We have 1110 users. When I posted my defense of Markos we had just passed 1000. That’s a 10% jump in two days. I never expected that you all would be so kind as to reward me for racing to Markos’s defense, when many of you were angry with him.
Update [2005-6-7 14:26:44 by BooMan]: We have 1125 users. In the time it took me to write this article we gained 15 more newbies.
But, it shows two things. One, you all read my defense for what it was: a defense of all front-pagers at community blogs, not just Kos. We write a lot of things, we throw a lot of opinions out there. Many people in our audience are more informed than we are. How can I write confidently about education when there are teachers, who live education everyday, that know more about the subject than I ever will? The same is true for environmentalism, foreign policy, women’s issues, etc. When we write our stories we are taking a big risk, we are subjecting ourselves to correction, ridicule, and worse.
:::flip:::
The second thing your response shows is that you were willing to accept that I didn’t know all the facts when I wrote the defense. And I appreciate that. In my book, Markos deserves a lot of credit for everything he has accomplished. He puts his ass on the line everyday with the whole world watching, and the wingnuts and the MSM looking to pounce on every minor error, every slip of the tongue. That was what I wanted to point out.
But he invited people to leave. And for that, he must take full responsibility for anyone who decided to take him up on the offer. And I am sure he does.
I think he took the wrong tone in his pie-fight article and created an unfortunate rift. I have become much more aware of the prelude to that rift in the last two days. I still stand by the fact that we should be forgiving of each other, we should let a person make a mistake and give them time to correct it, or learn from it. We should not be fighting amongst ourselves. So, let’s try to heal our wounds and concentrate on why we are all here. Our opponents control all the levers of power. We must regroup and move forward, with unity.
United we stand.
is the key. Let dkos take care of dkos. We have much work to do and now to our benefit, we have more Tribe members to do it. I just hope we can keep that down home, small town feel here. Thank you Boo for setting such a fine example. I look forward to reading diaries from those folks that have recently migrated over to the pond.
Let me start by saying I appreciate the effort that you and others have put into creating this space. I’m a brand new member of this community (user id 1074) and I feel very welcome here, so thanks.
And I also appreciate what you’re saying in this post. We do need to pull together as a community, and a community of communities, if only so that we can benefit from bulk discounts when buying our survivalist supplies.
But I do want to register my objection to those (NOT you, BooMan) who suggest that when we publicly disagree with Kos or his ilk, it only feeds into the Rovian plan. Kos himself posted today on the main page attacking Kerry for not releasing his full military records sooner (as did Atrios and others), and then later on the Edwards vs. Dean blowout. On the off chance that Karl Rove really is mining the blogs for signs of dissension, why would he need to go beyond the front pages of the liberal blogs to find the pie fight?
Sorry, I’m ranting. Thanks again for a neat space.
As one of the update’s “15” users that just signed on, let me thank you for providing this space. It may be a little hypocritical for me to note this, but explosive growth might not be the best thing for the site. I think you — and those who’ve been posting and commenting on this site for a while — need to see if you can figure out ways to limit the negative effects of rapid growth, and mitigate the effect that growth has had on Daily Kos.
Most of the ways I can think of involve distasteful “censorship” (RedState.org’s no profanity rule seems to work well), a low threshold for banning, or a rating of comments not necessarily on “usefulness” but for “factual content” or something. None of which is really an agreeable strategy for various reasons…
Anyways, thanks for the space, but do try to brainstorm and develop structural changes and procedures that might help keep decorum and reality-based content in spite of your newfound success.
Man, spellcheck! I am so happy.
Oops, didn’t mean to comment on your post djinniya! That’s the first time I’ve ever done that! Drats.
Here’s another message for Booman though: if your server costs are going way way up you should put up a paypal thing or something for new members to contribute.
This is a topic that I’ve been thinking about on and off for the past, err… at least seven years or so, I guess. I haven’t thought about it as much regarding Daily Kos, because I’ve only been active there for the past year or so. But I’ve seen other sites go downhill as they become more popular, and some of this is simply a social problem of how to properly deal with a large number of users.
People often make the mistake of equating a blog to a single ‘community’. Perhaps that’s because in the beginning, when a blog is small, it can be (or seem like) a very tight-knit community. Sure, people come together from all walks of life, but they’re united by some common interest or passion, and they vigorously discuss it with each other.
But as blogs grow, they naturally attract a more diverse group of people, with shifting interests. Events can cause influxes of new people with new ideas and agendas, changing the face of the discussions and posts on the site. And that’s when the honeymoon ends, and the cognitive dissonance starts.
