I have some exciting news about the future of the Swing State Project that I’m very pleased to share with our community here. As many of you know, I got my start blogging at Daily Kos, and I still serve as a front-page contributing editor there. SSP has always had a close relationship with “the mothership,” with a lot of cross-pollination of users and content. So I’m thrilled to announce that SSP will soon get “beamed up” to DK – that is to say, the entire site will soon have a new home at Daily Kos, likely to be named “Daily Kos Elections,” with a new URL as well. (The old address will re-direct there.)
In practical, day-to-day terms, I can assure you that not much will change. It will still be the same great community – and you’ll still be seeing the same great content – that you’ve grown accustomed to. Our hallmark qualities will remain exactly the same: We will stay laser-focused on the electoral horserace, and we’ll steer clear of policy debates, just as ever before. I recognize that the communities at DK and SSP operate differently, but DK Elections will be its own sub-site, and we’ll retain our distinctive flavor. The comment boards will be friendly, on-topic, and free of personal attacks, just as they are now.
For the moment, we’re staying put. In a week, Daily Kos will undertake a major transition to a new software platform (which you can play with here). As you might imagine, the DK tech team has their hands full, so we won’t get ported over for a little while after that. (We’ll make sure our archives make the jump, too.) In the meantime, if you don’t have one already, I encourage you to create an account at the actual Daily Kos site (not the beta site linked to just above) so that you can hit the ground running when SSP makes its move.
One thing that will change is that I will be working for Daily Kos full-time, which will allow us to amp up our coverage. The rest of the crew will be staying on board – James, Crisitunity, and Jeff – and will continue to contribute as well. DK’s current horserace specialists, Arjun Jaikumar and Steve Singiser, will also join the squad. We’ll expand out our coverage a bit to include presidential primary polls – I think the GOP primary is just too fun not to cover. And when the time is right, we’ll also start looking at presidential polling – but, again, we’re going to stay an issue-free zone.
My official title at DK will be “Political Director,” and in addition to running DK Elections, my responsibilities will include, among other things, managing our polling operations and our Orange to Blue fundraising list on ActBlue. I look forward to getting your input in both areas – for instance, I definitely plan to do some “Where should we poll?” site polls, just like Tom Jensen does now over at PPP. (As you may know, Public Policy Polling is DK’s pollster, and we’ll continue to work with them.)
I do have one request to make of the community: Stick with us. Give it a shot – there will be some changes, but nothing too dramatic. And help us out. We’ll need you over at the new site. While, as I said, we’ll have our own sub-site, it’ll be fairly easy for other Daily Kos users who aren’t familiar with the SSP ethos to migrate over to DK Elections – and we’ll need you, all the longtime, experienced, and chill SSP users, to take newcomers by the hand and explain how things work. The mods will still be there in comments to regulate as needed, but it’s a big world out there, I will be grateful beyond words for your patience and assistance in helping new people adjust. As I’ve said many a time, this community is what makes me keep coming back every day, and regardless of what our web address is, or whether our color scheme is puke green or in-your-face orange, I really hope we can all stay together.
And not like I really need to say this, but if you have any questions, please fire away in comments!
UPDATE: Thank you for all the support in the comments. I also understand the reservations that have been expressed by many of you. I share some of those concerns myself, but I want to re-iterate: We’re going to do everything we can to preserve the SSP community, rules, ethos, and comment moderation policy. And we aren’t going to be swallowed up by Daily Kos – we’ll be our own sub-site, which you’ll probably access by going to http://elections.dailykos.com. That address will feature only horserace content posted by the SSP writers (plus Arjun and Steve) – in other words, it’ll look almost exactly like what the site looks like right now. So I really urge you to give us a shot.
UPDATE 2: I’d like to encourage everyone to read this comment from Susan Gardner, the executive editor at Daily Kos, about what we can expect as we make the transition.
though time will have to tell whether it is for the better. No doubt it takes a lot of time, commitment, and probably money to keep SSP going as its own concern. So to the extent this change relieves that, it will be for the better.
I have two questions, one technical and the other substantive:
1) How are you planning to merge/consolidate (or similarly dispose of) SSP and Dkos user IDs? I am here what I am there, but here I am 1337. ([Seriously, I’m not kidding swingstateproject.com/userDiary/comments.do?personId=1337]).
2) are you planning to keep the special comment and discussion rules for the move? Dkos tends to be a free-for-all. And while that’s fine there, I would really prefer that we not implement it here.
because of the hostility we’ve found there towards “more” as opposed to “better” Ds.
I just hope that the pragmatic tenor of this community does not change (though I suspect it’s inevitable).
Do we have to create new accounts at Daily Kos? Will your policy of banning still stand if users still get too involved, ie getting policy and non horse race stuff and will these policies be made well know? Congrats.
People who can’t name 90+ US Senators in 10 minutes?
🙁
The Kos people are um not always civil when it comes to people to the right of Dennis Kucinich. Not sure how I feel about this move…sigh…
For you, but the addition of many typical DKos commenters will hurt the quality, guaranteed. Hope to be proven wrong.
I’m really excited for this, it sounds like a great opportunity to expand SSP’s readership while attracting new users.
As a sidenote, I’m a longtime lurker though I’ve never posted much. I’m actually applying for funding right now to hopefully do some research that would be of interest to the community – I’ll be really excited to introduce it further once my plans are more concrete.
Please consider doing some of this in the first weeks. SSP is one of my three favorite blogs (with PPP and Political Wire. I hope the transition goes well
Speaking as a conservative Republican who has lurked on this site and occassionally commented for years, I like SSP the way it is. I read this every day for the coverage of down-ballot races.
I don’t mind the left-wing tone of this website (the members have always been nice to me when I did post), but those DailyKos people go too far. They are so militant, ideological, and angry about everything.
Congrats to SSP for taking a step that will get it more traffic and more exposure, I guess, but this is disappointing to me. Conservatives aren’t welcome on DailyKos, so I guess I won’t be either. This whole move is emblematic of how our country’s media culture is becoming hyper-partisan and hyper-ideological.
Hopefully the full-time attention will really benefit here, and also very great news that the mega-clusterbomb of Republican primaries will not be off limits here (there).
Financially it seems like a slam dunk positive for all involved. I’m sure some of the concern trolls won’t like it, but it just gives them something else to be concerned about…
I am not too sure. I like that this blog is becoming more high profile but I am not the biggest fan of the switch. Although I am really happy that this blog will become more important, I miss the smallness of the blog too.
I felt like swing state was a small town. All the users here know each other, I feel like a close knit community with all of them. Also, I liked that people can have their own views on this site (I am a liberal Democrat but not as liberal as Kucinich and I really liked hearing other perspectives from moderate Dems like hoosierdem and ruraldem.) In Daily Kos, it might be harder to have diverse opinions.
