Something interesting just happened here.
HowieBeale wrote a diary about the Kilkenny email. In my humble opinion it wasn’t the best diary in the world, and it certainly wasn’t the worst. It was about a subject that had already been diaried numerous times today, and it’s author, although not aware of the other diaries (because at the time he posted there were no other diaries on the subject on the recent list) was savvy enough to realize that he may not be the first kid on the block, quite honorably apologized in advance if that were the case, and even went so far as to add a poll to allow people to weigh in on whether he should take it down or not. It was just a few paragraphs followed by a block quote of the entire Kilkenny email, whose author had given permission to be quoted in full. I won’t go into the details of the email, which is fast going viral, so as not to incur the wrath of The Diary Police.
And that’s the problem.
Mr. HowieBeale got hit hard and fast. He racked up about 70 comments within a few minutes. He suffered 20 or 30 of that “Not THIS crap again???” and “OMG this makes 25 this morning!!!!!!” type stuff, as he had feared. But funnily enough the rest of the comments were more skewed towards those people who were only just becoming aware of this story, and whose interest was being peeked for the first time.
He finally left a comment that basically said, “Fuck it, I’m taking it down”. And take it down he did.
His poll was split down the middle. About half of the responders went for; “Already diaried, please take it down”. The other half said; “Whoa, I haven’t seen this yet, leave it up” (apologies to HowieBeale, I can’t remember exactly how the poll was worded, and the diary, of course, ain’t up there any more).
There is a matter of serious concern here. We are now of course getting into deep election season, the traffic on Daily Kos is going through the roof, the number of recent diaries on display is limited, and so diaries are scrolling off very quickly indeed.
Republicans will hate to admit this, but Daily Kos takes a wonderfully free-market approach to exposing the journalistic talents of its contributors. Any number of diaries may attempt a take on a particular topic, but in order too avoid immediate extinction, unless they are written by a perennial favorite with name recognition, they will need a spark, a certain something to persuade the average lurker/addict such as myself, to delve. Most will not make the grade. And so it should be.
Diary police are most certainly necessary. During the crap about Bristol being the mother of Trig, for instance, they came down hard on diaries which not only besmirched the reputation of this site by dealing in false gutter rumors, but also, by persuading a good number of those diarists to think again and remove their work, and at the same time making clear the views of the majority, limited the opportunities for Republicans to paint Daily Kos as an insignificant conspiracy theory nuthouse. Likewise, by reminding people when, for instance diaries are too short, they can help get seriously substantial diaries a few more minutes on the Recent List, and thus afford them a better chance of getting recommended.
In most cases The Diary Police act quite reasonably as unofficial arbiters of good Kos form. In the case of HowieBeale’s diary, on the other hand, they came across as having all the judgment and restraint of Hell’s Angels at Altamont, and with unfortunate consequences, because that diary was one the came along at a moment when the story threatened to go viral, and disappeared into the ether at the moment a substantial number of Kos readers, not the perennials such as myself, but that great silent majority (sorry, couldn’t resist) who may only come along once every day or so, were beginning to take notice.
Republicans get to repeat their lies time after time after endless time until their gullible supporters fall for it. We have a different problem. Our information is, for the most part, solid, but we are often not allowing our entire community a decent chance to get it, and without that, it stands a much smaller chance of getting out into the electorate at large.
Sometimes a story is so good it must be REPEATED UNTIL PEOPLE GET WISE TO IT. Yes, there were been a hundred diaries on the Kilkenny email. And a hundred diaries went under the radar.
And so I would suggest, in closing, that those among us who choose to take on the role of arbiters of daily Kos form, the Diary Police, please consider the possibility that sometimes repetition is necessary. Sometimes a diary that is really a comment should be allowed to stand. Sometimes you have to keep knocking, and keep knocking, and if that albeit tasteless and bad-form repetition can help, for instance, to expose Sarah Palin for the absolute fucking charlatan that she is, then it's all to the good.
Just sayin’