This is when a blog stops being a community. In reality, blogs are composed of many communities–communities of like interests or backgrounds. For almost any issue, you’ll find people who agree with you, and those who don’t. You’ll find people who can discuss certain topics in a civil manner, and those who can’t.
Apart from whatever issues (if any) form the core of the blog, other opinions will tend to be distributed in a bell curve. The same contentious issues that would turn a large, diverse group of people into a squabbling horde do the same thing to a large blog.
Of course, in real life, you might not often end up with a large horde of people vigorously discussing an issue–and if you did, you’d know it. You’d know who’s there with you in the room, and perhaps what to expect from them as well. You’d know if you’re choosing to associate with a small group of friends, or if you’re in the middle of a town hall meeting. This can be much tougher on a blog, especially when with one click of a mouse, you can move from a small group of friends, and right into a hostile town hall meeting.
Personally, I think that any good solution would involve a certain amount of self-censorship, to break the site up into a fluid mixture of communities on any particular issue. If there’s anything you don’t feel like seeing on a site, or at a particular moment, then you shouldn’t have to see it. I’ve thought about the technical hassles involved, and I feel that a good system would be tough to do well, but ultimately quite worthwhile.
As to your ideas, you’re dead on in that comment ratings should be used for sorting out spam, specious reasoning, and poor writing from intelligent and thoughtful discussion–I think that’s buried somewhere in the original Kuro5hin guidelines, but no one reads those anymore. And I’m also no fan of the suppression of the minority–at the very least, they should be able to reach anyone who wants to speak to them as well.
..for bringing this up. As a new arrival, I’ve been torn between my enthusiasm over everything that is happening so rapidly here, and a desire to tread very, very softly so as not to further disrupt the small party I’ve just crashed. I’ll be sure to watch for other posts you may make on this topic.
Without getting into the other things you’ve written — I’m gonna take my chance to mow the lawn now while it’s not over 95 degrees outside — there’s a problem with self-censorship. It isn’t a scalable option. It only appears to work in snall tight-knit groups of people who generally know each other. How many “meta” diaries on dKos have there been in the past few months decrying the lack of decorum, and how much worse has the decorum problem gotten (ie: my “quibble” with you over there just a few days ago).
I think Slashdot’s or Plastic.com’s rating system — a scoring system with modifiers such as “Funny” or “Insightful” or “Interesting” or “Hateful” or “Trollish” would be a boon to political blogs. But political blogs all use Scoop. Is there anyway to port in the Slashdot/Plastic intent-sensitive (that is to say, the system acknowledged some posts will be humorous nonsense and some will be “red meat”) “karma” style ratings into Scoop, even imperfectly?
I disagree with your assessment of self-censorship; of course, maybe you’re right about it, but I think it’d be have to be put to the test to determine this. However, any solution I’d put forward would be much more complex than a simple whitelist, blacklist, or ignore button. As to our quibbles, it seems like self-censorship would have been precisely what you could have used–you only wanted to talk to Page at the time! 🙂
The entire reason for Scoop’s rating system was to correct the problems with Slash’s rating system–namely, not having enough raters (not everyone has karma), and not having accurate ratings (it ends up being more of a tug-of-war–using the average instead takes everyone’s opinions into account). That being said, having a few modifiers in the system to tag posts appropriately might not be a bad thing, but other than that, I’m not a big fan of Slash-style ratings.
One of my ideas is to have as a modifier your assessment of the credibility of the raters themselves. For instance, if I had decided that I don’t trust your judgement very much, but I do trust, say, booman’s judgement, then I could have your ratings weighted less, or not at all (or in reverse?), and his ratings weighted more. This could be used by indicating or tracking comment or posting decisions that you agree or disagree with. (an automatic version of this would be, if a comment gets a rating of (2.3 / 19) and I give it a 4, to weight more heavily those who gave it more positive ratings, and weight less those who gave it more negative ratings) What you’d then end up with is something like a neural net of your opinions of other people’s judgements that you can apply to their rating decisions.
Another, much more simple feature that is (intentionally) missing from Scoop is that of a rating threshold–i.e., display no posts with a rating lower than 2.0, say. This is a feature that I do enjoy and use on slashdot (although as I said, the rating system over there could still use some work :)). When combined with my approach towards ratings, it would help to allow people to filter out the valuable discussion (in their opinions) from the chaff.
“As to your ideas, you’re dead on in that comment ratings should be used for sorting out spam, specious reasoning, and poor writing from intelligent and thoughtful discussion. . .”