Another thing I liked was that you really have a voice on this site and you will not get bogged down by other people. In Daily Kos, if you post a diary, it will be gone in two hours. Swing State Project, it is usually up for a week. I post lots of diaries frequently and I liked being able to have something up for awhile.
Still, I support the moderators’ decision because Daily Kos is one of the biggest blogs out there and joining up with it is quite amazing. I hope the transition is good and I hope all of the current members make the transition too.
give it a try….but unfortunately merging with DKos means that the bipartisan atmosphere of this blog will unfortunately disappear because I doubt MassGOP, GOPVOTER and the other Republicans I have grown to enjoy election based conversations will be driven away. Well I guess with HuffPost being gobbled up by AOL we are truly in a period of change. Especially with the DLC closing up shop….
http://www.politico.com/news/s…
I hope the level of discourse in your DKos threads will be higher than the typical DKos flamewar. I drifted away from that site because of the extremely high heat/light ratio, but I’ll check out your posts over there.
First, I understand DavidNYC’s decision. It’s clearly the best decision he can make for himself — and the people that go with him.
I appreciate and have appreciated being among true political nerds. The moderators here have been the best.
Those who know their stuff inside/out — and are willing to take the time — will be able to cope in the midst of the DK community. It’s just more difficult. Education, especially in the arena of collective political blogs, is a difficult enterprise.
I participated mostly on DK through ’07. (user ID 27650, same username). But the intensity of DK often takes more time and energy than I have. It’s become too much like a big city. So I tried OpenLeft for a time, impressed by the intellectual heft that was there. But I was not impressed by the frequent course language used by the main diarists — especially directed at commenters. I especially did not appreciate being called out essentially as a collaborator.
I tried going back to DK, but found that things had changed. I no longer felt welcome as a moderate liberal.
So since mid ’09, I was happy to have found a home of sorts here. It’s been fun. More importantly, it was beginning to help me reidentify my own beliefs.
While I’ll wait and see, I’m not optimistic about my own future participation here, after the changeover. I suspect I might try TMV for a while.
Other suggestions would be appreciated.
I haved mixed feelings.
I go to kos every day for the front page, but I never go into the Diaries unless a recommended one really catches my eye and even then never into the comments.
I’ve tried the beta and its slow as crap. I know kos goes on and on about how its actually quicker because it loads more per second or some crap, but whatever its slow as crap compared to the current version. I love SSP not only because of the content but because its always quick to load and I never have problems with it.
So, good for you guys, but not so good for your readership.
and I’m looking forward to seeing the quality of front-page content you’re able to put out with the ability to put full time effort into this. This place is indispensable already, and I assume it’s only going to get better above the fold.
I hope you’ve negotiated enough leeway in managing the sub-site to be able to help the integration along. If you can selectively promote on-topic user diaries, use moderation wisely, etc. that will help preserve the tone that makes the comments here one of, what, like 3 good comments sections in the whole blogosphere? Hopefully the Kos people recognize that’s part of the value and will help you all preserve it.
You know lots of the polling stuff that goes up over there already doesn’t get many comments. Certainly the diaries. People aren’t interested. If they were they would already be here. No doubt some new posters will check us out and stay though.
For it to be successful you need a few things.
1) Be able to ban users only from the subsite, so you have the real control of comments.
2) Get a waiver from markos for anyone to the right of Dennis Kucinich
3) Only the current moderators should be able to ban users
4) Keep diaries separate
5) Don’t post too many posts per day, part of site success is that there is a daily conversation, not split up in 10
6) Really police new users in the beginning and very strictly, only way
7) When I’ll think of more, I’ll add
8) Enjoy
there is one advantage with the move…..your servers won’t crash on election night! But I think I might just hover for a few weeks and see how things work. The one thing I fear is if I make a comment like I did about Lugar earlier today in the Daily Digest I’ll be slapped down and called a variety of names like collaborator, Nazi, Taliban, etc.
I guess I can compare SSP to my AP US History teacher and DKos to my AP Gov teacher. My AP US History teacher’s interest in politics focused on elections like myself, he even asked me in the hallway about what did I think about Scott Brown winning in Massachusetts.
While my AP Gov teacher spent the entire fall semester talking about the joys of the public option and being pie in the sky like about it. She even spent the first day of school talking about how wonderful Rachel Maddow was. I like Maddow too, but we were there to learn about government, not about the intellectual weight of MSNBC.
You can guess which teacher I liked more.
The changes will not be too big so I am sticking with this blog. I discovered swing state two years ago when I was looking for Obama’s 2008 congressional numbers. I have loved this site and I am sticking with it, whatever the shape or form is.
I know a few of you have reservations (you saw my post earlier, I have them too,) but I urge all of us to stick with swing state. We all helped make this blog great, whether by sharing great insights in the comments or posting really great diaries. I know we can help make it even better.
Really looking forward to wear to poll polls!
Quick question: how much handholding can we do? I try not to tell users here “You can’t talk about that.” because I know I’m not supposed to do the mods job. Should we still leave that stuff to you when the switch happens or (politely and constructively) say what’s alowed?
But overall congrats on the move!
I used to hang out at DK (I have a really low UserID# even)but got a little tired of the infighting and the echo chambering. Sometimes when I need a partisan fix I lurk there.
But I imagine that’s going to endanger some of the things I like about this site…
Really exciting to see this community get a chance to grow into something much bigger, and it’s good to see election junkies finally get a fair trade from the field of law in return for Arjun going to law school.
A few thoughts, because that’s how I roll.
PLEASE keep the active moderation. SSP has one of the best comment section because of the no BS policy you have enforced so well. DK as a whole hasn’t gone there, and I respect that. But that’s part of what makes SSP unique, and with full time David and a larger audience there is even more potential to turn the comments into something really exciting, the comment enforcement style of DK as of now would waste that potential.
It’s probably irreversible but I think it’s a genuinely terrible idea to mix the Presidential content in with the rest. Speaking as a veteran of the netroots presidential primary of wars of 2008 few things seem to bring out the worst in people as much as discussion of candidates for the Presidency of the United States. I guess Nate did it to an extent, but his comment section was never as good as SSP’s. Maybe it’s a compromise that needed to be made, but I think it’s a pretty bad one.
Let’s get David J and James on payroll ASAP. Much more insight than any polls can give.
With all that said, I’m really excited to see where this goes. To SSP!
I’m about as far a lefty as they come on most social issues, but I’ve always enjoyed that this is the only political site I’ve ever come to where people generally get along and respect each other regardless of their political and ideological lean. I’ve even found people on the opposite side of the spectrum here from my homestate who’ve provided my with excellent technical information in terms of district information.
