Welcome, New Users, to The Daily Kos. This Diary is intended to help you orient yourself to the site and ask questions about how to use it.
In the Body you will find some links intended to get you participating more effectively. Also in the Body this week is a discussion of Traffic Cops and Civility.
After that you can ask me any question you want. I don’t know all the answers so if you stump me, you do. I invite those wiser than I to contribute and correct (or raise a ruckus, just don’t scare people).
No permission slips needed, join us at the deep end of the pool for adult swim.
Hello Devil. Welcome to Hell.
If your user id (hover your mouse over your name in any comment, look at the status bar in the bottom of your browser) is larger than 149511 you probably haven’t had to opportunity to participate in one of my Welcome New Users diaries.
There are 13 of them that I consider the New Users Guide and I encourage you to take a look at the table of contents at least so you can see what kind of information is already available.
Traffic Cops and Civility
You know, sometimes I just get all cramped up from patting myself on the back.
I wish to make it clear that I’m just a relatively new (April 2005) regular user of the Daily Kos. I don’t speak for the site, nor do I have any powers or abilities that any user including the rankest n00b can not aspire to acquire.
But there are places where my magnificent omnipotence reigns supreme and I have magic.
When I signed on as number 9 the requirement to play in budhy’s brand new Soapblox was that I had to contribute one piece of original work a week. During the month or so it to the Admins and Contributing Editors to set up the site (deciding on things like color schemes for instance) our group developed some scheduling rules that today are summarized at the top of every daily schedule-
| Please check here before publishing. Please leave a note that you ARE publishing. Please be ready to tend your essay for 90 minutes. Please give the previous author at least one hour at the top of the Front Page. If you have committed to a time please publish on time. If you are promoting an essay please note the time of promotion in the promotion comment. If content is lacking (especially morning/noonish) please consider the 9 am or noon Pony Party for promotion. Maximum Graphic Width 500. NOW WITH TIMED PROMOTION! Schedule times (here) Eastern (GMT -5 ). Timed Publication and Promotion times (there) Pacific (GMT -8 ). |
And below that is a list of the available time slots-
| 6:00 AM Morning Muse (Robyn) 7:30 AM Docudharma Times (mishima) 8:00 AM 10:00 AM 12 Noon 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 4 at 4 (Magnifico) 6:00 PM 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 12 Midnight 3:00 AM |
We have other regular assignments, but these are the core group.
Each Contributing Editor and Admin has access to a private forum where this list is posted and sign up for their Front Page time. So far we’ve posted 173 daily entries (actual day count is a little off because we talk about other things too) and made 1538 comments, most of which are such fascinating gems as-
- “noon”
- “8 pm”
- “Where the hell are you ek?!”
I have a lot of experience herding volunteers cats so I knew we’d need a system like this and insisted on it.
Needless to say I was gratified to read a diary this week that indicated dKos had adopted a simple scheme-
| An announcement by kos Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 08:03:30 AM PST
|
Pretty cool.
For further thoughts of mine on the general notion of scheduling and its actual practice ON A BLOG WHERE MY WORD IS LAW!!!! you might click through to my most recent essay on the subject- Meta: Scheduling IV. That includes links to all my scheduling essays (I think) and as you track them back you will discover the evolution of my ideas on critical times among other things.
Civility
One dKos user who has given us the favor of his custom is Meteor Blades who posted a cautionary tale on the right hand side where Meta rules the day.
| Civility, Like Peace, Begins Within You by Meteor Blades Fri Feb 08, 2008 at 12:46:50 AM PST
|
Knowing as I do that number six is the one of the kindest, gentlest, most supportive users on this site I can only conclude that things are way out of hand.
I know you’ll ignore me and Meteor and Hunter on Hiding (#1054)-
We’ve had unending confusion over what “trollrating” a comment means, in the past. Hopefully this simple change should help a bit. Here, I’ll copy and fix up the FAQ wording on trollratings — now “Hide” ratings:
That’s how it’s intended to be used. When in doubt, remember: individual bad comments should be “hidden” regardless of whether the commenter is a true “troll” or a perfectly respected user that made a bad comment. You’re voting to hide one particular comment, you’re not declaring the person who made it to be unworthy of all future discourse. And never — NEVER — vote to hide a comment just because the commenter disagrees with you, so long as that comment is civil. |
My emphasis.
Well over at the Lesser Satan we’ve had many debates about civility and just recently we had a thread between two users calling each other assholes and fully living up to that estimation.
And they were relentlessly “Hidden” into oblivion (yes, that and the Wrong! rating said skippy who coined blogtopia).
Guess what-
| The Ridiculousness and Danger of Troll Ratings
And that’s it- You can blacken and tarnish their reputation, making it that much more difficult for them to achieve Trusted Usership. You can hide things. There is no autoban here. Your case will be individually reviewed by budhy who has the final say. I’ve no doubt he will accept input from his advisors but he’s the man. I’ve argued for penalties short of banning and I think there’s some consensus on that, but we’ll see when the time arises. Other than that, there is nothing much anyone on this board can do to you at all. Other than say harsh words. |
What are harsh words, and should you be afraid of them?
Not at all.
budhy says hiding should be very rare and it is. A Hide should never be used for something that is just Wrong! and merely makes you question a poster’s motives or intellect. Hiding is based on content, there are other penalties for ‘bad action’.
| You should be a courageous blogger.