This sounds rather troubling. This community has not concerned itself with writing styles, and I’d hate to see the police show up to shower low ratings throughout the site as they see fit – in their own determination of what qualifies as “specious reasoning” or “poor writing”.
My idea was more along the lines of a positive rating system, not the creation of “poor writing” or “specious reasoning” ratings. I just thought that a special rating for superbly factual posts — ones that include graphs, statistics, or hard scientific facts, for instance — might be a good idea. Along with a special rating for “Humorous” or something. I don’t know if that’s possible in Scoop.
Thanks for clarifying. Count me in for anything with a positive spin (outside of my posts, that is ;^)
This sort of thing happens all the time on other Scoop-based sites; the idea originally being that the rating was a reflection on your assessment of the merit of a comment, largely as regards its quality and effectiveness, and not your agreement with it. “Rating purely on the basis of emotional agreement without actual knowledge on the subject or rational/logical disagreement is considered bad style by many users.” — K5 FAQ
Naturally you probably shouldn’t give a 0 or a 1 to a comment because of a typo, a spelling error, or an unjustified assumption–zeroes or ones should generally be reserved for things like spam or vicious attacks. In general, I see nothing wrong with giving a comment a 4 because it’s beautifully written or argued, and then giving another comment a 3 because it’s somewhat inflammatory, sloppy, or incoherent. Many people, however, appear to rate solely on emotional agreement, and might never use ratings like 2 or 3, opting instead only for the extremes. Sometimes, this might be in a desire to manipulate the rating of a comment more towards what they think is deserved, instead of picking what would be a fair rating for that comment in their opinion; I’ve done this as well. (“that comment doesn’t deserve a 0, so I’ll give it a 4 to counteract that even though it doesn’t really deserve a 4 either”) That is one (minor) problem with only using an average as a comment rating.
However, at least on Daily Kos (and at one point in the Diary section of Kuro5hin), it seems that something of a culture of 4 ratings arose. Some people feel entitled to them, and can get quite irate when they get anything but a 4, to the point of replying to their own comment and outright questioning the rater. Some of these posts I’d feel legitimate in downrating–they often detract from the discussion, and tend to be quite petulant. Naturally ratings can be misguided, and should be disagreed with–but if someone gives you a 3, they aren’t necessarily out to get you; responding angrily will likely not improve your ratings.
To be fair, some of the reason for this is because higher ratings are tied to privileges–that of being able to dispense zeroes for comments, and being able to see hidden comments and the discussions that they have spawned. Those who don’t have these privileges often want them, and those who do often don’t want to lose them. This gives people incentives to rate each other highly, and to not want to be downrated. Perhaps comment ratings should not be tied to privileges in this manner.
If a ‘4’ ends up meaning little more than ‘I agree’, then perhaps we should be able to rank comments in other ways. For example, rankings could be based in part on the number of 4’s involved–a (3.83 / 20) might be more interesting to people than a (4.00 / 3).
A rating system where everyone gives each other 4’s is not a rating system at all–it’s an exercise in self-congratulation, and it does not help to separate excellent posts from good or adequate posts whatsoever. Giving people incentive to manipulate ratings just leads to more disingenuousness.
As a member from early on (lurking until I happened upon UID #275) I have to admit I share the same concerns – but just in my head thus far because the priority right now for the existing community has been to make sure that everyone feels welcome. And I certainly don’t want to detract from our greetings.
The community as it existed a couple days ago did not encounter the problems of “police” in any way, shape or form. We’ve accepted each other, warts and all, into the fold. For me, a great deal of the existing warmth stems from that. And the fact that Booman genuinely cares about group dynamics. To a stunning degree. And much of the peaceful environment (for me) relates to the lack of gratuitous profanity – likely stemming from the older crowd this site has attracted thus far. (But again, no one is policed for speaking their mind and using the verbiage of their choosing)
Someone made a comment in the “new guy” thread – a comment I so much wanted to recognize – but after three attempts of my computer locking up (another little downside of the influx) I was unable to post my comments over there. The new member brought a ray of sunshine to my day by saying they’d like to focus on saying “Hello” to the new community rather saying goodbye to the old. Under the circumstances, there are clearly many, many people who feel betrayed. I’ve been there, and it hurts. A lot. And you need to talk about it. But among all the many rants, there was a beautiful little “Hello” in there. So to whomever spoke that one kind little word, I’d like to say “Thank you, I like your style. Welcome to you and to all others (rants and all)”
There’s only been one incidence of banning, and that took place over much angst from Boo, and didn’t even result from the heated comments that had previously been written. It resulted when the person crossed the line and posted highly confidential information from a private e-mail and breached the trust of the proprietor. And speaking from the perspective of observing the whole situation, there were very few people who wanted to see that individual go (prior to the breach) in spite of the things that had been said. (Who among us hasn’t hit the “post” button without regret once and awhile – and this community has been very forgiving.)