I really hope this kind of interchange stands. I really like the intimacy of the place, which had already started to wane with it getting bigger over election center. Hopefully, we can distinguish between those over there only for DK and us committed SSPers. Perhaps, we could put SSPers in our new userhandles to help keep our indentity.
Which one is bigger? I’m going for the latter! 🙂
I kind of find it funny reading all the “oh no!” comments with their unfair stereotypes of dKos folk. The reality is that all opinions are welcome there as long as you are not an ass about it. There is plenty of moderate content on dKos. It’s really unfair to label the whole site with broad, unfair generalizations.
I’m quite excited about this move. My only worry is that dKos prejudice will drive some good, knowledgeable folks like GOPVOTER away. SwingState is the ultimate crowdsource site. It’s very existence is based on random information from people on the ground who are in the know. We have to do what it takes to keep our users, or we’ll become weakened like pollster.com became after they were acquired.
Lots of change going around. OpenLeft went defunct this weekend, too.
SSP could be merging with firedoglake!! May SSP change dKos more than dKos changes SSP.
One, if I had it my way, I could check this blog every two hours and see a new post to read. So one step-closer to that goal. 😉
Two, I am hoping this place goes back to the way it was during the 2008 cycle. Going from people named IHateBush getting banned to someone for mocking Ted Kennedy on the day of his death, well, I won’t ever have to read that shit on a DailyKos site.
And I think DailyKos has gotten a bit sloppy on politics. During the 2010 cycle, the focus was all policy instead of organizing and I think having some sort of a horse-race branch to the site will do it some good. They had the electoral scoreboard for 2008 but not 2010? Unacceptable. Orange to Blue could be a bit better, primary challenges could be better organized and to the power of RedState, more analysis of the polling they do, etc. Not all of that done through SSP, but DailyKos will now have an elections division and I hope will act as such.
We can all at least agree this is a great snub to RedState. Their website looks like absolute dog shit, DKos is unveiling a brand new one and adding to their operations.
Congrats David!
I can’t say I’m thrilled with the environment over at DailyKos, but, presuming the bulk of current SSP contributors make the migration that way, it should be a comfy scene for me. If, however, I find myself conversing with nothing but fifty grating Markos clones, I may well be discouraged. One question – will there still be Daily Diaries of some form? I’d much appreciate a continuation of those.
FWIW, I love Red Racing Horses and would encourage fellow moderates to give it a look. It’s akin to the substantive conversations we have over here, just of a more center-right nature.
Admittedly, I was kind of pissed when I first read this about an hour ago. As an occasional poster and every-second-of-the-day, front-page-on-Safari reader, I really didn’t like the change. I guess I still don’t.
But I see where you guys are coming from. Getting more coverage and the opportunity to blog full time is definitely appealing.
I have one principle concern: I will miss the community here. From desmoinesdem to hoosierdem to sapelcovits to everyone else who have contributed outstanding analysis and posts, it’s going to be sad to have their knowledge crammed in with the Daily Kos crowd. Listen, I think some on DK has insightful opinions, and I generally agree with their politics, but I hate hate hate flamewars and their “Let’s give all of our money to Alan Grayson because Kos tells me to” attitude.” They hold grudges (see: Jon Tester) and I cannot see them being especially insightful in their comments.
On the flip side, this could be an opportunity to educate them on elections, just as I have been every day I’ve visited. I’ve learned so much on this site, it’s ridiculous. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to see it changed. I loved the small, yet educated community, and from what I’ve seen at DK, it’s definitely going to change.
Congrats to the mods here. You’ve done an unbelievable job, and I will forever be appreciative for the work that you’ve done. James L, DavidNYC, Crisitunity, and jeffmd, even if you think your job here was thankless, think again. You’ll always have someone who’s been eternally thankful for what you’ve done. Even in my freshman year of college, I’ve already made it far in College Democrats in terms of leadership, due in part to the knowledge that this site has given me.
So, again, congrats. It’s just extremely bittersweet to this puppy go.
As SoCalGal23.
I’m the executive editor over at Daily Kos, and while I’m excited as all get out to have David coming on board as political director and your wonderful community moving over to our new platform, I completely understand your apprehensions about preserving the culture you’ve all worked so hard to create here.
The civility, the pointed direction NOT to discuss policy but to focus on elections–these are the things that have made this community so special to all of you. And this is, quite obviously, a big change.
But it might not be as big as you think.
For one thing, the new platform is going to create, as David said above, a kind of sheltered place. People at first are going to have to go out of their way to find you. Of course, that’s good and bad: some of the content regularly posted here deserves wider play, and probably attention will come your way. And while it’s true that some diaries at Daily Kos get reduced to meta wars and old-fashioned hate fests, not all of them do. In fact, the majority do not.
You see, we already have a couple of sheltered communities existing prominently within the site. A good example is called I Got the News Today (IGTNT). This community posts regularly about the military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Members do research online, get pictures, fill in the lives of these people and their families.
When the community first formed, a few anti-war commenters visited and started in with some pretty rough stuff (“these men and women were killers,” etc.). But the peer pressure of that larger sub-community soon drove them out (or at least taught them to be respectful). IGTNT also became a protected space that the wider community guarded as well–people who didn’t regularly visit those diaries would come if summoned in an open thread. And because of the community’s self-moderating tools, users were able to collectively kick in an autoban.
But that is rarely needed. Peer pressure and example can be a wonderful thing. And I hope that the standards you’ve used at SSP not only can be maintained within your sub-community, but can be ported into other communities you can explore at Daily Kos as well. Groups are forming focusing, for example, just on upper New York state races, and on Georgia races and on state legislatures. The cross-pollination opportunities are awesome, and we hope many of you will choose to become part of the other groups.
You don’t have to, of course. But we’d welcome you if you did.
Keep in mind our whole community is moving as well, so this is all a grand experiment. We will be keeping our eyes open as to how the transition is faring, and what community tools we can give you to help you maintain your culture while still having the opportunity to have your thoughts and work spread further.
I invite all of you, every one of you, to come on over and help us with our grand experiment. If you spot things that are not working as we all settle in together, let me know. Let David know. We want to make this work, we look forward to having all the great wealth of knowledge in this community become a part of the Daily Kos community, yet still preserve your unique niche.
If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email — susang@dailykos.com. Or talk to David and he’ll discuss your concerns with me; we’ll be working closely together daily.
And one last thing? About everyone at DK despising anyone to the left of Dennis Kucinich? Nah. Sometime you ought to read kos on Kucinich. Trust me, you’ll enjoy it.
This should be ok as long as the new SSP has the same group of moderators with the same level of control and the same policies. I’m worried that over time the site will be unable to attract new independents, Republicans, and even moderate Democrats as the “Kos” label might scare them off even if the site remains the same reasonable place it is today.