Think about what we most decry in Washington, it’s the establishment’s inability to withstand the baseless bloviating and canards of the Right Wing Noise Machine. You’re tougher than that, aren’t you? Now I’m all for hiding hate speech and fighting words but stupid ain’t one of them and Wrong! indicates- “Your comment makes me question your motives and/or intelligence.” It’s ok to call someone Wrong!. It’s ok to be called Wrong!. Doesn’t hurt a bit, see?” |
…
| A Ridiculous Example
budhy explicitly allows 9-11 Conspiracy Theories. Perhaps you wish to post an Essay. I think MIHOP is ridiculous and LIHOP proven- “Bin Ladin Determined to Attack in U.S.” From the community you can expect ridicule and derision at best (yes, I wrote that). Wrong!s and Hides– piles of them. Suck it up you Whiny Ass Titty Baby. You’ll never get TU but you’ll never be banned. budhy explicitly allows CT. The community will think you’re kooky because you’re a kook. Get over it. You can’t be afraid of words.
And stay done. The whole concept of this site is for you not to be afraid to say what you think, but you can’t go around afraid that someone will disagree with you. And that’s what it is. If you have the courage of your convictions engage. If you’re not impressed don’t, you control your own actions and reactions. What ever you do don’t whine and complain about how mean and unfair it is when somebody says Wrong! “Your comment makes me question your motives and/or intelligence.”, either with words or with ratings. I didn’t sign on to be a hall monitor in a kindergarden.” ### I wish to add a few points for extra emphasis- Point A- You can’t hurt anyone with ratings. They mean what they say. Point B- There are no bad opinions. There are bad actors. Point C- “If you can’t handle someone saying you are full of shit, or you are clueless, or you don’t know what you’re talking about, or whatever, then really, this isn’t the sort of thing you should be doing.”- Markos Moulitsas. So there you go.
I’ll add that here you can expect things to be downrated and hidden out of pure spite. Wrong! means Wrong! and it’s an acceptable rating to give if you disagree with a comment beyond not a Pony. No explanation is required, but it does not hurt you, it merely expresses disagreement. Hide means exactly what it says. If something stays hidden then it was deemed inappropriate by the community, 4 to 1. So say we all. Now the ones who advocate that most specifically and frequently run the risk of being labeled chronic malcontents by the board of this site, but good or bad we are all actors and willing to stand by our dramatic choices are we not? Finally, Couragous bloggers don’t spend their days sitting around whining so and so was mean to me, he called me a poopy head. Grow up and get over it you whiny ass titty baby. |
All our rules at DocuDharma on civility can be summed up this way-
- You can’t expect that people will not be rude and call you names AND you have to accept the judgement of the community if you do that, in terms of being hidden or wronged and that’s the way it is.
Our Community Moderation is working perfectly. The things that should be hidden… are.
| I’ll note for the record that there are users who’s indiscriminate use of downrates has brought them to the attention of the Board.
This despite the fact we do not consider the use of downrates to be unacceptable behavior because they have so little effect on anything except your inflated sense of self importance. Smart posters ingore them. If you do not, that in fact makes you less than smart. Learn to live with your mental handicap. |
If you think someone is a threat to the site, email an Admin.
24 comments
Skip to comment form
Author
Cross posted at the Great Orange Satan, but perhaps people here should also be reminded.
You’re the Very Best!!
i was hanging out here the other night tending my essay when a fight broke out in OPOL’s “Love” essay (nice touch of irony in itself). gotta hand it to this community, the fight (between some newer posters) was pretty quickly taken outside and the “be excellent” was explained.
to be reminded about civility, even the “old-timers”. I stop by “Agent Orange” less frequently and I usually just scan the first paragraph of the candidate diaries. I still look for certain non-candidate diaries. I actually had one up the rec list for better than eight hours. You could have knocked me over with a feather considering it was Feb 6. There wasn’t one hidden comment, although, one or two commenters got scolded for inappropriate, off topic, and insensitive.
The art of debate seems to have gotten lost in the “my candidate is better than your candidate” meta. Folks just toss out statements that have no basis in fact and can’t be substantiated. And Goddess help you if you correct them or ask that they validate what they have written. I think the administrators and Markos have let it get out of control and now there is no reining it in. They did make an attempt by freezing certain users’ abilities to recommend or hide comments but they missed a few.
Thanks for making some good points about civility. Maybe you can put together a diary about debating and how to win and lose gracefully and graciously.
to be reminded about civility, even the “old-timers”. I stop by “Agent Orange” less frequently and I usually just scan the first paragraph of the candidate diaries. I still look for certain non-candidate diaries. I actually had one up the rec list for better than eight hours. You could have knocked me over with a feather considering it was Feb 6. There wasn’t one hidden comment, although, one or two commenters got scolded for inappropriate, off topic, and insensitive.
The art of debate seems to have gotten lost in the “my candidate is better than your candidate” meta. Folks just toss out statements that have no basis in fact and can’t be substantiated. And Goddess help you if you correct them or ask that they validate what they have written. I think the administrators and Markos have let it get out of control and now there is no reining it in. They did make an attempt by freezing certain users’ abilities to recommend or hide comments but they missed a few.
Thanks for making some good points about civility. Maybe you can put together a diary about debating and how to win and lose gracefully and graciously.
civility won’t matter. Blackwater boys will be visiting you.
I have to say the two sentences next door were a far easier read, but yeah….
I didn’t read all the rules, because in general I am not a douchebag to people. (anymore anyway, one does grow up)
This is such a nice community, how could one go asshole here?
Reap/sow, yadda.
Om.