Fours are handed out for every reason under the sun, and if you received something other than a 4, you can be pretty darn sure that the rater’s hand slipped as they hit post. But people hand them out as they choose, not because of group think. It’ll be a very sad day when I get my first 2, and I hope it doesn’t happen. That’s just not the way things have operated around here.
I’m a little shell-shocked right now seeing the pond expanding so quickly, but things will settle down, and hopefully the existing dynamics will carry forward, and we can expand gracefully. Boo has expressed confidence in the group, and our ability to handle expansion and trolls. I sincerely believe we’re all positioned to pull together to make things work for everyone (new and old). And with that, I’ll cross my fingers in hopes that this will post.
I’m sure that things will work out ok. But if there’s going to be a problem it’ll sneak up on you before there’s a chance to effectively stop it without an uproar re censorship and marginalization. So it’s something to watch out for, in my opinion, though of course the old timers should spent more time welcoming people than hectoring them on the rules and the milieu of the place.
Apparently there was some post over at Daily Kos leading people here, that wasn’t the reason I registered but I think that’s post has been cited — in the aftermath of the Kos post debacle — as the reason for explosive growth today. I’ve been lurking here — and other dKos “affiliate” sites — for a while and respected the content and the tone. Inertia was the main cause for my not registering a name at any of them, but last night I registered at Red State, and so I figured since this seemed to be the consensus site for a rebirth of decorum I’d register here too as a compliment to my foray into the right wing blogosphere…
And to that, I say “Welcome to you!” (And, um I had no friggin’ idea I had just posted War and Peace up thread. Oops)
Oh my freakin’ Buddha, Anomalous, that “war and peace” remark just made my night… brilliant I tell ya. 😉
(It posted btw) 😛
Thank you sir – nice to see a familiar name :-). (And excellent diplomacy way down yonder, if I may add.)
With that, I need to say Good Night. The computer lock-ups are getting a little too frustrating on this hot, muggy night. I need to go find a fan, pronto – and maybe I’ll check back in the morning to see if things are better.
Oh, and hey! Great timing on your part in completing the “new guy” document – it just might come in handy this week. 🙂
of your evening.
First, let me say that I appreciate the welcome–I’m new here too. 🙂
I mentioned in another post about the culture of 4’s. This is common in Diaries, where people subscribe to what they enjoy reading, and dispense 4’s to other like-minded individuals. If that’s the way things work around here, then why not just have a button or two by every post… One that says “Great Post!” and another (only for trusted users?) that says “Hide”. Seriously, if you never use the other ratings, then why are they there in the first place.
I’d imagine that the site will grow somewhat gracefully for a while–you might notice a bit of a change, but obviously we (newcomers) won’t until the next influx of people. Let me just say that a thousand users, relatively speaking, isn’t that many. I signed up at slashdot I think the day after they created user accounts (I had been posting for some time before they had them as well) — and I ended up being user number 1020. My uid on here isn’t much higher than that (1107). Of course, slashdot has hundreds of thousands of users now; I think I noticed a decline when it started having tens of thousands of users.
For your sake and mine, I hope the honeymoon lasts for a while longer. It sounds like you have a nice culture of civility and respect here, which can only help the discussion quality of the site. And, having an active benevolent dictator always helps. Many sites end up staying relatively small, not changing very much over time. However, I have yet to see a large site that hasn’t gone through some growing pains.
because I signed up not too long after you started the site — I didn’t want some freeper to steal the fine name of Cali Scribe and run it into the dirt; I do a good enough job of that myself. 😉
Haven’t spent much time around here, but I will in the future as I find several people I respect and whose writing I enjoy will be spending more time here. But I’m not totally leaving dKos — I’ll probably just spend a little less time there.
Thanks for making this space available — we’re not like the Right with their “approved” list of names; there’s room for all of our voices.
and my user ID is 31.
Wow — didn’t realize I was that old!
I think your used ID is higher than MINE.
</pout>
my compadre, you can sleep well knowing that yours will always be lower than mine.. both here and on dkos…
fate is a strange mistress indeed.
