily Kos, and that you shared the same political approach and commitment to fact-based journalism that we do, we might have been more receptive to your application to join.
I openly admit to being baffled about what the fear of MB is. Meteor Blades seems to do an outstanding job of community moderation despite his abject failure to be perfect.
Or, as the self-proclaimed founder of the group stated in dialogue, they organize in a FB private group to suppress diaries that seek to deceive and destroy without merit.
That's funny. (24+ / 0-)
They organize to suppress dissent.
by TomP on Tue Jan 12, 2010 at 11:02:58 AM PST
Not dissent (4+ / 0-)
diaries that seek to deceive and destroy without merit.
by CornSyrupAwareness on Tue Jan 12, 2010 at 11:13:02 AM PST
Aren't you glad someone is doing that someplace where you don't have to watch?
As membership is rumored to be only 30, there may still be room for you. I think I've lost my chance to join.
(I apologize aforehand for foreswearing cursing in this diary & for painting kossacks as human beings-even if less than 100% perfect. I also apologize for treating any aspect of FDL or the private FB group with humor. I apologize for this diary. Lastly, I apologize for apologizing.)
UPDATE: A new, improved & softer mission statement-that hopefully reflects a softer mission than reccing or supressing....
As Progressive Democrats, our challenge is to strike a balance between overturning the status quo while maintaining a pragmatic focus. Instead of falling in line with ineffective groups that seek to punish or blame, we focus instead on the positive, reality-based reforms. We are an inclusive group that represents a wide range of ideological views, yet we are first and foremost Democrats. Although we are loosely affiliated with the Daily Kos, we reject recent shifts toward cynicism, inspired instead by the original spirit of the site mission to advance truth through reason.
UPDATE 2: As per CornSyrupAwareness' request, here are CSA's initial posts on this diary about the group (Oh, I forgot to attribute the above updated mission statement to Slink's suggestion & link).
It was my idea. Send the blame my way. My e-mails in my profile.
One more thing it was never secret. I was advertising for it.. until people started mocking us for it. It's good for a laugh for you all but when you think about it how is networking to rec a variety of diaries worse than networking to rec one viewpoint (as many other facebook groups do)? The idea and name for the group were written shortly after Slink + Marcy's right wing fake scandal about Jonathan Gruber (that Grassley and Fox News are now running with to attack Democrats). The idea and name for the group were written in a half a minute by myself. Then people started joining. Blame me for not playing 11D chess and expecting this. Also when I wrote the name and group description it was a public group. The groups not as bad as this diarist makes it sound.
