And, in the end, the love you take,
is equal to the love you make.
- The Beatles
This just in - Jotter's
High Impact Posts: April 3, 2014, has discovered that only 51 out of the 126 Kossacks who posted yesterday bothered to recommend even one other post. 75 Kogs could not find a single post on our entire site worthy of their recommendation!
A week an a half ago, when I discovered this, someone speculated that it must be those "dastardly fly-by" posters from some of those "other sites" who come by here to exploit our community by dumping their writing here and taking no interest what-so-ever in our community, however, further research has refuted this hypothesis, as you can see from Jotter's table that 124 Kogs did comment in one other post, but found none other worthy or praise or acknowledgement.
Is Daily Kos having a crisis of narcissism? Does this mean that 75 of our 126 poster think the rest of us here are crappy writers, or are they elitist ......., I can't think of the word. Or, is there some other reason? Perhaps, they are having a massive keyboard failure?
Ummm, this seems like a lot of "trickle down, for a site devoted to grass roots, egalitarian, netroots, democracy, and making the voices of the masses heard. "Grass roots" is supposed to imply the opposite of "top-down hierarchical," trickle down flow, instead, connoting ideas flowing "bottom-up" from the voices of the masses. Shouldn't this imply listening from the top?
Last week, when I first noticed this, I was shocked, truly shocked, to discover an apparent lack of listening, and potential narcissism among Democrats, and progressives - And, among some of our leading leftists, of all people! Are we not supposed to be the most sensitive, open, and in touch with "the people, kind of people of them all?"
When I incredulously checked with Jotter if this was an anomaly he confirmed the worst -- that this always has been the case, the ratio has run at half or less since as long as he can remember. Jotter considers this a rule of thumb. BTW Jotter's excellent, time consuming, and much appreciated work is just one example of a daily post her which is often lucky to receive 6 to 10 recs. I try to thank him every day I'm here, and would expect, at the minimum every writer here would, if not every reader as Jotter has never express any "unsafe" opinion in his posts, ever.
The good news is we have discovered this internally, before some annoying right-wing trouble maker came in here to do an expose to embarrass us. Can you imagine the scandalous headlines? "Leftists at DK not don't listen to "the Netoots" and "the People" as much as they claim!" So I figured I'd nip this in the bud, and fix this PDQ and get us all back on track.
Hypnotoad says "you will be more generous with your tips and recs to support emerging writers!"
Last week, I wrote up this Striving towards a more nurturing, generous, supportive, fun, and successful writing culture (poll), expecting our community to rally to dramatic "celebration of ourselves." (Sounds like a special on the Oxygen channel.) Visions of sugarplums danced in my head, and that movie Woody Allen made, (was it Sleeper?), where he brushed back a tear as he collected a prize came to mind, as I imagined myself receiving an award certificate at the next Daily Kos convention - "Most Supportive Community Oriented HoundDog Kossack of 2014!"
Imagine my disappointment when I could barely get 50 recs even mojo pimping this diary through out the entire evening in every slap-happy easy community mojo joints in town. OND, Top Comments, VentHole, Craig Ferguson, and some fairly cheesy pootie and woozle places, and Five of my own posts that day! Sheesh folks, by comparison, if I had posted that Governor Christie had passed gas at an RPG convention it would have topped the REC board in 30 minutes with 200 recs!
This was a major rejection by the community, and yes, I can't help but take it personally, Folks, I could usually mojo pimp 50 recs for a ham sandwich in a couple of hours. Ask, around, I"m the go-to hounddog here for mojo pimping, or if you have to fund-raise for a charitable cause, or help out a new writer, or even a more established writer in a slump, or depressive crissis - because I have no pride left after 50 plus years, and I've started and run three businesses - I know every trick in the book. It's clear the community does not like this idea, but I must persist because I feel it is the right thing to do.
Let it not be said hounddogs are not persistent. This is the real reason we are the favorites for tracking, we only smell a little better than the other dogs, but we are the most persistent of any breed. So, here it is again. Please rec it so I don't have to make this embarrassing for all of us, and keep doing this, over and over again. More importantly, please think about what kind of culture we want to have here.
As, food for thought, venture over to some of "those other sites" where some of the posts have 50,000 recs. What kind of impact do we wish to have? Do we wish to cultivate and retain a diverse and large team of emerging volunteer writers? Recs there are not interpreted to mean agreement, that you agree with the author's religions, spats with opposing cliches, etc, but merely want to call attention to tthe post, or show appreciation for their effort like you would for the wait staff when having dinner out.
Here is a slightly edited down version for those of you who missed it.
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Hello! Is everyone awake out there?
Have any of you noticed an apparent drop off in reader response here, lately, or it is just me? If I am reading it correcly, today's High Impact Posts: March 25, 2014 shows that, yesterday, out of the 135 writers who posted, only 54 engaged in all three activities writing posting, rec'cing, and commenting. Only 54 rec'd someone else's post. Am I reading this right? 81 authors posted here without recommending a single other author's post?
I call for all of us here, who are dedicated to making Daily Kos, the Democratic Party, and progressive causes more successful, to adopt a more Keynesian and a more generous approach to recommending posts.
How many more posts should you recommend? For some of us, this might mean doubling, for others, like the 81 authors who posted but did not rec a single post, yesterday, try rec'cing just one person a day, as a start.
Our current culture seems like the lost austerity love child of Mr. Scrooge and Representative Paul Ryan.
I was talking with one of our old time writers last night who referred to a wonderful post he did 2 years ago, that is still relevant to a current topic so I encouraged him to re-post it. He said "why bother," noting his original received zero recs! And, it was well written, with photos on an issue relevant to the long term survival of hundreds of millions of people in third world countries. What a painful experience it is to put hours into a post and have it languish, twisting in the wind with no or only 1 or 2 recs before the entire community.
