At the time of composition the Daily Kos FAQ and it's host the dkosopedia had entirely vanished from the web.
This is a fucking bigger deal than any petty dispute about hide rates.
Sigh. Getting too old for this.
First of all, I don't have the time to waste looking things up. Do your own research.
Second, my credentials, I'm the founder of Welcome New Users and author of about a third of the last good FAQ (wow, suddenly removed- it was working last month) we ever had (dmsilev was the primary author). I'm not a member of the staff or a Front Pager and I've never been anything but a regular user.
Same as you.
Third, I've been banned. 653 days not that I was counting, dK 4.0 helpfully provided that figure when I logged in.
I didn't ask to come back, I was invited. I have 3 lives and 2 sites The Stars Hollow Gazette and DocuDharma and I never missed anything about this place except TDS/TCR.
Now, about Hide Rates.
I invented those for DocuDharma which was founded in reaction to dK. We thought Troll was a little harsh considering the intended purpose was to hide things from the casual viewer.
I won't say kos stole them but we were there first.
Just as here at dK it takes at least 2 people or a pair of sockpuppets (can't access at the moment) (yup, wrote that) to give comments a rating below the threshold (which has been lowered) at which they can be seen by casual users.
But there is such a thing as truly noxious content. At my sites it includes (but is not limited to) pornography, spamming, outing, and hate speech. Here at dK I understand different standards prevail.
Since it's impossible to monitor every comment in real time you rely on the community to bring things to your attention and temporarily hide things that are damaging to the site until the Administrators can fix them.
Hide Rates are not for disagreement.
The value of a Hidden Comment list
More often than you would expect, collections (it only takes 2) of like-thinking people will decide that a comment or a user offends their particular sensibilities so much that they must be hidden.
Far from being a voyeur's paradise or the Pile On Club, the Hidden Comment list is intended for the community at large to reverse that decision.
At DocuDharma we refused to implement comment ratings for 2 months until pacified corrected that flaw in his coding.
The Flaws of the Daily Kos Paradigm
Well, they are two-fold, I'll deal with the fundamental one first.
The Illusion Of Authority
dK promises you that if you just hide rate someone enough you can silence them by banishment. Whether this is true or not (and I contend that it isn't) there are simply not enough cases to review that anyone can claim that this is not an Administrative decision, whether by omission or commission.
My personal banishment was entirely Administrative. Despite weeks of assault by Hide Rate, gangs of people couldn't even dent a bar of mojo. I laughed at them and they hide rated my laughter and I still laughed.
I'd do it again, though I don't work at it that hard because I don't care as much.
Well, that's frustrating. What are we supposed to do about Trolls?
Report them.
I've killed far more Trolls with email than I have by Hide Rate. dK 4 even has a handy place you can go so you don't have to bother a Front Pager, most of whom are mere Contributing Editors with no access to the Administrative back end anyway.
But something is wrong on the Internet
This is the minor one that could be easily rectified.
Not that I'd expect any acknowledgement.
At The Stars Hollow Gazette and DocuDharma we have this rating called Wrong!.
Applied persistently it degrades mojo and will remove people from 'Trusted User' status where you think you can control things to mere 'User' where you don't have a clue what's actually going on.
Cruel punishment for the addicted.
You work your way back the same as any n00b, but you have the advantage of name recognition so it doesn't take as long.
Fight Club
In a way my sites are Fight Club with feathers. Tickle each other to death, I don't care.
Unlimited Wrong!s and Hide rates.
All banishments are Administrative, I'm attentive (while not napping) and my traffic allows this.
But even in an enviroment like dK I think this would work provided...
You know, the other thing I set up at DocuDharma was a private forum to resolve Front Page scheduling disputes and disciplinary decisions. The concept was to limit the damage instantly and have a quick review in a shared access disscusion space and forward the results to the boss (in that case buhdy, in the dK case kos) for a verdict.
If you want proof of my original design you might ask Turkana.