😉
I was a pacifica come lately here but I beat you at dkos…only by number and, oh, age. I’d like to say I’m older and wiser but I think it’s more accurate to say older and…uh…older. 😉
You deserve the extra traffic.
I didn’t even know you’d written a defense of him, BooMan, so don’t give me any credit. 🙂
Imo, there’s always a problem with the forgiving business, which is that the person being forgiven is unlikely to be grateful if he doesn’t believe he has done anything wrong. Then “forgiving” just feels condescending.
Also, the “forgiving” business cuts two ways, of course. There are plenty of people over at Kos who think we are the ones who made the big mistakes and quite a few of them are angry or resentful. I wonder if if anybody over there will suggest that they forgive us? I doubt it, but then the truth is– who among us wants their “forgiveness” since we don’t think we did anything wrong, either.
Maybe the word and action we’re looking for is, rather, “acceptance.” Of him as he is, warts and all. Of us as we are, warts and all. It doesn’t mean we have to spend much time together, or even like each other, really, but it might allow us to work together on areas where we have really obvious common cause. I don’t know about anybody else, but I’d be pretty happy with that outcome.
I also missed any defense you made of Kos.
I have kept out of this controversy and came to Booman for wholly different reasons. However, I spent several hours today reading various threads and comments and, quite frankly, was appalled by what i saw.
This issue went well past the ad in question. I could care leass about the ad. I was dumbfounded that Kos would post such a disrespectful and thoughtless response on the front page. But, then again, I have never been a big fan of some of Markos’ more assinine moments. But, i don’t go to DKos to read Markos. I go to read the great diaries and partipate in good discussions. However, when confronted with the fact that maybe 20% of DKos regulars are expressing extreme anti-women sentiments, I really have to rethink my position.
I look forward to spending more time here and less time there. Quite frankly, what I would really like to to see all the DKos women leave there. That would make a statement that even Kos would have a hard time ignoring.
I meant to say that as an owner of a site like this or DKos, I think a certain amount of respect for one’s users is in order. All Markos had to do was explain that he was not going to remove the ad for whatever reason. Insulting a third of his users was a bit overboard. But, even then, a sincere and heartfelt apology would have been acceptable. But, no, he again was arrogant and insulting.
So, I agree, it is important to forgive. My friends and I know how to apologize even in the face of a major disagreement. Markos, obviously, does not. Forgiveness cannot come without at least the parties recognizing that they had a problem.
Something I noticed today, in reading a couple of diaries Over There, is that there is a strong tone of antagonism. But that’s the way this country is–our history, our legal system, everything. “In your face, buddy. You don’t like it? Tough!”
The frog pond here seems to be more cooperatively-based, at least so far. What I think of, accurately perhaps or inaccurately, as a more European model of cooperation. And this place has more emphasis on matters outside the U.S. than Over There.
Ribbet.
That is true. I noticed the rancor was particularly steep on this issue. I used to think DKos was nicer than that, but over the past six months, it has gotten much meaner.
I like BooMan. I was resistent at first because I really liked DKos, but I have been slowly getting more involved over here and am quite glad. So despite my not so nice words above, I am delighted to be here and delighted that BooMan is becoming the default refuge for many upset at DKos.
I also love the international aspect of this forum.
It’s taken me a while to slow down enough to enjoy being here. By that, I mean that when you’re in an environment of intense activity, lots of jangling and revving of engines, it takes a bit to decompress when you enter a calmer place.
I realized that I was no longer reading most of the stuff Over There because it was all so angry-sounding. I’m angry, too, over two stolen/hacked elections among other things, but blowing a gasket on my outrage meter and frying my personal electrical system isn’t going to help me or the progressive cause.
And (I just realized this) I’m probably less a true-blue-forever Democrat, although I vote that way, than someone who thinks in terms of progressive policies and world interaction. Susan’s frequent emphasis on human-rights issues connects pretty closely to my own activities with such as Amnesty, so it’s a pretty good fit.
Hmmm, I can’t see the leftmost 10 characters or so of people’s comments – unless they are indented enough as replies to others. Anybody else? Any idea how to fix it? I use Firefox 1.0.4.
Thanks!
same browser.
Did you adblock BooMan’s logo? I did that to speed things up, and that caused the layout problem. Removing it from my blocklist makes everything look nice again.
…but was browsing with images turned off, hence no logo. You are right, drawing the logo does make the layout OK and comments visible. Thanks!
I want to thank you for making such a place exist.
I am amazed by the quality and the respectfulness that show in the diaries and comments.
