Motley Moose – Archive

Almost everybody knows by now that Daily Kos rolled out a new version today. Lots of new stuff around but what has really gotten my attention has been the Groups function and how that could be a blogosphere gamechanger. So that’s what this diary/openthread is mostly about. I was responding in a thread on the Moose so I decided to put it up in the bright lights for those interested in the conversation.

Something I found interesting written by David Waldman a.k.a. Kangro X who runs the Dkos sister site Congress Matters.

(bold done by spiff)

Congress Matters (25+ / 0-)

CM was launched as a Congress-watching sister site to DK, as a home for the hard-core process wonkery, committee watching, and parliamentary sociology that would have otherwise clogged the front page of Daily Kos and driven you all crazy, but nonetheless had to be documented somewhere in easily-linkable form.

We ran much more intensively it as something of an experiment for a year or so, but soon realized there just wasn’t that much of an appetite. Still, it’s important stuff, so we kept it. But even though it was a sister site with identical username and password files, people just didn’t really want to jump over here.

In DK4.0, we’ll just migrate it over there as a group, and those interested will be able to get the content right there at “home.”

by David Waldman on Sat Feb 12, 2011 at 05:30:18 PM PST

Kos is closing down his other blogs (Street Prophets, Congress Matters, etc.) and putting them under 1 umbrella. I would guess those who frequented Open Left and found themselves without a blog home will eventually all meet up in a DKos group blog. I have no idea if that will be done but it seems like the logical step. It’s one of the reasons I like the idea. It’s an option not available before.  

A link to the Groups part of the DKos4 FAQ.

How is a Group Started?

One or more people get the idea for a group and decide to start it. The person who actually sets up the group must be a Trusted User, and is called the “founder”.

The main Groups page available from the front page menu and a user’s own My Groups page both display a Create New Group link to Trusted Users only. It doesn’t matter from which page you start: click on the “Create New Group” link. You will be taken to the “Create a New Group” page.

Creating a Group

There are three fields you need to fill out to create a group:

Group Username – this is the name the system knows you by. It will appear in your “See More By” box, in the web URL, and in your group’s Admin box. This name is permanent.

Group Name – this is your group’s “display” name, it’s blog name: it will appear in the blog’s “banner” to the left of the Daily Kos flag, in the header of any diary published directly to the group (by username for Group Name), in users’ lists of Groups they’re in or Groups they’re following, etc. It will be confusing if the Group Username and Group Name are not the same, or at least similar (for example, the Username being shorter than the Name).

Description – this should describe what your group is and does. Be concise; too long and people’s eyes will glaze over. The text will be shown as part of your group’s listing in the various lists on the Groups page, and also in the group’s “See More By” box when its blog page is displayed.

Once these are filled out to your satisfaction – the Group Name and Description can be edited later, if desired – click the Save New Group box. Assuming that your Group Username is not already used by another group or user account, your group will be created, and you’ll be ready to start work on it.

Here is what Kos and Meteor Blades let peeps know about how groups will work. I read this when it was initially posted which is one of the reasons I’ve been paying more attention to the new features. I think it’s pretty cool.

The Group is comprised of admins, editors and members.

1.  Admin is the creator of the group, but can choose to ask another person to handle administration of the group.  Admins add, remove and set privileges for users. After a person has been invited to join a group, the admin will add the person to the group and determine whether the person should be an admin, editor or member. The admin is also the person that can remove (ban) members from the group. The admin also has permissions granted editors.

2.  Editors have permission to edit diaries in the queue or published to the group blog, post diaries to the group, view diaries queued for the group and read private messages sent to the group.

3.  Members only have permission to post diaries to the queue and cannot view diaries queued or read private messages sent to the group. Thus, editors or admins will need to schedule or publish member’s diaries directly to the group blog.

Internal Group Rules

The DK4 system provides the technology for tools, but groups will have to decide how those tools are used:  For example, just because editors have the capability to edit does not mean that all editors should have the right to edit.  If a group has 50 editors, it might wish to limit editing rights to a handful of them.

That’s my spiffy roundup!

Thoughts?