Rules of the Road

Site Purpose

This platform is designed for progressives. The foundational principle is that the Democratic Party represents the best vehicle for building a progressive coalition. The community aims to strengthen the Democratic Party, elect more and better Democrats, advocate for equity, and foster connections among like-minded individuals.

Ideological restrictions include:

  • Advocacy for third parties or third-party candidates
  • Advocacy for voting against Democrats or abstaining from voting
  • Misleading or malicious attacks on Democratic officials or candidates

Community moderation—where members themselves police behavior—enforces behavioral standards through recommendations, ratings, and flagging mechanisms.

Community Guidelines

DO

  1. Remember real people are on the receiving end of communication, and thousands may read without responding. Respect community diversity.
  2. Value reality-based discourse. Support arguments with links to credible news sources and original materials.
  3. Strive for accuracy. Use trustworthy sources, avoid clickbait, verify facts, and correct mistakes transparently.
  4. Keep the formal site mission in mind: “Daily Kos fights for a progressive America by empowering its community and allies with information and tools to directly impact the political process.”
  5. Share first-person accounts of progressive political organizing in your community, supporting grassroots strategy development.
  6. Respect engagement opportunities. Story authors should reply to comments; commenters should stay relevant and continue discussions.
  7. Participate in Community stories or Open Threads to build relationships with fellow members.
  8. Use available resources like the Knowledge Base to navigate the site successfully. Incorporate images, embeds, and varied resources.
  9. Explore Daily Kos Groups for activism, education, and community connection.
  10. Be generous with praise and encouragement. Welcome new members and appreciate long-time contributors.
  11. Read completely before recommending. Base recommendations on quality contribution, not the author’s identity.
  12. Fight fairly. Write arguments rather than attacks. Learn from opposing viewpoints; disagreement strengthens positions.
  13. Recognize and avoid microaggressions. These are subtle slights conveying implicit biases against marginalized groups. Accept responsibility for self-correction.
  14. Accept reasonable disagreement among community members.

DO NOT

  1. Endorse or call for violence against anyone, even jokingly. Do not fantasize harm or dehumanize others.
  2. Use bigoted language. Slurs, stereotypes, and demeaning insults regarding race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexuality, religion, age, class, origin, appearance, or ability violate community values and can result in banning.
  3. Make personal attacks or threats. This includes name-calling, harassment, bullying, or ad hominem attacks. Do not follow users to harass them across stories.
  4. Reveal real-life identity (outing/doxxing) of pseudonymous users.
  5. Promote conspiracy theories. Debunked or unverifiable theories contradict reality-based community values.
  6. Post misinformation or disinformation. Check exciting claims for accuracy using credible sources. Correct mistakes with transparent notes. Violations can result in banning.
  7. Plagiarize or violate copyright. Post maximum 2-3 paragraphs with attribution links, not long excerpts without permission.
  8. Steal photographs. Ensure you have rights to post images and attribute sources.
  9. Post spam. Community members will flag it if automated systems don’t catch it.
  10. Upload graphically violent, injury, death, or pornographic content.
  11. “Call out” users by name in story headlines unless praising them.
  12. Use profanity in story titles (which triggers Internet filters). Adult language is otherwise acceptable if it doesn’t abuse others or violate hate speech rules.
  13. Publicly accuse users of being paid shills, sockpuppets, or imposters. Report such concerns privately to Help Desk with evidence.
  14. Post private email or direct messages to the public site.
  15. Unpublish and republish stories for increased exposure. Use Edit/Update functions or write new stories instead.
  16. Be a Jerk. This encompasses basic decency standards.
  17. Threadjack. Stay on topic as defined by community consensus.
  18. Write dramatic exit stories. Publishing “GBCW” (Goodbye Cruel World) stories results in account banning.
  19. Recommend rule-violating stories or comments. Doing so makes you responsible for that violation and subject to identical sanctions.
  20. Create multiple identities (“sockpuppets” or “zombies”). One account per person is allowed.
  21. Pose as an ordinary voter if employed by a campaign. Users in paid or unpaid campaign positions must disclose affiliations when relevant.

Recommendations and Flags

Basic Rating Privileges: Recommending

  • New users may recommend stories and comments with unlimited frequency.
  • Click the Star to recommend stories (affects the Recommended List).
  • Click Recommend for comments (generates “mojo,” measuring community participation).
  • Base recommendations on content quality, not authorship. When uncertain, don’t recommend.
  • Users earning sufficient “mojo” can become Trusted Users.

Trusted User Privileges

Trusted Users are essential to Daily Kos’s community moderation system and must understand site rules.

Trusted User capabilities:

  • Flag comments and recommend them
  • Comments receiving critical flag numbers become “hidden” from casual users
  • Five flags per day per user maximum
  • Consider stating flag reasons unless violations are obvious
  • Story authors cannot flag comments in their own stories
  • Flag violations of Community Guidelines, especially violence, personal attacks, conspiracy theories, fake news, and discriminatory speech

When NOT to flag:

  • Do not flag merely because you disagree
  • Do not flag based on disliking the commenter
  • Do not flag while in discussion with that user
  • Do not flag retaliatorily
  • Do not flag factually incorrect statements; rebut with evidence instead

Improper rating causes suspension of rating privileges. When in doubt, don’t rate.

Revision History

These guidelines were originally posted by kos on August 15, 2016. They were revised on October 12, 2021, June 23, 2023, and edited for clarity on September 8, 2023, and May 24, 2024.