As Dkos becomes more popular and famous, we are attracting lots of obvious trolls. As the MSM recognizes us as an enemy of their cozy, lazy way of doing "journalism", this will increase. And, as we gain more political clout, the right wing nut jobs will try to discredit us.
These trolls are trying to distract us from our purpose. When you waste time and effort on a troll diary, you lose that same time for advocating, educating and learning. And they win.
We used to have a method of dealing with them. Commentors would immediately start posting recipes to "feed the trolls". This was an instant message to anyone entering that they were at a troll diary and could move on..
I stumbled into one of these this morning. When I clicked on the diary, there were 10 comments, so I thought I would see what it was about. Then I got distracted by life, and when I came back, there were 27 comments. I thought this must be an interesting diary, so I went ahead and read it. The diarist was expounding on the need for the "war on terror", which is really an occupation of two sovereign nations. All of the comments were clear about this being a troll diary.
Why? I know it is tempting to call out our opposition. The writer never posted a tip jar, so no one could troll-rate him/her. A lot of people wasted a lot of time talking about what a waste of humanity this person was. Unfortunately, no one posted any delicious recipes.
I am challenging all the good people of Daily Kos to just stop feeding the trolls. Don't do it. For the dog owners out there "leave it". We need to stop wasting our time on these worthless, useless people and work for the common good. There are all kinds of issues that deserve our attention and lots of elections coming up that we could discuss.
I know this has been diaried before, but it seems we need a reminder. And the added benefit is, if we ignore them, they will go away. If they get no comments or recs, their diaries will quietly slide down the list, never to be seen again. Eventually, they will find somewhere else to play.