First, kudos to most people here for all U do but I am done carrying water for DK although most users are great. You are hard working, caring, patriotic, + involved. You are also too good for this site.
While DK started out admirably, it has gone downhill, as has its readership rankings. Many high profile people have left, more will follow. Thousands of ordinary people are gone too, the people needed to make this site effective.
DK is not about electing more + better Democrats, it's a cult where adm. + cliques rule + substance means little. It's about petty nonsense + ego trips, not electing more and better Democrats. When I'm carrying water, diaries with 10 recs propel to the rest water. Now that I'm not carrying water, diaries with 60 recs stay off it. The algorithm isn't always applied. The Obama campaign refuses to post here. Except for Donna Edwards (who I love) and a couple of other people, 90% of the people Markos has recruited from here have lost. It's why Obama's campaign won't be associated with Markos. They know they can win by double digits partly by staying away from him. And rightly so.
This is my last diary at this site. I will have nothing to do with people (site owners/adm.) who permit outing of people's real names and vicious attacks on kids.
Specifically, go see MajorFlaw's vicious attack on Asher Heinermann in his diary the other day titled "This is No Joke." (Also, help him get to $5,000, I donated $35 to Obama yesterday through him.) In that diary MajorFlaw, who is here at this site to turnoff Democrats by disrupting diaries, pretending to enforce rules, pretending to hunt trolls, incite, and never write a single diary, decided that he would mock a 14 year old kid for saying that he would try to get senior citizens to the polls for Obama and then said it was "getting kinda old" when Asher promoted his fundraising attempts for Obama. I think it's wonderful that a kid could raise $5,000 for Obama. However, DailyKos administrators would prefer to allow MajorFlaw to attack this kid and send Dave a "warning" merely for standing up for what is right. Well, as James Pence of hillbillyreport.com, another recently banned member who is a big helper of our Senate nominee in Kentucky says, those in the Kostopo can take that warning and shove it you know where.
I, like hundreds of you, are sick and tired of a pack of turnoff trolls led by User MajorFlaw and thugs of reliable upraters who have irreparably damaged this site. MajorFlaw has embarrassed this community enough not only when he outed someone's real name but when he went after a kid like a bully. However, MajorFlaw has an administrator who goes around "warning" and banning everyone who tries to stand up to him and the pack of reliable upraters who serve as defacto sockpockets for each other. So to all the administrators who support attacking kids and oouting people publicly, go Cheney yourself. And for Markos, since you allowed all this to happen despite numerous attempts to fix the problem behind closed doors, you can Cheney yourself too. Your days in the progressive netroots are over. We democrats, whether progressive, liberal, or moderate are going to sever ties with you just like we did with that piece of dung Jerome Armstrong. You have become just like Jerome, live with that.
12 people trollrated this disgusting bullying by Major Flaw. Major Flaw is conscienceless and here at Kos to disrupt, incite, enflame, smear, dampen enthusiasm, discourage Democrats, and engage in some kind of sick game in which he and his thugs seek to get people banned from this site, often for no legit reason. Yet again the administrator, instead of banning MajorFlaw, goes after those who stand up to Major Flaw. This has happened dozens of times. MajorFlaw on three separate occasions linked to people's real names without permission. The administrator covered up for him. According to site rules, administrators speak for Kos. So I'll take him at his word. Allowing real names to be outed and allowing vicious attacks on kids speaks for Markos Moulistas. I will make sure everyone I know in the progressive blogosphere becomes aware of this. DailyKos rankings have declined 25% this year. That's just the beginning you can be sure of that.
Of course Kos can have an epiphany (just in case he has Missed what his administrators have been doing) and fire the administrator(s) who have been covering up for this horseshit and ban MajorFlaw and the reliable upraters today. In that case I'll retract this diary publicly. Otherwise, Kos owns Major Flaw and when he shows up for a book signing or goes to netroots nations, he will be called out publicly for owning this behavior and I will be urging every fellow member of the progressive netroots to disown and disassociate themselves from Markos and all 16 people who supposedly speak for this site. (Unless of course they want to make it absolutely clear that they personally don't support outing people's real names and viciously attacking 14 years.)
Does Kos support vicious attacks on kids or not? Does he support allowing users to out people's real names or not? In light of what happened to droogie, the integrity of this site is on the line with this decision.
Again, we have seen MajorFlaw do two things that are automatic bans.
- He outed a person's real name at this site. This was done on more than one occasion. Of course he'll claim that the person posted it here first but Major Flaw went back more than 6 months to an obscure comment and relinked it. Outing a person's real name is a big NO NO on the Internet. There is no grey area. Administration was made aware of it and the administrative troll protected MajorFlaw.
2. He viciously attacked a 14 year old kid for no fucking reason. See the thread for yourself. And when given chances to apologize, Flaw dug in and said he's not apologizing.
MajorFlaw has had ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE separate comments given a troll rating. About 25 of them ended up in troll alley. But that's not the end of the story.
MajorFlaw communicates with reliable upraters who bring him out of troll alley at the last moment. They are no better than he. Again this has been done about 25 times with MajorFlaw's comments. It happened in Asher's diary. Without this manipulation, MajorFlaw would have been autobanned a long time ago.
MajorFlaw and his band of thugs are poison and cancer for Democrats and for DailyKos. His goal is to drive as many people away from this site as he possibly can. He's sick, he's no different than Bill O'Reilly, and he's an embarrassment to this community. And the people covering up for him or who have uprated this behavior do not speak for me.
Kos had a choice, own this shit or disown this shit. Barring a last moment retraction it appears he owns it. It appears Kos believes it is okay to out people's real names at his website and viciously attack 14 year olds. As a result, starting in 2009, any politician who actively seeks the support of Markos (there are only about 5 at the current moment so this is no big deal and Markos track record is about 3 in 70 anyway so Democrats running for office know this.) will be facing opposition from people not only who disagree with them but from people who agree with them.
I was going to post this diary two weeks ago and then decided to wait until the Election. I posted now b/c not only do I realize how much I've helped Obama but because I realize that Obama does not associate himself with Markos and thus if anyone asks me if I"m hurting Obama, I will point out that I am actually helping Obama by agreeing with his decision not to have anything to do with Markos. If and when I'm interviewed about this, I will point out that Obama's campaign won't have anything to do with Markos for reasons like this.
Thus I am disassociating and distancing myself from Kos although I'll be at davefromqueens.com and dozens of other of the usual progressive websites to further explain why it would be wise of all progressives to stay far away from Kos. Trust me, most of you will leave Markos sooner rather than later and do the same even though Kos will do everything in his power to keep you the people from crashing the gates.
So after nearly 700 diaries, 12,000 comments, and some Herculean and selfless efforts, I'm out of here. But I'm far from done. I'll be all over the Internet, I'll be taking on RW nutcases everywhere, I'll be publishing an 800 page book hopefully next yr, I'll continue teaching kids once a week, I'll continue practicing law, I'll continue going to events, I'll continue to donate to Democrats, I'll continue to lose weight (17 lbs down, jogged 0.6 miles today w/o stopping, up from 20 feet 6 weeks ago) and I'll be more than fine.
Good night and good luck.