I've read with interest the various diaries that have begged and pleaded with the community to lower the level of vitriol in the candidate diaries. And I've read with disappointment a good number of the recent GBCW diaries, some of them from long-standing and long-loved members of this community. Many of those folks, luckily, are not bidding adieu forever--just until our nominee is settled.
Like them, I'm tired of the endless sniping, the flame wars, the over-the-top accusations being thrown around by some supporters of each of the candidates, and I"m even tired of the diaries (like this very one) that address this problem in a meta way.
So flip with me and read what I plan to do about it.
I hereby pledge to not recommend any negative candidate diary unless it's about a Republican candidate. I hereby pledge to purposefully seek out positive candidate diaries to read, though I will only recommend the very best of those. I hereby pledge to focus my diary reading on those which address important progressive issues: ending the war, education, the economy, healthcare, LGBT rights, pro-choice, pro-privacy, anti-telecom immunity, civil and human rights, civil liberties, poverty, etc... I will go out of my way to recommend good diaries about these and other topics.
I also pledge to write one issue-based non-candidate diary per week between tomorrow and the time when we have a nominee. Not being much of a diary-writer on this site, this will require some real effort on my part. But I want to do it because not letting this community tear itself apart over the current primaries should be a priority for all of us who have loved reading, writing, and discussing politics on this site over the years.
If enough of us decide to take this course together, we can reshape the recommended list to once again be the issues-based forum it once was, leaving the candidate trolls and various warring factions down in the long steady stream of diaries flowing down and off the front page. No more complaining, no more troll-rating, no more GBCWs--just solid issue-based writing and reading combined with a solid effort to stop the site from losing any more of its important voices.
Who's with me?