I may be one (of many) here who have profiles on both SSP and Kos, but the experience is different (as is the focus).
Here, I feel like my time is not wasted reading the comments and discussions – on Kos, I feel it is not worth my time to scroll through the comments (unless I actually post the diary). Here, all of the comments are on target and interesting, and while I am certain that is because of Herculean efforts by the editors here, it makes a huge difference.
Second, the focus is different – I always saw SSP as a complement to Kos. On DK, I would (and can) get my fix of national political news (and Presidential updates), here, the focus was on Congress (and especially the House). And, originally, SSP was a place to get information of state races (beyond the Governor) as well. When I joined (ID #78) saw SSP as a perfect complement to Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy, while DK fostered a progressive, but national community.
I know that DK is changing, but I remember some brutal self-purgings there (especially in 2008). Even today, while the policy on Kos allows for respectful dissent, the reputation of Kos is such that it is not inviting to individuals with a conservative point of view.
While I have my doubts that this community will survive the transition, I applaud the decision to move (back), since resources are important and even the best volunteers have mouths to feed.
shocked me.
im really nervous we will lose the community we have here
david/james/other mods, could you address these concerns
-diaries: will they stay up for longer?
please moderate well
other users:
-we are like a family, keep the same usernames
-GOPVoter, MassGOP/BostonPatriot/other Republicans: please come along. i know we aren’t really an echo chamber, but i’m worried it’ll become one without your influences
this is an even bigger shock to me than jane harman’s resignation or Joe Walsh getting elected to Congress.
let’s hope swingnuts all migrate with you and the community remains the same
Well good luck to you all. I just can’t make the move and i’ll save myself from the DK populace. I wish you all the best.
Sheesh, 2010 I had to change churches due to changes in leadership, 2011 I have to change blogs. I hope I can keep my 1995 Maxima running so I can keep something constant in my life 🙂
A lot of positive change, but i know firsthand from my (rather long) experience on DailyKos, that it’s (and becoming more so) a “site for Democratic purists” (as i told here i was banned twice there, for mocking (i confess) purists, who wanted to run “pure progressives” say to “punish Stupak” in MI-01, or even better – somewhere in North Georgia, where even conservative Democrat has very slim chances). The mad (and dumb, IMHO) cries of “purists” “primary him/her!” directed at anyone who “dared” to deviate from radical left orthdoxy sometimes drove me mad. And that’s me – slightly left of center Indie. I can imagine reaction of DKos community on some of more conservative our members here…
I like Steve and his posts there (he is a solid liberal, but they are alwasys balanced) and some other people, but, frankly – not so many,contrary to what was in beginning, when dissent was at least tolerated on DKos…
I have to say I was surprised and a little confused at first, until I realized that this move would give DavidNYC the chance to become a full-time blogger, which is great news for everyone in the blogosphere. I wish everyone the best of luck at their new home.
As for me, I don’t think I’ll be able to bring myself to register at DailyKos, so this probably marks the end of my time here–I’m sure that at least a couple people are smiling reading this :). It’s probably for the best, as I’ll be able to wean myself off what I call “political crack” and focus more fully on Red Racing Horses. But I have thoroughly enjoyed being part of this community and want to thank everyone for being so tolerant of the loyal opposition. You are all welcome to stop by RRH if you ever need a Republican fix, and I’m sure I’ll make my way over to DKos as a lurker to keep up with what’s going on there.
I’m very excited for you guys and for this change. I have full faith that you guys will make this work. I hope everyone comes along for the ride. It really wouldn’t be the same! Also like Susan Gardner said, there are many people and communities on Daily Kos that are just like us. Maybe they can help us and insure great discussion.
It sounds like a hell of an opportunity and not one I personally could turn down if I was in the same situation. In fact, as a questionably competent amateur electoral analyst (Considering business cards with that title, actually) this I guess is the kind of chance I might admit to dreaming about… just a little…
Just as a user, though, I can’t say I’m too enthusiastic. I guess that’s mostly due to just liking SSP as it is, that meaning, a vehicle for me to contribute idiotic jokes and inane commentary while other commenters that actually know what they’re talking about educate me. I like coming to SSP twenty times a day and mashing F5 repeatedly. I like telling the tales of the trolls of bygone times that made ridiculous claims and didn’t back them up with anything. I even like occasionally writing something about Indiana elections that nobody else had posted yet.
I guess I can keep doing that, whether the site is Swing State Project or DKos Elections. I’ll give it a shot; I never had an account at DKos, having found the massiveness of the site’s community a little overwhelming. Hopefully nobody has my name already.
Even though I’ll cop to not being all that cheery about this, I hope folks here don’t let their preconceptions (yes, pre, not mis-) of the environment at DKos lead them into not giving the new site a fair shake. You guys that run this little refuge of a site have always administered it well and made solid decisions when it came to moderating. Maybe I’m naive but I don’t imagine that’s all going to go to hell overnight. Seems to me you all deserve a chance after all the work you’ve put into this site that we’ve all benefited from.
You are going to make me dredge up my old Dkos account, which was miraculously never banned.
you can all go rec the DKos diary I just put up a minute ago, haha.
It IS actually worth a read, because it could be a talking point in the MT-Sen race. http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…
First off I want to congratulate DavidNYC and the other monitors. The fact that this is occurring is a sign of the fact that they have made SSP into the best blog to discuss wonky campaign and election related issues on the internet. I am very glad that you’ll finally be adequately financially compensated for your work and I hope that it will allow you to make SSP even better.
But…
I wish the partnership could have been with someone other than dailykos. I used to spend a lot of time there prior to the brutal 2008 primary purge and the even more brutal 2009 Public Option/purist/kill-the-bill purge. Although the front page comment is still very solid, the commenters on dailykos are far to extreme for me and I say this as a life-long relatively liberal Democrat who was an organizer for Obama in 2008 and a volunteer on dozens of Democratic campaigns stretching all the way back to 2003.
As long as SSP basically stays the way it is I’ll be trilled to get the same great community along with the compensation the mods deserve and the resources a major blog like dailykos can provide. I just hope that the new commenters augment our community rather than supplant it, and that SSP does not become like dailykos.
Dave, a lot of other people have said this, but for a year or two I was just a casual user who just had an account to have one, but never posted on the site because my experience with online posting has been nothing but negative. The amount of positive feedback I’ve seen and gotten and the feeling of community here is overwhelming compared to the drivel that appears on most site’s pages (just go The Hill’s comments section – every other comment looks like it could’ve been automated!). I know several things I’ve said and written have either wilted or bloomed under the spotlight. One person even cited my comments in a diary they made – and I had only been posting for a few days and knew nothin’ about nothin’! You don’t see that on any other blogs.
