'Rick Perry in negotiations to accept medicaid expansion-Turning Texas Blue' proclaimed a diary that shot to the Rec List yesterday and was shared on facebook/twitter. No surprise on the response! We Texans are long overdue for progress in this red state. (Go, Wendy Davis!)
But it wasn't true. There was confusion...the diarist had not put on a snark tag. Granted, there were warning signs that the 'article' quoted was false. Big giveaway was a non-existent Texas newspaper. Some commenters tried to educate others on this tell. A look at the comments, though, and it's clear: many believed it.
Meanwhile, Trusted Users began adding tags reflecting the true nature of the diary. They also took their tags away, only for them to be added again later, by someone else (per the comments, the diarist never took part in the tagging).
Over the course of a few hours, the diary tipjar morphed. As more began to realize they had been duped, they retracted their recs. And the hide-rates rose. At my last count, the tipjar had 126 recs and 125 hides.
It was a fascinating, yet disappointing turn of events. As I watched the list fluctuate, I knew that some were not doing their due diligence (checking the validity of the article, questioning the hide-rates through comments). IndieGuy wrote a diary about it, informing Kossacks: http://www.dailykos.com/...
What really bothered me was the fact that the diary had (as of this am) been shared on twitter 64 times, and on facebook, 1000 times. Did you get that? 1000 times. And I wondered how many of those recs were based on what they thought was a true story? Comments in the diary bore that out. Some were furious when they realized they had shared something untrue.
So I wrote a diary last night, with a poll, hoping to get an idea of how many were reccing and sharing believing it to be true versus a snark story. Results beyond the orange.
Here's the diary:http://www.dailykos.com/...
It didn't get much attention, but the poll told me what I already suspected. I asked readers who recc'd the diary in question if they did so because they believed it to be true or snark. Out of 34 replies, 24 believed it. That's 70%. So it's quite plausible that 70 percent of the people who sent it to the rec list and shared on fb (1000x, I say again) were proclaiming it as fact. That's a problem. An embarrassing problem. As some said, there was an omelette buffet, with all their faces smeared with egg.
As I mentioned elsewhere (in a nice conversation with Twigg), what happened was a game of tag with tags. Well-meaning Trusted Users only added to the confusion with tags being added and subtracted over a period of hours. We do have that capability (or power, if you wish) for a reason. I know when I wrote my first diary, others added tags I hadn't thought of, like personal story. It was appreciated. I corrected someone's spelling, once. It wasn't a formal name, so there wasn't an issue there. I've seen some mean names as tags in troll diaries.
Tags can be a double-edge. I think the diary was an example of that. Too many cooks.
I'd also like to add that if you rec'd the diary because you thought it was funny, carry on. Snark is in the eye of the beholder. Some did, others did not.
This community means so much to me. It matters to me that some did not verify, it matters to me that some believed it. It matters to me that some spread that belief beyond DKos. The reputation of this place and its people matter to me.
Thank you to all those who tried to warn the community.
And, in the spirit of community, I'm also sharing a link to JeffLieber's well-done snark in response to the sometime snark diary. It made me happy.: http://www.dailykos.com/...
I do believe that Perry will eventually have no choice but to expand medicaid, and that sometime in the near future, Texas will turn Blue. (No snark needed.)
Wendy Davis for Governor!