I thank you also for taking the risk of being open to new ideas and other points of view, and at the same time accepting debate without pretending you own the truth.
This place is a precious place: let’s develop it carefully…
But, please, stop promoting cheesesteacks!
doing a French cuisine diary to counteract Booman’s cheesesteak promotion? :^)
I still stand by the fact that we should be forgiving of each other, we should let a person make a mistake and give them time to correct it, or learn from it. We should not be fighting amongst ourselves. So, let’s try to heal our wounds and concentrate on why we are all here. Our opponents control all the levers of power. We must regroup and move forward, with unity.
Roger that.
After reading the dKos non-apology, I had somewhat of the same feeling I had after the election last year. After the election, my first thought was leave the United States–but then I decided I needed to stay here, and that by staying here it is the only way I can truly make my country a better place. Plus I’m stubborn–I’m not going to let a few punk-ass R’s run me out of town!
I feel the same way about dKos. Yeah, Markos fucked up with the “sanctimonious women’s studies group” comment and the non-apology that followed. It was right to call him on it. But he, and the site he created, is a friend to progressive causes and the Democratic party–the biggest blog-friend, in fact– and thus Markos is my friend, even though I have not met him. For me, if a friend of mine fucks up, I’ll call him/her on it–but that doesn’t mean they’re not my friend anymore.
This is not to say I blame those who chose to leave dKos. We all have to do what we need to do to take care of ourselves. It’s just that I have this perhaps grandiose idea that if I stay, I can help dKos become a better place. If I’m full of it, feel free to say so.
All that said, I like different flavors in my progressive blogs. I was one of the first to sign up for this blog after it started. I’ve also signed up on the new TPM Cafe’, and I have a few other blogs on my daily circuit. I see different things on all, and learn something from each. So I’m glad to be here too. Booman and all the other front pagers here do great work!
Andy
Sarasota
It must have been a pretty hectic 24 – or 48 hours – for you… but that should not hide the fact that you’ve done a tremendous job of making it a pleasant place for this living and lively community yo grow – and in a friendly way, with just one hidden comment in 3 months!
And bravo for your great choices of front pagers 😉 and to SusanHu for providing all that amazing content. It will be hard to do better!
I have a splitting headache. But I at least I didn’t have to spend my day at the hospital. I hope your son is doing well.
So glad to see this site growing like it is Booman. What are the numbers now??
die…I know this is not a Diary for actresses that have died. But….is she really dead?
It is sadly true.
Yes, it is sooo sad. I can’t imagine what Mel Brooks is going through. I knew she was really sick. I worked on a film last year and she was supposed to be in it…they had to replace her last minute with Cloris Leachman. I still cannot believe it.
and you won’t see me on Daily Kos any longer, either.
I only checked in here rarely in the past, but I must say I like the last few days of content and the tone of comments much better. The GCW diary currently recommended over there just reinforces my decision to come here: 90% of the followup has been “it’s just an ad.” Pretty sad.
I hereby pledge to be only constructive here. Now to think up a diary topic…
Every conversation yields some fruit – even if it is bitter. Let’s keep talking to each other. What drew me to login over here were seeing some of the names I liked, names I grew used to on C&J, and a sense of playfull seriousness. I’m looking forward to meeting the new old-timers here as well.
I think that as dkos grows, it has became harder for people to feel like they are “making themselves known”. There are those that feel strident agressiveness is the way to get noticed. There are those that feel a good fight is what being online is all about.
So Hi! everyone. Glad to see you.
some of us don’t know you or this site at all, but just read a post by someone on kos that this might be a better alternative. no disrespect meant. i also have not read your defense of kos, so that’s not why i’m here either. again, no disrespect meant.
cheers —
I think you may be misreading the uptick in traffic here.
It might be taking place in spite of your defense of Kos, and not because of it.
Those who are leaving Kos and looking for another platform on the www will be impressed by what you’re doing here.
Even those remaining at Kos (and I’m one) welcome an alternative.
Amen.
I might be the only one who thinks this, but along these lines of “forgiveness” I was not comfortable with the reaction to “goodbye diaries” over at DKos. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, loozer!” is the kind of reaction I’d expect from Freepers, and not exactly forgiving, in my humble opinion. (I know, neither is leaving, but I didn’t get the memo that two wrongs make a right.) The last few days saw a lot of such “Get over it, p-ssies!” type comments directed towards many who bothered to write a parting diary.
So here’s to forgiveness!
The part of your diary that got me was when you said:
“I think people need to be more appreciative of how much courage it takes to put your opinions out there for the whole world to see.”
