I don't have time to screw with this old thread and why bother. I want to answer BTD in this:
So, in sum, it seems to me that the COMMUNITY has forgotten about these two uncrossable lines.
(1) Daily Kos demanded the FACTS.
(2) Daily Kos demanded respect for the character and integrity of community members UNLESS they had proven themselves to lack in these areas.
What happened?
What happened was that dkos became just a place to elect democrats, and facts contrary to that were not appreciated as much. The pushes for higher standards because "high standards in how it makes us look to hold that issue" which is contrary to "reality based".
What happened is loyalty to some imagined common cause is more important than those facts.
The other thing, relative to item 2, there have grown different standards... people don't feel respected. They are told rather than asked. They are told who the netroots candidates are, they are told the plan, they are told that the netroots is going to be closely integrated to the Democratic party like it or not, and we are supposed to accept that as "I'm only speaking the truth" and "I only mean it in a particular way"... but the point is people are being lead now. They have "leaders".
I'm so sick of leaders I could spit. Idiots that think they know best for me. We need self-assembly, not a new set of leaders. Leaders create disrespect among the people, they generate resentment as they go around shaping things. Fuck all leaders, I'm here to shape myself.
That's what I think has happened.
Instead of a place where we could be honest, it's an operative playground... a community that rejects framing as it really is understood by cognitive scientists, embraces it in the sense that the New York Times and the Washington Post do it... via a grand reputation that their words are more true and valuable... more trustworthy.
That is the sort of "trustworthiness" the mainstream commercial Democratic Blog blogosphere is going for now... and that kind of trust is poison to community and real credibility. It is counter to the phenomenon we have benefitted from, the phenomenon of peer to peer communication, collaborative thinking, which is being transformed into a traditional top down hierarchical system where of course, those at the top are "better".
which is to laugh.