I was originally writing to note that some of you seem to only rec a few of your best friends or the Front Pagers. Heck folks, the front pagers don't need rec's, that's why they have infinite mojo, -- they have the front page! Everyone knows them. They get paid. This is their jobs. Yes, I rec them, I love them, my point is that recs are mostly to call attention to the writings of writers who are less well known, and also to encourage those writers to keep writing.
And, hey Kossacks, recs and tips do not cost you anything. After one week, every reader here has an infinite supply of them. Where else on the internet can you go and get an infinite supply of Bit Coins? Yes, infinite. At some of those other sites you'd have to pay $9.99 for 300 recs and tips, and renew every time you got low like on your pay phone card. Who knows how long they will remain free. So "smoke em if ya got em." Use them while you still can!
Try it and see. If anyone runs out of recs, and tips, contact me immediately, and I will get it fixed. Please just start rec'cing more posts to encourage our aspiring writers. You wouldn't go out to a restaurant and not tip the waiter? Why do you read someone's post and not give a little nod of appreciation to acknowledge their effort? This isn't a vote for a tenured faculty. And rec's do not necessarily imply agreement.
Maybe we need to ask the programmers for a new button that says "Keep On Truckin'" to thank volunteer writers and to encourage them to keep working and to make our site and our Democratic Party more successful. Perhaps, we should think of it more like the equivalent of giving a coffee mug to people who come in to phone bank at the election center for the whole afternoon? Or, at least half-way in that direction?
Some of you worry that it will lower the quality of the posts on the rec board, but this is not the case. There will still only be 10 on the top 10 list. The difference is that mathematically, due to the law of large numbers, we will have less sampling error, and and selection bias from cliches voting for their friends. If everyone rec'd twice as many posts, and we could induce more people to vote we'd have greater representation.
What we see here before us, fellow Kossacks, is one of those very rare, high leverage opportunities to make Daily Kos a better place, to create stronger community bonds, to create more social energy, and to have more fun. Combining all this together could also help us better achieve our goals of helping to elect "more and better Democrats" and as a bonus could make progressive causes more successful -- and, in this case, in some kind of mind boggling rarity, what we have to do to achieve this is no only absolutely cost free, but fun as well!
Really, try it out. Selecting that "Rec" button may feel weird and scary at first. But, soon, it is so easy, you will not even think of it. It will be like telling some one to "have a nice day, rather than scowling them.
Seriously, Kossacks, WTH? How lucky could we be? (Could be the ripple of the butterfly's wings that causes us to wing back the House in 2014?)
Another benefit will be to encourage and cultivate more upcoming writers for our Democratic and progressive causes, and create a lot of happiness in recognizing and supporting people in their personal growth.
I hope we can count on your support for this campaign to make Daily Kos a better place by asking everyone to be more generous with recs and comments.
P.S. Footnote: I know many here are worried about "mojo inflation." Now don't laugh new folks. Some of the old-timers are worried that if we have an "easy mojo" policy it might undermine the value of their hard won mojo back in the old days when the electrons didn't move as fast. And, the audiences were a lot tougher, and even some of the Front-Pager used harsh and ugly language, and if you tried to say something pleasant to them, one of them would scream "Suckup" right to your face. I won't mention names but ask around. Yes, it was a much tougher place, but we need to make choices about our future.
But, I would like to remind these old timers that he mojo counter has been broken for years and as far as I know there is no plan to fix it, so your mojo superiority will be safe for all time. Which is fine with me. I just think we should be honest about it and label it as the Mojo Honor Role as of July 25 2009, or whenever it was the last time they tried to run it.
6:50 PM PT:Speaking of posts which have not received enough attention please check on this recent post on floating windmills, that can quickly supply wind power to remote areas. At, 1,000 feet, Bouyant Air Turbines from MIT to break altitude record for airborne wind generation
11:58 PM PT: Some new posters have been asking how they can get support and help learning how to post thetr first diary so asking around I've learned nomandates leads a gjroup called New Diarists. with help from Glen the Plumber,and Dave of NorthBridge. Also, the night shift people at Over Night Digests, aka OND, Top Comments, Kitchen Kibitzen, Ek Hornbeck's Venthole, Craig Fergeson's group and others night spots are all extra friendly friendly and supportive.
Unlike the afternoon crowd which tends to tip comments on an objective and dispassionate evaluation of merit and worthiness, sometimes with excess concern for "mojo inflation" the night crowd, has been heavily influenced by stimulative economic theories of Paul Krugman and Joeseph Stiglitz and hand out "easy mojo" like it was going out of style.
Not wanting to give away any secrets, or start investigations by the "mojo police,"let's just say word on the street is that in some of these places one can find a "I'll tip your comment, if you tip mine" kind of attitude going on later at night when no one is looking.
You didn't hear this from me. I'll deny it. Every now and then I barge into these places with my official uniform and announce "I'm shocked,,truly shocked, to discover unauthorized Mojo Pandering going on right here at Daily Kos. I can usually pick up an easy couple hundred tips an evening between four our five places.
Of course you can always do this at the pootie and woozle posts, the WTYP, or Bill of Portland, but, wear a disguise or you might not get as much respect in the mainstream afternoon spots if you are seen there too often. Just sayin...
Oh also I wanted to give special thanks to Ek Hornbeck who was the first to give me any encouragement here when I started posting and most folks just made fun of my spelling. And, of the Front Pagers Meteor Blades, Laurence Lewis, and Denise Oliver Velez who have been generous to me with their recommendations and I appreciate it greatly. There are probably a lot more Front Pagers as well who have done this, I'm not entirely sure who is a Front Pager or not, I'm just going by those infinity symbols. If I left you out, and you've been rec'cing my posts please let me know. Thanks so much folks.