This is my second round of "Ask me anything about Daily Kos."
Next month, I'll mark my 10th anniversary as a Front Page writer here at the Great Big Orange. That's only two years less than I spent at the Los Angeles Times. And, as I noticed a couple of days ago, I've written one heckuva lot of comments in that decade, more than 76,000 of them. Yikes and a half.
A question I've often been asked is how different it is writing articles and commentary here than at the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers I have worked for. A key difference has been instantaneous feedback, including constructive criticism that arrives before the pixels on whatever I have written have barely settled into place. I appreciate that feedback immensely, whether it's to correct a factual mistake, fill in a gap I've left, alert me to yet another of my typos or to say "nice job" or "what could you possibly have been thinking when you wrote this?" I try to read all responses with an open mind.
In the dead-tree media where I used to work—both alternative and traditional—feedback on articles and commentary was slow in coming, usually several days, and there was very little of it. That, I think, was one big problem for print journalists. Too insulated from readers. It's improved as more journalists have added email addresses at the end of their articles.
Enough reminiscing. I'm ready to take your questions. One word of warning: You might as well ask me to plot the navigation route to Mars as asking me a question about Daily Kos software capabilities and other tech questions.
In case you get bored here, you might like to visit and comment at New community guidelines — final draft.