Plus the level of rigor and originality expected from the site regulars on comments/diaries really gives the material a real professional but collegial atmosphere. Its nice to have a blog covering politics in depth without becoming too dryly didactic or too much of a spectator’s sport. I’m happy that the move over to DailyKos will give the SSP crew more resources and time, and hope some people don’t stop contributing because of the change.
I’m sure this is a great move for the SSP crew. Perhaps you’ll even manage to restore some sanity to the greater dKos world.
I’m skeptical that I’ll make the transition myself, but I’ll at least check it out. I’m too new here to matter much, anyhow, which is ironic considering I have a 3-digit dKos ID. However, it’s no accident that I haven’t posted there since November 2003, and no doubt the only reason I wasn’t outright banned before my self-imposed exile was because of my ‘history’ with Markos.
But, hey, maybe it’s time to go back. I guess we’ll see!
I might as well go grab ‘roguemapper’ because I won’t be resurrecting my old ID regardless.
Congrats David you definitely deserve it.
Actually my only concern is that we will get overwhelmed by the inclusion of the presidential race at kos or anywhere else other than here.
IMHO it is a natural progression for SSP to migrate somewhere else and if not kos then where?
But gee with all of the presidential stuff we are going to see over there. The comments threads will have to be VERY carefully moderated to avoid the prez becoming the subject of conversation.
I care about who’s who in the zoo in the dogcatcher race in Bumfuck Indiana dammit 😉
David, this move is completely unacceptable, unless the following conditions are met:
1.) Babka contests continue.
2.) You find a way to keep the green header. Downballot elections just aren’t the same without an obnoxious green color.
In all seriousness, congratulations on the move. I’ve spent a lot of time on the DKos beta site and, while not yet perfect, I think there’s a ton of potential, especially for sub-community blogs like SSP-in-exile/DKE/whatever the final name is. Web technology is going to get a lot more advanced and a lot more exciting in the next few years, and it’s great to see progressives poised to keep up with the new tools. I’m excited to see SSP be a part of that.
For those worried about maintaining the same community feel– they’ve done a phenomenal job for almost 8 years of fostering the right atmosphere. That’s two presidential elections and some epic blogosphere flamewars that… somehow… never seemed to affect this corner of the internet. Show me another website with an 8 year record like that and I’ll, well, buy you babka. With David working full-time, I’m confident that he can handle anything Daily Kos throws at him.
I’ll be following over, though probably with a different username– I’m using the DK4 switch to retire my SSP and DKos usernames, neither of which really make any sense several years later. But I don’t comment often enough for anyone to notice anyway.
But, yeah. I’m excited, as long as I still have a shot at babka some day.
In an ideal world, DavidNYC would be a full-time blogger while our commentariat remained elitist. But is this a fair trade-off? It depends on how much better the main diaries become, since that’s ultimately what I’m here for.
Perhaps we can halt a troll infestation by standing together and using the forces of our logical arguments to keep the border secure.
re managing polling; is Markos giving you a budget for polls that you get to pick and commission. Or is he still going to be making the selections?
I discovered SSP from the link on DK’s blogroll under the Kos Alumni. And now SSP is returning home to its roots, so to speak.
I’m sure this move will be awesome and we’ll be seeing great things in the coming months and years.
There is one thing we can all agree on. At least it wasn’t aquired by those Dunder heads over at Red State!
In all seriousness, I can only see the positives of this move. More posts, more users, and most importantly, more clout/public exposure.
Congrats David and SSP team, I’m sure this will be a huge success. The people who have worries, I hope in a few months you will find that those fears were completely unfounded.
I wish David, James, Crisitunity, and everyone the best of luck. I already have an account on Kos and have posted some diaries there, and I will be looking forward to continuing contributing my share of data to the political blogosphere.
DK is anti-Obama…They critisize Obama for almost everything and every moves he makes. If you don’t like Sanders or Kunichich, you are a bad Democrat for them.
Bad move.
One of the reasons I liked SSP so much was because of the contrast that it has with DailyKos and other such websites. The culture here is quite appealing, as is the sophisticated analysis. Looking at endless maps of the redistricting of California, for instance, or following obscure state races nobody “sane” cares about.
It is something that I will miss.
I will also miss the respectful, polite atmosphere here. On too many political websites individuals resort to name-calling and personal insults instead of respectful discussion in which moderate viewpoints are taken seriously.
This happens often at DailyKos. For instance, I used to post diaries frequently on DailyKos. I would often self-censor myself, in an effort to not rile up the community.
But I still found that often I would post a diary that disagreed with one particular aspect of the DailyKos accepted opinion. I would then meet with angry outrage, much to my surprise.
For instance, I once posted a diary arguing that Hugo Chavez and similarly aligned leaders in Latin America hadn’t helped the poor there. People there took umbrage to that suggestion; one comment, which received more “Tips” than the diary, started out by saying, “How fucking stupid do you think we are?” I hadn’t known that people at DailyKos were such big fans of Daniel Ortega and Hugo Chavez.
I know better now.
At another time I posted a diary advocating a “No” vote on Proposition 21 (funding parks through a car tax). This I expected to be something people would find very boring, with not much response. Instead, there was a massive amount of comments articulating disgust with the very thought of opposing state parks. It almost resembled an online lynch mob.
I was quite out of my element (and actually somewhat frightened by the response to the Proposition 21 post).
I will still follow and post diaries on the SSP community, whatever it turns out to be. But I have to say that, although I understand the financial motives behind it, I am quite disappointed in this move.
While I can’t say I’m thrilled that we’ll be joining DK, I’m thrilled for David.
I did manage to get my same username/id on DK as on here, so at least some things aren’t going to change.
It may be a huge challenge dealing with Kossacks who want to use this smaller satellite blog as a platform for their non-horserace ideas. People’s ideas (and sometimes good ones) can really get lost in the crowd there. There may be a natural urge to seek a smaller audience, and probably a lack of full appreciation for how seriously the mods here take staying on topic. I imagine the election site will be able to suspend and ban people without them being banned from Kos as a whole. Going to be a tough balance to keep things on topic without alienating potential swingnuts.
However, more DavidNYC = win.
Arjun and Steve = win.
Exposure to more potential swingnuts = win.
Maybe that is part of the problem! But seriously, we should never fear change. That is what we are really all about. Congrats to David. I should have said that last night.
but I don’t have much hope that this will be a positive change from a commentator’s point of view. Maybe the site will stay secluded from the main DK, but if not, you’re going to see a flood of comments (it’s already a chore sometimes to read through 100-200 comments on a thread posted while I was in bed), and DK often has three or four times that. And the whole issue of the average DK user being far removed from the average SSP user has already been brought up by many people. I’ll give it a chance, but I won’t be surprised if I have to just give up trying to comment on this blog and just become a passive reader.
