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One of the delights of Daily Kos is what are called, in the print media business, standing features. With a couple of exceptions, these have no official standing here. They've sprouted organically from the brains and hearts of a few site participants and have been kept going for years thanks to the hard and loving work of intrepid volunteer crews.
In the case of Top Comments, volunteers have kept the feature going seven days a week for the past six and a half years. That whole time, they have clued me into some of the cleverest, funniest, most insightful or emotionally resonant of the thousands of daily comments at the site that I would otherwise have missed. In addition, Top Comment editors have wowed us with their own good writing'political analysis, personal stories, hot recipes, and tragic and comic stories from their lives and those of people they know. I try never to miss an edition. Top Comments was the brainchild of a Kossack in West Virginia with the moniker Carnacki. Back in June 2006, just a couple of months before he co-founded the political blog West Virginia Blue, Carnacki wrote Commentary Central, which laid out his objective for a new series. An excerpt:
Highlight informative, funny, interesting comments that might not have been seen. Some of the best comments are posted at the end of a diary and readers might miss them because they've moved on to the next diary. Other comments might be posted in little read diaries and hence overlooked. [...]The very next day, Carnacki posted the first entry in the series that would forever after be called Top Comments.This might be the hardest part to implement, but I hope this diary becomes a nightly feature. And I don't want to post it every night. What I hope is that others volunteer to do it. In particular, I'm thinking the best volunteers will be those who aren't people well-known on DailyKos for diaries, but who comment often and read quite a few diaries. In other words, for those of you who have been lurking, but have been wanting to get more involved now that YearlyKos is over, this could be the perfect feature for you.
His expressed hopes for the series quickly turned into reality. A steady stream of volunteers proceeded to give Top Comments its cachet. Eventually, a chart was added by mik that shows the most popular comments of the day based on the number of tips they receive.
As noted, I try never to miss Top Comments because of the work of those volunteers. Here is a list of volunteers since 2006.
| Carnacki sardonyx brillig BeninSC Laura Clawson asimbagirl Ed Tracey va dare gloriana Dave in Northridge gizmo59 Light Emitting Pickle Dragon5616 smileycreek Chrislove Ambrosius taylormattd Progressive Witness pfiore8 bronte17 | cskendrick Steveningen Irish Patti boran2 virgomusic emeraldmaiden carolita Noddy Elise va dare nonnie9999 kath25 monkeybiz noweasels Eddie C silvercedes Cronesense gloriana jlove1982 | |
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