Welcome, New Users, to Daily Kos, from your host side pocket. This Diary is intended to help you orient yourself to the site and ask questions about how to use it.
Below the orange gnocchi-doodle you will find links intended to get you participating more effectively. Plus homespun advice from the old cracker barrel.
After that you can ask me any questions about the site you want. [If I don't know the answers someone smarter is bound to be along who does, or I'll go find the answers and bring 'em to ya (wink! wink!). ] Smileycreek will be here as backup, being as she knows almost everything.
Well, come, New Users, and listen to me.
In this Welcome New Users diary.
If you're new, if you're young, or even quite old
DKos invites you in from the cold.
You might be creaky or youthful and spry
But to enjoy all of the content, you have to try
to read, recommend, diary, and comment.
Then your DKos experience will make you content.
So you can see that if even off-the-cuff doggerel makes it into a diary, how much better you as a new user could do.
AND-- if you're new and wondering what is and isn't OK around here, read Kos' Community Guidelines. That'll keep you out of trouble!
Wanna follow us around or send us a kosmail?
Click the ♥ to follow us in your Stream, or click Send Message to send us a private kosmail.
If there's anyone more enthusiastic about Daily Kos than me, I'd like to meet them. I joined in January, 2005 and started making a few comments. I felt empowered because a click on someone's recommend button showed up immediately, and from time to time someone would recommend a comment of mine. I was content to mostly lurk and read, having noticed that many stories appeared on Daily Kos one or more days before appearing anywhere else.
I wrote my first diary in 2007, another in 2008 and again in 2009. My first substantive diary was written in 2013 and the gratifying feedback launched me into my present routine of two regularly scheduled diaries a week, totaling 121 at present. Clicking on one's profile at the top of the page displays all this information and more.
Now I am not the technical guru that many are, here. For an incredible amount of detailed tech info, see the link to the archives listed below. But I will cover some things I've learned or observed through the years.
You can get rid of ads by purchasing a one year subscription; go to your profile, click on subscription, $40 for one year, worth it. Or buy one for your friend. Then on the front page you have a toggle called "show ads" and "hide ads" so you can see what you're missing.
You can "hotlist" a diary so it's easy to refer to it later. Click the circle with a + in it right under the diary title. Here's how to find your list of hot listed diaries. Click your profile, the fourth listing says "following". Click that, and the fourth listing says
"hotlisted diaries" and there you are.
The front pagers are generally paid employees of Daily Kos and are very good at their job. Sometimes you will see one of their diaries on the "Recent" list and they will later appear on the front page. On the right side top lists "Community Spotlight". A wonderful but generally anonymous group reads every diary and posts those of special merit that may not have sufficient recommends to make the Recommended List (also called the rec list). That list contains diaries which have garnered enough recommends by the community to merit reading, Next is Most Shared, on Facebook. Since I personally am not on FB this listing is vague for me, but I do know Markos considers it highly important. Finally is the Recent list, where as a New User your diary will appear. As more diaries flow into the list, your diary will sink and finally disappear off the bottom, unless it's rescued or makes the rec list.
Although Daily Kos is primarily a political blog with the overarching purpose of "electing more and better Democrats", with over a million registered users you can imagine how many other interests we have. By reading the Recent Diary list one can see this variety of subjects and choose to read and engage by commenting in those which draw you in. Often you will find a Group (click on Groups on your Profile) which focuses on your particular interest, to which you can ask to be invited. Then that Group, plus any others you join, will be listed on the Welcome Back section when you log on.
As commenting and writing diaries becomes more comfortable, you might want to embellish, for instance, with appropriate YouTube videos. After you find what you want, click "share", then "embed". You will get several lines of html. But to make it work you will have to insert http: after src=" and before the//. Easier than it looks. Photos are easy using the diary Image Queue or Photobucket or the other approved sources. Details on this are found in the Archives as mentioned below. Clicking on the word Help at the top right of the front page gives info on this plus many other interesting features.
The internet has its own vocabulary and Daily Kos has its own. A wonderful diary by smileycreek does an excellent job of explaining these.
One final tip about recommends and diaries. They "stay alive" forever so it's worth checking back hours or even days later to see if latecomers have added their recs and/or comments, both for continuing a discussion or mere satisfaction that your effort was noticed.
I mentioned my enthusiasm for Daily Kos up at the top, but for sure site founder Markos shares my enthusiasm. His recent diary extolling Record Growth in Traffic demonstrates this, and should convince all Kossacks and especially New Users that this is the go-to place for all progressive news and views.
and a Tip of the Hat to Some Recent New Users:
This first diary by SPierce truly spoke for me in how much people's reactions to the Hobby Lobby decision hurt. h/t smileycreek
I followed a link from Twitter back to Orange Territory to find this gem written by new user since July 12, 2014 wolfbane in AZ. Written in quite a Garrison Keillor voice, blunt and brash and refreshingly simple to follow and agree with! Also, I found this diary spoke to me by new user neenna68 joined July 19, 2014. h/t Angie in WA State
mysticzebra has been reading the pootie diaries for a long time, but registered and made her first comment there about the passing of her 15 year old border collie. She couldn't have picked a bigger-hearted group of people to confide in. h/t smileycreek
parisloup registered in order to register an insight comparing rape victims to black victims of violence-- either one has to be perfectly faultless and blameless to get any sympathy. h/t smileycreek
fylgja posted a thoughtful reply to a trollish comment showing dignity and restraint and solid reasoning. We welcome someone who can keep a cool head in the midst of high emotions. h/t smileycreek
inhibitedigitator effectively demonstrates the problem with "I don't see color" meme by comparing it to being the mother of a disabled child. h/t smileycreek
What new users have you met or helped in the past month?
Share them with us in the comments!
Please also check out the buddy system over at the New Diarists group. While WNU and New Diarists do quite a bit of cross-pollinating, there is one essential difference between us: Over at New Diarists you can request a mentor who will help you learn how to write and publish a diary that won't get you publicly consigned to Worst Diary Hell at the GOS (Great Orange Satan, as we are affectionately known among wingnuts). Just send them a kosmail asking for an invite! Also check out their Resource Diaries. Note: The New Diarists groups also welcomes experienced diarists who would like to be mentors.
Got questions? Comments? Ideas? We're all ears-- just join us in the comments. And remember: Since this diary is for New Users no question is too basic, no matter how long you've been here!
For More Helpful Diaries, Check Out Our Archives:
Everyone is encouraged to review some of the previously written goodness that survives here in the DKos archives, going back to WNU founder ek hornbeck and including the list of teaching diaries republished to our Group page.