Daily Kos Community Structure

Some have termed political sites like Daily Kos “mullet blogs” because they consist of a select group of editors who serve as administrators and can post on the main page at will, and below them the “back-end” diarists who have to claw their way to the top by garnering positive ratings for their comments and getting their diaries promoted to either the recommended list or featured on the main page.

Back-end diarists receive far-less attention than the front-page editors, though fellow members can recommend posts they think should get bumped up to the main “Diaries” page, or potentially the main page. Daily Kos has a relatively low barrier to entry. Anyone with a valid e-mail address can register to sign up for free membership and write a “diary.” A handful of paid editors act as administrators who can post entries or elevate other users’ diaries to the front page. The remainder of diarists must garner positive ratings through recommended diary entries. To deter trolling and drive-by-shooting, Daily Kos requires new members to wait one day before commenting, and one week before writing a diary entry.

Markos “Kos” Moulitsas Zuniga, Daily Kos’s founder, has a direct role in molding the community, retaining final say over site policy and every so often banning members who abuse the site’s rules or are brought to his attention by concerned diarists. Zuniga, under his “Kos” pseudonym, and his selected editors regularly post on the main page and elevate other diaries they deem worthy of greater exposure. There are about a dozen contributing editors, three to four of whom are selected from the ranks of Daily Kos diarists each year to join the staff.