My original plan was to kick off a diary series on midwest flooding today. Yea, I know it's still cold out there, but today is opening day at Sandbag Central in Fargo. Yup, they've got over 100 volunteers busy filling sandbags in Fargo so they'll have a million sandbags on hand by mid march when the Red River is expected to start rising. All through the midwest these preparations are being mirrored, especially by our democratic electeds like MN governor Dayton and senators Franken and Klobuchar. This is a big story with ramifications for agriculture, the environment, etc. that deserves a wider audience than rural america. But I'm starting to wonder if DK4 is the friendly home for rural stories that DK3 was?
I've blogged floods before, sort of became a specialty of mine. My blog about the ramifications of the eastern Iowa floods and their nationwide ramifications made the rec list, and several of my diaries have been kindly rescued by the rescue rangers. But that was DK3... your diary popped up on the front page then. Granted, it was in small type and below the rec list, but reader's eyes wandered over there and persued diaries of plain old kossacks like me. It was a wonderfully democratic forum- your own peers decided if your diary made the rec list and stayed around a while or dropped off the page after a couple hours.
We're now in the brave new world of DK4. Spend all day or night pulling together a great diary and hope somebody reads it. If you're buddies with a "trusted user", send him or her a missive and you might get super recced to the front page and actually noticed. Or join a group and home they like your diary and rec it... But how do you even find, never mind join a group? I've already searched for a rural group, and found none. Even tried tunnelling in through google, no luck. And not being an annointed "trusted user", I can't just up and start a rural group. What appears to be happening is that DKos is becomeing more heirarchical and less "flat". That kills the innovation that made DKos, but makes it more marketable. And if that's the plan Kos, could we users have right of first refusal, so we can organize a Green Bay Packers style community ownership?
Back to the point- is it worth it for me to write a series of diaries on the expected midwest floods? And can we have a rural group? And can we actually make groups accessable to folks that aren't superusers? I'll be watching the response (or lack of same) and let that decide for me if I should diary here or take the hint and move my blogging elsewhere. What's your opinion?