This is a rant. The tip jar is utterly useless and nobody even knows its purpose unless they have been on Daily Kos since its inception. Now I have been informed that the tip jar serves the purpose of allowing a bad post to be flagged by flagging the tip jar. Fine. Let’s leave something there, such as an icon that shows an emergency symbol so that the little morsel of good that the tip jar does can be preserved. But let’s NOT use it confusingly as it is being used now. Or if that’s too much trouble, leave the tip jar and provide a sentence at the top of each diary, “to recommend a diary, click on the orange star.” Surely that cannot be too difficult?
The site is filled with people who think that tipping is the same as rec’ing and that includes me in the beginning. The only way I got clued in was because I asked why the numbers were different on “recs” and what was in the tip jar, sometimes by quite a lot. I got some arcane explanation that a tip was a sign of goodwill but not quite enough goodwill to give somebody a rec. Frankly, I find that absurd but I went along with it and would continue to go along with it but for the fact that I keep encountering people here on the site who do not know the difference between a tip and a rec AND believe that they were rec’ing when they were only tipping. That is what pisses me off so much. If this was a clear cut situation of somebody knowingly tipping — fine, I’m fine with that, most everybody is, I would imagine. But that is NOT the CASE.
Writers are losing a lot of recs which could help them get to the rec list. Now I have no problem getting to the rec list, which is why it’s good that I be the one to write this, so that this complaint is not lodged by somebody who might sound sour grapey. I’m gratified at how many times I have gotten on the rec list, no complaints.
But if I am telling people how to rec and I’ve told a couple of dozen, including three last night in the same thread then just compound that by the number of diaries posted on any given day and what we have here is a failure to communicate.
And the writers are getting screwed. There are times, believe me, when five recs in any given diary would make or break it getting to the rec list. And getting to the rec list is the only way that a piece gets widely read. Otherwise, it is a “small diary” and languishes in the archives. Many of them are totally excellent. I wonder how many would have had a different fate if this awful confusion did not exist?
I blame Management, pure and simple. It is not in Rules of the Road — or maybe it’s not prominently displayed. In any event, something simple needs to be put in Rules of the Road, an explanation of how to rec, what the tip jar means, and an explanation of how the algorithm actually works would be super peachy keen. That’s yet another secret that only Meta Jesus and his High Priests and Priestesses know and for the rest of us it’s total darkness. But I can wait on algorithm news. Lack of knowledge of the algorithm’s workings isn’t hurting anybody. Lack of knowledge of how to vote is.
This is appalling. People here DON’T KNOW HOW TO VOTE! Doesn’t the irony of that blow you away? Voting is everything to us, yet we don’t know how to do it for our own stories on our own site?
Thank you for letting me rant. If you want to sign a petition to eliminate the tip jar, or if you think the tip jar is just wonderful and don’t care that people are confused, please let me know in the comments below.
Oh, and if this is new information to you: to rec, you must hit the orange star. It’s at the top of every diary and at the end of every diary.