Daily Kos is due for an upgrade.
Don't get me wrong - I love the functionality of the site so far. What other site combines site functionality from Digg, excellent reporting a la New York Times, the community of Facebook and the snarkiness of Huffington Post under one catchy domain name?
But if anyone's been on the internet for longer than say...5 years, they know the internetz change. It was only a few years ago that most in the punditry bubble would balk at the thought of internet bloggers wielding any influence over Washington. It was the model of bottom-up information gathering at Daily Kos that allowed some of the most intelligent and insightful ideas to break through the media chatter and become Democratic talking points under the harshest of Rethug criticism.
So follow me over the jump to see a few suggestions I have for the site's functionality going forward. This is a first draft so please add suggestions of your own in the comments and I'll modify the list/add the idea.
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Some ground rules:
- Any idea - no matter how fanciful - could be on the suggestions list. I will try to incorporate as many new ideas as possible into the primary list.
- We will assume Markos' budget is not infinite, but not $0.00 either.
- Several suggestions may conflict with each other, or require that one suggestion be implemented before the other can happen. This is fine, because we're just brainstorming.
- Yes, you can steal ideas from other sites.
Enhancements
Automatic Tip Jars/Diary Recommendation Amounts
I think everyone is aware of this problem. If you write a diary, you want people to be able to show that they appreciate the work you've done. One way to do this is to post a comment right under your diary where people can recommend that comment.
The ultimate goal however is to simply have a rating system for diaries. Users also probably want to differentiate a "Recommend" for a diary from a high rating which shows appreciation for the diarists work. For example, if someone writes a heartwarming story about their dog on DKos, you want to show your appreciation for the diarist's writing. What you probably DON'T want to do is show your appreciation by having the lovable dog diary show up on the Rec List for hours when this is supposed to be a politics blog. It makes granny angry.
Profiles w/ Pictures
On a user's profile page, there should be an option to upload her/his picture. This picture can show up on the profile page, as well as on a user's diary. Private people can refuse to post their picture.
This site is a community of people - not usernames, or diaries but amazing people. I recently attended my second NYC Daily Kos meetup, and it was a revelation for Dr. Steve B to meet Eddie C, and for Eddie C to meet brownsox. It's hard sometimes for a user to remember a diarist's username, but it's never hard to remember someone's face.
TROLL! button
When user's encounter a diary that they decide is not aimed at fostering reasonable discussion on DKos, they should be able to click a "TROLL!" button that lets other users (most importantly site moderators) know the diary is an attempt to attack our new and better Democrats.
Sitting at the first NYC DKos meetup I was surprised to learn that many diarists have been several times accused of being trolls for even the slightest criticism. I still agree with adding the button, but user's should be aware that a "witch hunting" mindset can set in and we start to look for ideological purity like the repubs.
ACTION Pages
Users should be able to link to, or embed ACTION phone numbers and names which can indicate how many calls have been made for a particular cause. Users should also be able to lookup a poltician/journalist/rethug DKos and see how many other ACTION campaigns have been made for that person - so that we can keep track of ways this community has gotten involved.
But it doesn't have to be as sophisticated as the Barack Obama call center...
The Progressive Voting Scoreboard
Add a page (either wiki or admin administered) that allows users to keep track of which politicians have voted with the Daily Kos most of the time and which have not.
Almost every other prominent advocacy group from the Club for Growth to Planned Parenthood keep public record of which polticians voted "our way" and which bills they ignored us on. This is important because around fundraising time we need to be able to show polticians that their FISA vote or Iran war resolution vote matters. With a clear paper trail we can keep track of which representatives are most progressive, and which reps should be kicked out of congress.
Aesthetic Improvements
Daily Kos should be a little more web-2.0-y IMHO. It's a little bit of a throwback to 2000. Change.org seems a litte more inviting.
Part of the reason other "Journalists" may not have respected front page blogger usernames may not be that "BarbinMD" sounds inherently amateur, it may be that the site as a whole looks a little bit outdated and amateur in places. Just my two cents.
User-Location mappings
Allow users to specify on their profile pages what state and city they are from. This would allow front pagers (like Kos) to mass email users from certain areas to let them know about ACTION causes in their areas (fundraising/protests/phone campaigns/volunteering)
It might also allow us to arrange more meetups in YOUR town.
Bug Fixes
I can't think of any site bugs on DKos. Can you?
User Generated Additions
Edit/Delete Comments
by samantha in oregon
Quick Hits
"ala OpenLeft. This would give the Breaking and the comment diaries a place to go. It would free up Diaries for more substantial analysis"
by Kitty
Add Spellcheck to Comments
by Greasy Grant
Please Return The "Wide" Or "Narrow" option for diaries
by Mattman
different diary categories (ex. humor, action, meta, etc.)
by ganymeade
Hide diaries after several "down" votes instead of Troll buttons.
by ganymeade
1.Have a troll rating system but also have accountability on how it is used.
Perhaps the number of troll ratings a user has given could be displayed on their profile.
I think it might also be useful to make a distiction between troll ratings and a post that is abusive, disrespectful.Perhaps an "abusive comment" button to distiguish from troll ratings.
2.Expanded profiles could include total mojo, total diary recs, number of diaries to date and date the user first registered.
3.Diary categories. This might help distinguish serial diaries from one time posts, pet diaries from political diaries, etc.
by interceptor7
Kossack location groups
by lettuce kucinich
"A different color?"
by fou
A fluff bin for pooties, recipes, and all such playful nonsense.
I love the soft and silly side of DKOS , but why not create a cyber playground as the place for non-political frolicking.
by crystal eyes
a way to upload pictures without having to have an account at photobucket, flickr, etc.
by 4fx
RSS feeds by user name
by webranding
Have diarists "earn" diary writing privileges through comment recommendations.
by Anna Elk
Btw, please rec this so as many as possible will contribute. Thx!
If you talk to new users they are totally confused when they first get here. Totally confused (as was I).
Under where they have the election map on the front page should be a post, that never changes, always at the top, that is a one short overview of the site with links and even a video of how the site works.
I know there is a ton of info in the sidebar, but folks rarely look there (yes I have the market research in fact on this very topic).
I mean I really wonder how many folks come here, get confused, and never come back?
by webranding
Overflow of subject line into the comments box automatically.
by amk for obama
I want to hover over a diary and have the tags show up, thus saving me the time of opening something that looks interesting and turns out to be snark.
by pucklady
automatic picture resizing maybe with three or four choices like full width, 3/4,1/2,1/4 and relocating (centered, left, right)
by tegrat
Im not sure the "solution" here but we have had several visits from ... ya know... Senators and such. They usually make it to the Rec List pretty quick, but maybe a ... I dont know.... an alert on the Front Page?
by Lady Libertine
I frequently find that after I have drafted the most wonderful comment ever penned that it disappears before I have a chance to post it.
by wishbone
a page two, three for newer diaries rather than having to alter your page view to show more than 25.
by ganymeade
a poll 'suggestion box' for us commoners to suggest FP polls.
by WSComn