Is it possible at all to keep the URL SSP instead of elections dkos or whatever? I know my work blocks Dkos, as I’m sure a lot of places do, but don’t block SSP. I would like to be able to still read at work on lunch if possible.
“Congroolation!”
I’m not a frequent poster here, but I read the site 2-3 times a day. SSP and Balloon Juice are the only political blogs I read anymore, so this will be the first use my 4 digit DK ID has gotten in some time.
I won’t rehash what everyone else has said here, except to say that I do hope some of the conservative posters stick around. I’m as liberal as they come, but I love how this is the one site I can come to and read comments from smart, reasonable conservatives (they do exist, it turns out!)
However, as long as some form of SSP Daily Digest continues, I’ll be reading!
David James and all the guys have worked very hard for what I assume is no pay or at least not enough. They don’t ask for thanks and they do not get nearly as much as they should. I will say this, I am hesitant at best of this new move but we owe them a chance. They have worked hard for our enjoyment for years the least we can do is give them a chance on this move. I predict a rough start but give it at least a few months, if we all stick together than I think we can make the transition well.
Even if we somehow miraculously manage to keep our Republican/Indie contributors, I’m worried that anyone to the right of Cynthia McKinney would not feel comfortable with the Kos brand and might not even give the site a chance. At least “Swing State Project” always sounded ambiguous enough.
I mean, I visit Daily Kos a lot, but I never contribute anything or make any comments, because it just doesn’t feel worth it to comment over there (and this is coming from someone who’s pretty damn liberal). I’m worried that everyone who has had this experience (or has heard about it) will be scared away.
I trust Dave and the mods to keep the partisan debates out of it, like they always do. I’m sure Markos and Dave have talked about it extensively. Everyone who says that it will be diluted by mindless comments, I don’t think I could disagree more.
There are a lot of obscure elections (mayors, county commissions etc.) that are barely covered here, and I feel that with the addition of more people from dkos that are interested in horserace politics that we will get more coverage. People who care about ideology will find us boring and stick to commenting on the main dkos page.
Not to mention the resource advantage of moving to dkos.
TL;DR – Dave and co. have been good mods and kept out the ideology, they wont stop now. I only see positives coming out of this.
send you to this link, because I think the lyrics sum it up pretty well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
Anyway, I’ve thrown a few tough comments at Daily Kos, but I understand the valuable purpose it serves. It’s a significant presence for Democrats and liberals, for better or worse, and anything associated with it will become more prominent. Considering how awesome this site is, that’s big plus for anybody looking for smart, sane, up-to-date coverage of elections. So, to sum it up with yet another link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
I was banned at Kos.
It wasn’t even something I wrote; I uprated a series of comments speculating on whether Ann Coulter had undergone gender-reassignment surgery. Yeah, I know, it’s a stupid thing to be banned over.
First off, congrats. You all do great work, and knowing that you’ll have a chance to expand and grow is definitely positive.
I do not comment here often, but I read everything just about daily. I enjoy the dicussion in this place and have learned a lot. I’ve been here or a long time (user: 99).
I’m a bit apprehensive. Not because I don’t like Kos. I do. I’m there daily as well. (user name: AUBoy2007) But it is such a different site with a different crowd, and I worry about what may happen.
But I will follow this blog whereever it goes and in whatever itteration it takes. I enjoy it too much.
This is exciting news–for you and for the site.
DavidNYC is off for a very well-earned vacation and won’t be back online for the rest of the week. When I have some free time, I’ll attempt to answer your questions as best as I can. Gotta run to class now.
Thanks for your comments and especially your support.
but I used to go to 538 multiple times a day, now it’s once a week at best.
Obviously, this is a great move for them, and as MassGOP points out, it’s good for political blogging in general that more people like David area allowed to blog full-time. I share the apprehension of some of the posters (I wonder what’s going to happen the first time I or someone else questions supporting Alan Grayson), but at the same time I trust the judgment of David and James L. and fully intend to give the new site a chance, even to the point of registering for a DKos password.
Beyond that, there’s something else I was thinking about all of this. Change is just a fact of life, and especially on the net, things move very quickly (another poster mentioned Open Left is now done, which was a suprise to me). Hopefully David and James will be able to run the new site in the same professional way they run this one, but the announcement of MassGOP, for one, that he probably won’t be posting on the new site does suggest some good people are going away with this move.
So if things do change, that’s just the way it is, and bad things happen despite the best intentions of people. All of this is leading up to me thanking David, and James, and Crisitunity, and Jeff and all of the various posters for giving me two very enjoyable years on Swing State. This is the only blog I’ve ever posted on, and it really is an amazing site for political junkies – truly one of the only refuges from the political posturing and harsh tones of other political sites. I really love the intellectual give and take, where, for example, myself and user b.j. can have a respectful discussion about whether Dems should contest Texas. I hope that doesn’t get lost, but if it does, I’ll still have some great memories from this site and I feel like owe David and James and the rest of the management and posters at SSP for making that happen.
So, thanks, guys and gals!
As many others have said, I do have doubts about how this will work out, with many users on dkos who won’t back anyone to the left of Bernie Sanders and who quite frankly may not know as much about the nerdy details of politics and redistricting as we do. I do also have mixed feelings about the readership of this blog increasing. On one hand, I think that many of the topics discussed here definitely need to be exposed to a wider audience, but OTOH I have kind of enjoyed how the small audience here has allowed me to really get to know a little something about who each of the people who are posting here are and what areas they know the most about. I am definitely excited for all you guys and I know that this is a huge opportunity for you. I’m also happy to know that DavidNYC will be managing things like the OtB list polling operations at dkos, because I know he will manage those well. Overall, you guys have been very good at paying attention to the community here, and I am cautiously hopeful that you are taking the reservations I and others have expressed into account and doing everything possible to keep everything that we have loved at SSP intact at Dkos Elections.
Certainly for the folks who run this site this is good news. You have a lot of exciting resources at your disposal. Being able to do your own polling is just simply awsome.
On the other hand my nervousness with Dailykos isn’t that it leans left. After all most of us do. And there are pragmatists there even if those way on left field tend to be by far the loudest.
It’s a matter of size. This site is in the goldilocks zone. It’s big enough to be active and generate a lot of activity but small enough that it isn’t a zoo. By that I mean small enough that people can get to know each other and a tone can be set gently without an overly heavy hand.
It makes far easier for people to be congenial, good natured, and respectful. We can get a few things wrong, correct each other, and laugh about it because we’re not scraping for space or trying to prove something in a big pond.