I deleted the first diary I posted at dKos because it received some snide remarks. That was a long time ago and I have only recently posted my secone diary on his site. It was a matter of fact “safe” diary, so no snide remarks. I am comfortable posting comments on dKos, but, again, that took me a long time.
I get turned off sometimes about remarks made about some of the writers at NYT and other newspapers. It seems that these writers must do everything perfectly in order to gain acceptence from some of the posters at Atrios, dKos, and others. I get tired of the name calling – it is just not productive.
So I understand your comment about courage. Some of us have it more than others.
I wouldn’t say it’s a reward exactly. It’s just we need some good strong blog communities going.
You defended Kos. I don’t think Kos needs to be deserted for making a mistake. Defending him isn’t a bad thing. I’m definitely not jumping ship. I hope upon further reflection Kos will have some additional comments to make, and hopefully more sensitive than the last.
Anyway, the gain for Booman doesn’t have to be someone else’s loss. We can be one big happy progressive family/community, understanding that with some maturity and actual thought, these issues that don’t seem like issues to everyone NOW can be intelligently addressed. Not everyone has the same background and hasn’t given thought to oppression, victimization, and exploitation. Mix it up with sex drives and you have a recipe for exactly what happened.
Women’s issues are a big deal to me, thanks to working with some feminists and at least one lesbian who wouldn’t let anything pass without consciousness raising! Which led to some OUCH moments for those around who were unaware.
I mean, WTF, now how are my well researched and meaningful diaries where I offer to buy reporters drinks ever going to get FP’d again??
Damn, back to being ‘just one of the crowd’ again.
Sigh.
It’s fun til it’s the next big thing. 😉
I certainly can’t recall a time when you’ve been “one of the crowd” Spiderleaf. Far from it. Lets see those diaries you speak of!
well, let’s see… hmmm… okay… well… there is one that I just posted about 20mins ago not on the reco list yet…
okay, ya got me A, I was bein’ a wiseass again 😉
Here. Take a 4 and chill. And kwitcher bichin’ ;^) Or I’ll just have to give you another 4 and another, until you stop. And before I leave, I’ll go recommend your diary. ‘k? 🙂
I moved because Dkos seems too be too establishment, and narrowly focused for a radical like myself.
I haven’t been here a full day yet so I hope you don’t mind constructive criticism.
The color scheme here is kind of dull and depressing.
Maybe something in brighter blues, air it out a bit.
You are kidding…Right? (he says, thinking to himself…”this is not a good way to introduce ones self to One thousand other people.”) I suppose you want to rename the Frog too. Chill out.
Give it some time. I’ve grown fond of the color scheme over the past couple of months. The green, I think, is non-negotiable because it goes with the frog-marched theme of the site.
I keep missing the embedded links. A post will say something like “Check out this great picture,” and I’m looking all over the place for a picture — five minutes later, I realize that “this” is green. Maybe my eyes are just too old — or maybe I just need to get used to it!
Yeah, it takes some getting used to, kinda like a new mattress; but once it becomes your mattress, you can’t imagine sleeping on anything else. Glad to see new faces here 🙂
The work Markos has done with Scoop to make it a smooth and scalable blog engine is critical to the success you’re having here.
I’m a big fan of Liberal Street Fighter, but because it relies on a sequential comment structure within the diaries, it’s very cumbersome to read through. Over here, we can track our comments, follow a thread, and post a diary. It’s easy.
Scoop is what is making the transition from a 500 user blog to a 1200 user blog smooth and easy. Without Markos’ support for the software, we wouldn’t be here today.
So whatever you might think of how Markos handled the fight, he was the one that pointed the way and support the development of tools that allow us to organize ourselves into a great community.
Thanks Markos for the orignial.
And thanks Booman for a great new place to hang.
Did you name the froggie?
there was a poll during the early stage of the site. He’s cool, even though we’re supposed to be frog-marching him outta here.
Hey, that was my suggestion!
Well congrats, maybe you can use your clout to ask BooMan to roll over the West thread <evil grin>
…at least for the moment. I think I’ve had my fill.
Nothing much to add, or contribute at the moment save that I’m one of your new users, taking a (possibly permanent) break from dkos after the latest bruhaha, but primarily because dkos and I have never been a particuarly good fit.
I agree, that the democratic and liberal community has much to thank Markos and dkos for, but he is and always has been a partisan democrat — no apologies and really, none needed.
