Insomnia sucks. There’s no reason on earth why I should be up reading Daily Kos at 4:30 in the morning. But I am. And here’s what I see on the Rec List:
David Harris Gershon geebeebee geebeebee bobswern Walter Einenkel Walter Einenkel geebeebee vivling SalamMorcos David Harris Gershon One Pissed Off Liberal geebeebeeNow, it happens that David Harris Gershon and bobswern are two of my favorite writers on this site, and I also enjoy reading Walter Einenkel’s diaries a great deal. Nevertheless, this is straight-up unacceptable lack of diversity of authorship. In particular, there’s no way in hell that any one writer should have four diaries on the Rec List at one time. Not even Meteor Blades, who is a living god walking among us, should ever have more than one berth on that train, IMO.
It seems like this problem has gotten worse with DK5, but I suspect that’s a coincidence; I’m sure the site admins will say that the formula hasn't changed. More likely is that the new version dropped during a time when pack behavior on the site was already on the rise.
There was a time when users were limited to one diary a day. I don’t think we ought to go back to that—among other things, it penalizes writers who cover a beat that often includes breaking news. But there ought to be some mechanism in the Rec List that pushes a user’s earlier diaries off the list when he or she gets a new one on it. Maybe a faster decay rate, or even a hard limit permitting only the most recent qualifying diary to appear.
Also, I’ve recently noticed an increase in FP diaries appearing on the Rec List. These should be disqualified. They already get plenty of exposure from (a) being on the FP and (b) usually being among the Most Shared. The Rec List should be for diaries that bubble up from the ranks. (That being said, I've got nothing against reclisting diaries from FP authors if the diaries themselves aren’t FP diaries.)
Daily Kos benefits from exposure to a variety of opinions, agendas and writing styles. Monocultures lack resilience. The Rec List should be a representation of the best that the whole site has to offer, not just an oligarchy of exceptionally popular writers.
P.S. Congrats to SalamMorcos for breaking into this honored elite on what appears to be just his second try.