That will be harder with dailykos since well being “Dailykos Elections” will no just mean we’re a subsite. But in the 2012 Presidential election season perhaps THE hob of dailykos activity since I have a hunch some folks on dailykos will be interested in elections.
But I do trust you guys and respect what you’ve done and know you’ll do a great job with it.
http://www.swingstateproject.c…
Even though it’ll cycle through the list too quick, I’m aiming to post it at about 6pm Pacific time.
Comment invited.
Obviously, it’s good for David. I understand that blogs don’t just spontaneously run on magic and pixie dust. Maybe it’s BECAUSE I understand this that I know I don’t belong on DK, where people are still trying to get Keith Olbermann to run for Senate in spite of a perfectly good and more effective progressive already being in the race. Too much of DK has tunnel vision, including Kos himself (see also: Jon Tester rant over ONE lousy vote, when he probably had very good political reasons for doing so – including but not limited to pissing off Kos).
I think integrating this community into DK’s is going to be a BIG problem. It’s not just ideological – it’s demographic. This community is overwhelmingly younger males (with a few younger women thrown in), while DK is overwhelmingly graying ex-hippies gasping to remain relevant in a Web 2.0 world, and with very specific prejudices against our generation in particular for not doing things “their” way, even though “their” way was proven wrong decades ago. I stopped reading DK comments after a generational flamewar back in October really just made me so angry I couldn’t think straight. The generational issue is one that is sure to be a major flash point if you try to integrate the two. Throw in some simmering social class issues on both sides and stir until explosive.
DK also tends to be very self-righteous about their activism, as though people who go to protests and phonebank are somehow better than armchair strategists like us – even though many SSPers have worked for or do work for campaigns. This is a community of thinkers, theirs is a community of activists. Those perceptions are going to be hard to shake, especially when you try to enforce things like the “no talking about issues” rule. Get used to being called a fascist on a regular basis.
I understand that this is a great opportunity for David, but I can’t help but feel like the whole situation is going to end up screwing a lot of SSP’s more meta-averse commenters in the end. A worrisome trend in the comments to date is that neither the moderators at SSP nor the moderators at DK seem to be able to distinguish between the behavior of DK’s moderators and DK’s rank and file. DK’s moderators are fine people who I rarely disagree with, and it’s only because of them that DK exists at all. DK’s rank and file are mostly neurotic, judgmental, and would just as soon dump all over anyone with a slightly different point of view. It’s the difference between reasoned political discussion and knee-jerk emotion, at least in my experience. I can see that I’m far from being alone here. Take away the few frontpagers on DK and you’d have nothing more than a seething mass of liberal angst with a grudge against 90% of America for being different from them.
I can’t help but feel like the moderators of both sites are being overly flippant toward these concerns, such as treating the “will we be able to support Jon Tester” comment as snark. There exists a legitimate concern that Kos himself, as prone to intemperate rants as he is, isn’t a great example for liberals in general, and that most of his followers are even worse. It’s like the DK leadership is still “reality based” about everything except themselves and doesn’t want to admit just how ideological the site’s readership as a whole has become since Bush, that universal liberal bogeyman, left office. It’s understandable – no one wants to look critically at themselves – but it’s also not going to result in a great experience for a lot of the SSPers with critical thinking skills.
With that said, there are some good contributors to both sites, or I wouldn’t read ’em. I still read DK several times daily, but only the FPers and the occasional diary on the reclist by the saner contributors. I’ll do the same for SSP-DK. However, I can’t help but feel like there are too many differences between the two communities for this to not be a disaster. Don’t expect to see me around once you make the switch.
Oh well. I’ve been looking for an excuse to stop commenting here for professional reasons anyway.
I am really glad to read that SSP is moving up in the world. I thoroughly enjoy the site, and I am looking forward to the new incarnation at DK (which I regularly read anyways).
What about the user diaries from SSP contributors?
“And we aren’t going to be swallowed up by Daily Kos – we’ll be our own sub-site, which you’ll probably access by going to http://elections.dailykos.com. That address will feature only horserace content posted by the SSP writers (plus Arjun and Steve) – in other words, it’ll look almost exactly like what the site looks like right now.”
What about the user diaries?
Certainly, this works well for the contributing editors (and those who follow them), but short of an editor promoting a diary, or for the creation of a group, how easy is it going to be to follow SSP diaries when transitioned to DK? The group section in the beta version is fine, to an extent, but it means additional clicks to find abgin’s latest redistricting diary if I wasn’t there when it was posted. (Yes, I know I could follow an author’s work, but it still is not right there for me to spot).
Are our diaries on DK going to remain unique (is there going to be a elections.dailykos recent diary list that is distinct from the other diary lists) – or are they going to be mixed up with everything else?
Even with all the support posted.
One thing I definitely liked about SSP was that this was independent of the (often not-particularly-fragrant) reputation of sites like DailyKos, which itself is often reviled among conservative circles and whose hosting may drive away not just some of the Republicans who post here but also the some of conservative Dems who are part of this community.
Congratulations to DavidNYC for getting this opportunity, in any case.
I will repeat another user’s call for the new SSP subsite to get a separate userlist/banlist or something like that. At least one person here has noted that defending conservative Democrats has gotten him/her strongly disapproved in the DailyKos community, and this is definitely a problem.
As for myself, I’m already registered at Red Racing Horses, and I guess eventually I’m going to have to get an account at DK as well. (Perhaps it’ll be like making sure to have both the Book of Exalted Deeds and the Book of Vile Darkness in my possession at the same time…)
I am not a fan of DailyKos – used to be, but too many weirdo types on it all the time, sob stories and not pure politics. I shudder to think how comments will be on SSP in the future. This site WAS good because despite political leanings, there was not too much passion injected into the posts — it was just a straightforward site for analysis of political trends. I am worried it will get lost in the clutter that is DailyKos.
Looks like I’ll have to go through the process of retrieving it to keep up with SSP. I do think that SSP should keep it’s own set of regulations and it’s moderation.
Have it hosted by Daily Kos’s servers but keep the current url. Would that work?
I, like many others, am wary of DailyKos. I check over there a fair amount but only read the articles closely on occasion – and I definitely don’t read the comments anymore. However, there is no question that this is a great move for the people who run this place, and without them, this site wouldn’t exist. So I’m excited about the potential there and I trust the moderators will keep civil discourse there. I would even encourage the independents and Republicans on here to at least try it out. I’m hopeful that we can create a similar atmosphere on the new site.
… but like many others here I can’t say that I am happy. I have posted occasionally on KOS and as someone who is more center than left I have not always felt welcome. I guess you can’t stop progress though.
