(cross-posted at Deny My Freedom and My Left Wing)
In recent days, a couple of ‘major’ media players, if you will, decided to take their best shots at Daily Kos. Conservative hack David Brooks called Markos a kingpin. Fox News even got in on the game, deciding that reporting on a flame war of epically small proportion was more newsworthy than their regularly scheduled fair and balanced programming.
However, the willingness of Markos and other Kossacks to enable this kind of behavior is disappointing, to say the least. On the recommended list, you’ve had diary after diary after diary after diary after diary after promoted diary make fun of Brooks, Fox News, The New Republic, and the mainstream media in general for their fairly twisted vision of who we are and what we do. Most people may think I’m rather humorless, but I do have a sense of humor, and I was especially able to appreciate Bob Johnson’s attempt at making dKos appear to be an orange version of Free Republic instead of a bastion of blogofascism.
However, the fact that these diaries have gotten recommended – and continue to stay on the recommended list for extended periods of time – makes me think that the blogosphere has come down with an extreme case of narcissism.
The media attacks on the blogosphere are nothing new – ever it has risen to prominence during Howard Dean’s meteoric ascent in 2003 while campaigning for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, the blogosphere has always been tagged as ‘the radical left’, ‘antiwar liberals’, ‘angry bloggers’, and so forth. While we may be angry, it’s a passionate, controlled anger – not an unchecked rage. And if we’re radical, it’s only because we’ve employed a relatively new medium – the Internet – and used it as a way to keep politicians more accountable than ever. The fact is, though, is that framing us as merely a bunch of people on the fringe hasn’t worked until now, and the C-Span coverage of Yearly Kos served well to show that. What is new, though, is that entire articles are now devoted to attacking and attempting to undermine the unity of the blogosphere. Passing references are made to us in articles about the CT-Sen Democratic primary or in political articles quite often nowadays, but having entire pages devoted to writing about us – this is new. And it seems more and more like we are taking this newfound attention to pump our egos up, beat our chests, and have one too many laughs.
Back in the good old days, such derisive remarks such as those made by Fox News would simply get a one-off laugh by people, and it would be back to business. Nowadays, though, the recommended list at dKos – arguably the most coveted spot by the masses of the blogosphere – is being occupied by pieces written about ourselves, written about how others write about ourselves, and read by ourselves. Yes, David Brooks deserves criticism for his belief that he knows how the Democratic Party operates best (that’s when we roll over and don’t attack back). And yes, Fox News should never be sold short on scorn when it comes to trying to play off of inter-blogosphere tension when something like the pie fights was a much bigger (if equally ridiculous) issue. But the amount of attention that the community seems to enjoy heaping upon itself after such an incident is an issue. If we’re supposed to believe that we’re going to have new people viewing dKos and other blogs after such an incident, wouldn’t it be better if we simply operated the way we usually do – you know, focusing on taking action, discussing important issues, and helping Democratic candidates get elected, whether it be via fundraising or by doing some volunteer work.
Yes, I know that I promised that I would never write another meta entry. That being said, I would hope that the liberal blogosphere – and Daily Kos in particular – would stop engaging in omphaloskepsis and get back to what it does best.
I think that you will find that many if not most of us here do not consider the ‘pie fights’ to be a “ridiculous” issue. I object to your characterizing it that way. Of course it seems ridiculous to anti-feminists like Kos, just like efforts to remove the rebel flag from the upper left corner of the official flag of the state of Mississippi seems ridiculous to white racists.
As a result of your insistence on rubbing this issue in our faces, even proper usage of the word “omphaloskepsis” will not raise my estimation of this diary.
I have fogiven the pie….but pie is big and if I was further marginalized as a woman by Markos pie could return as a desert on my table.
I’m telling you, Kos needs to have several different main pages:
Something liket that.
That way we could get all that BS, and still have practical stuff being read by large amounts of readers.
Fact Checkers could set up shop on the news and policy development pages and leave the strategy and language to those with interest.
and blah, blah, blah
It would be so cool to have a huge media outlet of citizen contributors.
DK has grown too big for its current format. What might have worked okay with 30,000 users is unwieldy at the 100k mark (and yes, I take into consideration that a fair proportion of registered users don’t actively participate).
Having a number of main pages, analogous to the various sections of a newspaper is certainly one way to go about making the reading there a bit more manageable – there are for example, some great diaries over there recently on torture that would have been better served with the kind of format you suggest.
this is perhaps the most often suggested ui change, and kos has always rejected it. I think rightly so. Maybe its the theory of the unitary blog, or maybe its just a gut feeling, but either way, that would be a huge change to the experience and thus the community. One front page, one diary list. There’s a reason for that.
I agree it makes growing more painful, and I agree something has to be done. But I don’t think multiple main pages (did you notice that’s a contradiction in terms?) is the thing to do.
A solution I’ve proposed before, mostly just to get the idea out there, is replication. Many life forms have faced the problem of growth. One of the trickiest responses is the way a child grows into an adult, constantly reworking and remolding its shape and dimensions to accommodate the newly incorporated material. It’s a true miracle, that took hundreds of millions of years to work out. A much simpler way to approach growth is division. Take everything you’ve got and put it in two piles. There, done. Where there was one, now there are two. So – yes, I’m suggesting that dkos (or any really successful social blog) should consider responding to the “we’re too big” signals of success by dividing randomly in half, creating two daughter communities. You could use two subtly different shades of orange. Or Green, when Booman gets to that point.
It has often been said that kos’ presence is not strictly necessary – what better way to show it? And there is no one who can’t be replaced, not even BiPM. Maybe it wouldn’t be exactly the same, but it would be close enough. All the major functions and patterns would continue in both lines, with small variations creeping in over time.
I think it would be a beautiful way to grow. Maybe the only way to get 100x bigger in terms of total membership. Although in the meta discussion session at ykos someone (Chris?) expressed the opionion there was not an upside that big available.
Do I expect this to happen? Not really. It’s probably too wacky for the moment. But if not Daily Kos, eventually a few social internet communities will figure out how to both succeed, then replicate. Their descendants will be the only ones left after a hundred years.
We are honored by your presence here.
I really like that idea of growth.
I would like to see that growth in terms of focus.
You break those that are the eyes off into a vehicle for vision.
You get the legs to break off and start a vehicle for motivation.
You get the brain to break off and start a vehicle for strategy.
Or does that totally complicate the cell division idea?
My point is that we need focus.
There are so many talented people there, and their time is wasted on stuff that does not activate their strengths.
We are competing against a giant, for profit, idea machine in the Conservative movement. They hire wordsmiths, bean counters, strategic thinkers, musclemen, creative thinkers, right out of college. They pay them well. They network. They write. They work.
That’s what we are up against, and I think that the small bites and leaderless blogging world needs a bit more ability to orchestrate a check against that.
Right now we are hamstrung by lack of visibility.
Cool idea of growth though.
Being that the blogosphere is still relatively untested in its impact, the fuss made over mainstream attention is certainly not surprising, it should be expected. Such posts are a natural result. It has not terminated business as usual, though some focus has been diverted. The brouhaha will run its course, as did the ’04 election posts, Terry Schiavo, Armando’s GBCW or the issue du jour of your choice. It’s all cyclical.
figured out that things were cyclical, I would know how to make it in the world.