There was a bit of a kerfuffle here over the last two days, and it all started with Cenk Uygur's diary comparing the celebrations over HCR's passage in the House to Bush's appearance on the aircraft carrier under the "Mission Accomplished" banner. Apparently, a bunch of folks HR'ed Cenk's tip jar. This strikes me as not only wrong, but inconsistent with much of what DKos is about. Here's why.
I'm sort of new here, and I don't have HR privileges. But, as I understand it, one gets HR privileges by becoming a Trusted User, and one becomes a Trusted User by getting recs from the registered community on diaries and comments. In that sense, people with HR privileges are elected by the registered community. And it's very much like an election; everyone who registers (with the community) gets to vote, unless you do something that constitutes a relinquishment of that privilege. There is reference to the democratic (small "d") aspects of this site in the FAQ. See the section on diaries.
So yesterday Cenk posts his diary comparing Bush and the Iraq war to Obama and HCR, and many of us disagree with it, myself included. I write a comment to that effect; my comment gets some rec's, and I'm very proud. I admit that I sometimes I go to my page just to check out how my comments are doing rec-wise. I'm not proud of this vanity; but I bet there are a lot of folks here who do it. Anyway, it appears that folks here Hide Rec'd Cenk's tip jar, according to a diary today.
The diarist pointed out that Cenk's tip jar was HR'd by some, but that was not his focus:
Looking through the diaries, I was saddened to learn that Cenk Uygur had his tip jar hide rated yesterday. I wonder, what was the message in this diary that was worthy of hide ratings?
HR'ing a tip jar, to me, is just wrong. HR'ing a diary or a comment because you disagree with it is improper (the rules say as much), but it's nothing compared to HR'ing a tip jar. Tip jars are one of the main ways in which we vote for people to become Trusted Users. To HR a tip jar is to disenfranchise the community. ACORN was targeted by the right not because they're a Democratic organization, but because they're a democratic organization (small d); they register voters. They enfranchise people. Poll taxes and literacy tests are vile because they disenfranchise people. Pretend democracies keep appropriate candidates off of their ballots and then dishonestly claim that their "elected" officials carry the mandate of the people. HR'ing a tip jar is a similar act of disenfranchisement by a Trusted User. It just strikes me as inconsistent with very principles on which this site was founded.