So, apparently a few thousand of my friends are really unhappy about some changes on a website they frequent. Lots of energy in the past two days has gone into articles about this unhappiness. Some of it has even been in the form of constructive criticism.
I am not someone who is in the know about what will change in DK5 and what concerns will make the fixes promised in the next couple of weeks. I am someone who took some time this morning to explore some of the issues/concerns/complaints that have appeared in multiple articles and comment threads. What I found are some misunderstandings about some parts of the new layout.
Helpful Information About the Front Page:
Those hash-tagged phrases across the top are the most popular tags of the day. You might have noticed that they have changed at least once today. That’s because community members are writing articles and giving them tags… Lots of them about DK5, and some political topics, too. If you click the double arrow at the end of the hash tag row, it will take you a list of the tags (still in DK 4 format). Try it out...
There is no conspiracy here- the people writing diaries/articles decide what to tag their pieces. So, what we see across the top is determined by what WE tag our pieces.
Next… The labels for News, Community, and Action have not changed. clicking on those will take you to pieces that fit those categories.
I think it is the right-hand column that has some people the most upset. There have been many comments about why the right-hand column changed so much… Which confuses me. The categories haven’t changed and they are actually in the same order they were last week. They just LOOK different due to the addition of pictures and the way they are spaced. Which has spawned much conversation about how unfair it is that Daily Kos Staff get to decide what goes on the Recommended and Community Spotlight lists and the regular, ordinary readership has to scroll forever to get to the Recent Diaries. “THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS!"
The Community Spotlight diaries/articles are not chosen by Daily Kos Staff. Key word: community.
While I will grant that I am not the biggest fan of all the the stylistic changes, I feel the need to remind all of you that WE the readers of Daily Kos still decide what lands on the Recommended by way of those “Recommends” we give to pieces we like. That hasn’t changed in, like...forever. The Daily Kos staff do not pick what goes there… Seriously, have you see some of what ends up there? Just saying...
The Most Shared is self explanatory— they are the pieces most shared via Twitter and Facebook. I like this feature— I think it brings some folks to our site who otherwise wouldn’t venture here.
Recent Diaries still scroll based on publishing time… And if you want this to be the first thing you see, then bookmark Daily Kos using this link: Recents
Hope this helps!
I’d much rather be having heated discussions about policy issues ... and what to do about Kentucky (I live there- I voted for Conway-I am a coal miner’s daughter.) ... and how to shift presidential campaigns in the direction we need (to the left).
:-)