A chat conversation when I told a SSP-reading friend that we’re merging with DKos:
[10:38:25 PM] me: SSP merging with DKos
[10:38:30 PM] friend: …
[10:38:37 PM] friend: No!!!
[10:38:49 PM] me: yeah
[10:38:51 PM] me: pretty terrible
[10:38:56 PM] friend: No No fucking no!
said this “I don’t think that Heath is that bad. I think it is important that the party has people like him who can balance out Nancy Pelosi”I am already getting attacked for being a rush limabaugh right wing crazy
I was a loyal reader at Daily Kos back in the MT days (2003-2004). I eventually had a falling-out with a number of people there, and left in 2007.
With that said, I support this move. Because what people need to understand is that SSP is not becoming part of DK3, it is becoming part of DK4. DK3 is a place I don’t like because of its groupthink, bullying, and the like. DK4 is something else — it is a platform, like Blogspot or WordPress. It will have much more of a live-and-let-live atmosphere. The bullies over there are going to focus on their stuff, and we can focus on ours.
I’ve always thought that Markos was a lot smarter than his community. When he announced DK4, I felt vindicated in that assessment. I think DK4 is going to be a good home for SSP — it has better, safer, and more user-friendly software, it will give the site more exposure, and it will help to ensure its financial solvency. Plus, David has been doing this for free for a long time, and it’s nice to see him recognized for his efforts. It’ll be good to have Steve and especially Arjun on the FP, too. The only thing I’m disappointed about is that James and Crisitunity, who do a lot of the work around here, aren’t getting hired on as well. (I actually enjoy their work even more than David’s — not a knock on David, of course.)
All in all, I think this is a very good thing for SSP, and I’ll be pleased to stay with the site through the transition.
on this community was the widespread disregard of polling in the runup to 2010. The pervasive misguided optimism was the most irritating this I can name about this place – and that’s significant, given the minor size of the issue. DKos to me is a repulsive place, no room for disagreement or intelligent discussion. I’ll give it a chance but I can’t say I’m optimistic about it.
Gotta admit after reading it this morning I felt like “oh no, if swingstateproject moves to kos, there will be no blog left to read daily” (writing my masters thesis, ssp has become the last of many blogs I read daily when I had more time to follow American politics). After thinking about it a while I figured that it would be the comments, without hardly ever commenting at all, that I will miss most: those civil, respectful and deeply knowledgeable discussions.
After thinking about it all day, I feel a lot more positive about it now I registered at Dailykos, though I don’t think I will start reading and commenting there, before ssp moves, but I think if the people here stick together and tell the new folks how discussions work here, there might just be a chance that there will be quite a few new people here but hopefully some that really enjoy discussing politics the swing state project way. The other thing I realized that if I want Swing State Project to stay as it is, some of the people like me, that frequently read and hardly ever comment, will need to start commenting. The more people from the “old” swingstateproject comment at the elections site at dailykos, the better the chance that the comments-section will stay as it is.
The vitriol I’ve seen on Kos is enough to make the hardest lefty cringe. I don’t associate myself with those who openly wish people dead. SSP is the only blog from a leftward point of view I ever cared for(I’m a center-right Democrat, though ideology has nothing to do with my blog reading). I don’t mind associating myself with those who disagree with me on some things, so long as they keep it civil and don’t make vitriolic attacks on other people. Love SSP to death, it’s a great site, don’t get me wrong, but when this deal is cemented in stone, I’m gone. Goodbye.
I’m with you, I do not care for DK and I will be posting on the DK version none the less. I’m not asking you to come with us, not because I don’t want you, because I do, but rather, from the comments, your decision seems firm. However, please lurk, maybe come back after a month or so and try commenting to see if the feared DK vitriol is there. If not, then this is just a slight name change and greater resources. This need not be like when they replaced Lowell on wings with that other guy, but like when Woody took over on cheers after the actor who played Coach died. It’s sad there was a change and how it happened, but maybe it’s for the best.
SSP has been absolutely wonderful! My initial thoughts were “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it!” But then I realized that David more than deserves this wonderful opportunity and that we will be in great hands with James, Crisitunity, and Jeff.
Since David has asked me to join, I will follow. Anyone who has worked his heart out on this “labor of love” has earned my deep and unconditional respect. I hope everyone will join in!
One of the things I like most about SwingStateProject is the lack debate over policies and its purist pursuit of understanding and analyzing elections. I really hope that doesn’t get lost in the mix but if it does I’m sure there will be plenty of SSP people who will bring it up.
You can hide in closets of every kind to avoid confrontations in the turbulent waters of the mainstream, but that is where all positive change has to take place eventually, whether talking about all of society or even a niche like a website.
Being a larger website (assuming this occurs) will of course increase the amount of assholes, but that should only matter if the reason you read or write is merely to amuse yourself. Obnoxious people, misguided people, unrealistic, nasty people… we still have to live on the same Earth as them and social change involves changing their minds or teaching them practical goals and personal tolerance.
Like other things, the only way for this change to be negative is if good people do nothing.
Will we have to create a new account when the new version of Daily Kos comes out?
Look, its clear most of us left DKos in disgust of the idiocy and rudeness of the commentators. But this site will be separate from the rest of the policy oriented site. If some trolls come over and start talking policy, the mods will boot them. If people start personally attacking, like was witnessed today in this diary: http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
I trust David, James, Crist, and Jeff to boot them.
If people start talking about how stupid it is for us to root for Heath Schuler and Mike Ross etc etc, we can make logical and solid arguments. We SSPers know our sh*t! This is our site, let’s not leave, let’s own this!
and occasional commenter of both websites, and while I do understand the nervousness of some of us here, I honestly don’t think the move will be that disruptive. As has been mentioned, SSP will still exist in its own little corner of DK, and if self-moderating communities have thrived under the main section of dailykos, I dont think we’ll have any problems doing the same in a sub-domain.
This is really big for y’all. I’m glad to see SSP moving on, while I’m sad at the same time. Its gonna be cool for SSP to have more direct interaction with PPP. I’m not sure if I’ll be signing up on the Dkos/SSP, or if I’ll even be welcome there (I’m sure thats been addressed somewhere, but I am not reading through 350 comments!) so I just want to say congrats again to David, I know this is a big move for him and thanks to the SSP Community for encouraging us with RRH. Good luck!
after not opening my kos account for several years, that I already have the same handle there as I do here. So you will be able to recognize me on the other side.
I’ve been quiet lately due to a recent job change and other obligations. Hope to be able to contribute more by time this transition takes place.
I really appreciate it.
They are very good news.
Since this site is a “Kos Alumni” it is logical both sites have closer relation.
David — I’ve been heads down all week on getting Daves Redistricting updated and haven’t even checked in till now (same on me). New DRA in a few days!
This is an exciting change, as is DK4. Congrats!