So, thanks, booman, for the open space. It’s much appreciated.
he admitted that he was not a great writer. He said his skills on DKos were in setting up, organizing and maintaining the blog not in the actual writing.
I’ve been a commenter at dkos for quite a while, even though I’m probably not very well known there because I don’t do diaries (or windows). In the time I’ve been posting I’ve witnessed many blowups between Markos and community members or between fellow kossacks. It seems to happen every few months with individuals leaving in a huff, normally prefaced by a farewell diary.
I’m a rather busy person and don’t feel I have the time or energy to get in the middle of such disagreements. But that does not mean I don’t have opinions or offer them when I feel moved to.
Markos has built a great site but he isn’t a saint nor is he a demon. He’s fallible like the rest of us and in my opinion, has some rather immature views on certain issues. In particular, women’s issues. I hope in time he will grow to better understand and have greater sensitivity for women’s history and our contemporary challenges in a world still dominated by paternal power.
Sorry Boo, I missed your defense of Markos…but I’ll bet it was a good one. 🙂
I haven’t yet left a certain other Site That Shall Not Be Named, but I thought I’d check things out here. For one thing, I can adopt a more accurate user name here (since I no longer live in Berkeley).
I’m also curious to see whether the discussions will be more polite here than at that Site That Shall Not Be Named. I’ve certainly dished out my share of disdain, but I’m trying to get away from that. Of course, I recognize many of the same folk here, so things may not be that different.
Also, the Site That Shall Not Be Named has gotten awfully big, and awfully slow lately. I’m not the busiest person in the world, but I hate sitting there watching a webpage not load. And I have DSL. So maybe it’s time to jump on a smaller bandwagon. Don’t worry, I’ll ditch you folks too when you get too big for my convenience.
As for the whole Gilligan’s catfight ad thing, nobody should be surprised that I wasn’t paying attention when it broke. I rarely pay attention. I wasn’t so offended by the ad — I enjoy a good catfight. I realize the ad is in poor taste, but so are those reality shows in general. That being said, I see very clearly how it would be offensive to many people over there (and here), given the nature of our collective community. Most media, whether web, print, or broadcast, take a moment to review the content of advertising submitted for placement. It would seem to me that given the nature of The Site That Shall Not Be Named, someone in a position of responsibility would have reviewed that ad and said “oh wait, this isn’t really appropriate for us. We’re a progressive website with a large base of female members, and this will no doubt be offensive to many people. Thanks but no thanks.” I’m surprised it didn’t happen. Of course, I’m just as surprised that the eejits at TBS thought they were engaging in effective target marketing by trying to place that ad at The Site That Shall Not Be Named.
Anyway, greetings!
You show it, and you show that you listen, and you disagree with people without dismissing them.
Thank you.
I will try to straddle things, however. Might make me more of a lurker and less of a poster in both places, but as some guy once said, “you can keep your mouth shut and be thought of as an idiot or you can open your mouth and prove it”.
I will simply listen for now. No lame one-liners!
…and my user number is 1258. So that makes over 130 more in the last few hours.
Just out of curiosity, I plugged in the last hundred uid’s to see who else just signed up. I recognized more names from Daily Kos than I typically recognize on the site itself.
What does that mean?
I signed on at dKos last February, maybe, and have a UID of 41,000 out of 50,000. I signed on to BoomanTrib yesterday and have a number of 1000 out of 1200. The ratio is the same 4:5 — the timing is four months versus one day. Looks like this is the place that rocks!!! 🙂
The only thing I’d hate to see happen here is a “this community is better than DKs” tone. I love this site (even if I still have html issues that I haven’t figured out)and I love DK. But they are entirely different critters. The pace, the look, the tone. There are some things better here and there are some things better there. That’s why I like having the choice.
The tone on DK has been going really negative lately but I’ve seen that before and it cycles on and off at intervals. This breech is different mainly because it involves ill-chosen words and attitudes from Kos and others and it affected a considerable swath of the community. Battle lines have been drawn.
But before the “we’re better” chorus warms up please keep in mind many people are members of both sites. My loyalty right now is with both the DK community and BT. I’m at dKos for the community. It has never been about Kos. If the community changes on either site for whatever reason I pledge not to attack either site on the other no matter how tempting. And I hope not to see such attacks here. They just wouldn’t go with the tone and decor. Besides, it’s not a competition.
Here’s to hoping the laid-back (reminds me of the early C&J community) vibe continues to flourish here and the influx of new members goes smoothly. They have a great crew here. Oh, and be sure to try the spellcheck. My personal favorite.
Well stated.