(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Community Advisory Panel August ReCAP [1] ['Greg Dworkin', 'Franks Human', 'Bill In Portland Maine', 'Chloris Creator'] Date: 2026-09-02 Hi there Daily Kos Community! As promised, here’s your recap of the Community Advisory Panel’s August meeting, held last Wednesday August 29th. We were joined for the first time by new members g2Geek and Chitown Kev; Angela Marx had to miss this one unfortunately. We did a quick round of introductions so that everyone put names and voices with usernames, and reminded all community members of the importance of checking in regularly to the Slack space where we can connect with Staff. It’s where we can bring the issues WE see as we spend our time on the site to staff for quick troubleshooting and support. Suddenly seeing ads when you are SURE you’re a supporter, or can’t comment on an iPad, or contacted Help but didn’t get a reply? And you mentioned it in a comment over at KTK or in a diary on a completely unrelated topic? If we saw it, we probably suggested contacting the Help Desk, but we also mentioned it in Slack so we could find out an answer, or get you connected with someone who can help. Markos welcomed our newest members and reminded us all what he hopes for and expects from us, representatives of YOU the Community, these monthly meetings: Be honest. Say what you like about the topics we discuss or things on site, but ALSO speak up and voice disagreements and concerns, because this is how potential clusterfu… erm, pitfalls are avoided and strategic decisions about the site future happen. We aren’t here to be yes-panelists [brillig wishing a week late that she had interjected “we’re not Trump’s Cabinet”], although as always our thoughts are greatly appreciated but all decisions rest with kos. The end goal, even if we disagree, is to understand and be able to communicate WHY something is chosen and that it’s always with us, the community, in mind. Markos updated us on expected launch of the new Daily Kos mobile app, currently October so it’s out prior to the midterm election. He then gave us an update on the anticipated Front Page redesign, sharing that it’s now in QA stage. As he mentioned earlier this month and Allison mentioned in her August 21st DK6 Week 19: End of Week Update: We are very close to being finished with a simplification of the home page, which should result in the site as a whole having larger, more easy-to-read fonts, which has been a popular request. We also want to make what sets Daily Kos apart from other media sites more clear to new visitors to the site (spoiler: it’s the community), so we are separating content more clearly between Staff and Community and providing an explanation of what the Community is. We spoke quite a bit about that which sustains the site… funds. Here’s something you almost certainly do not know… Daily Kos the site hasn’t turned a profit since Biden was elected in 2021. According to kos “That tanked our revenue, and Trump winning again further depressed participation.” I can tell you I was absolutely floored. I didn’t expect stacks of profit in the gold-plated restrooms at DK Central, but I did expect black and not red balance sheets. There will be a LOT more in coming weeks about this from people who are far above my Community Member status and who know more than what we discussed, but if you’re wondering whether your $8/mo / $90/yr subscription matters… it DOES. It’s not ads or support from Rich Democrats that keeps the site afloat. One-time and recurring payments from you and I and other site members, along with ActBlue donations primarily from folks who read DailyKos newsletters but do not have a site account do. That’s who Daily Kos’ clients are. I’m excited for what we heard about in still-formative stages of development about how we’ll be kept aware of where our dollars go. We spent a lot of time discussing the issues that you all bring to our attention. Three major areas that I want to report: Moderation and Reporting Site Violations: I brought up a definite misperception about (a) how comment moderation works and (b) difficulty in reporting comments if they don’t meet “one of the listed reasons”. It was clarified by the Moderation team that all user-reported content enters a unified queue for human review, regardless of the specific category selected during the reporting process. So if you see a comment that is clearly not appropriate and you’re stuck because none of the categories (of which five are preset and unchangeable by Viafoura, the comment platform developer, leaving us with only two of our own wording) seem right… just pick one. Any one. Really. Moderation will sort it out. Staff will also contact Viafoura to see whether an extra, “Other” button can be added to the reporting choices. The belief that site bans are frequent. They really arent. Most bans are of the kind we users never see, because moderation removes them almost immediately… p0rn, scammers, accounts posting active threats. Even those are in the range of a couple dozen per month. The VAST majority of user bans stem from rule violations like advocating violence, rather than specific terminology usage. And we did begin a debate on whether or not it would be beneficial to the site for Moderation to be more transparent on their decisions in order to lessen feelings of bias or confusion over these actions. Which leads me to the next point… The automoderation tools. We’ve all been caught by the thing as we express our thoughts. Site management aren’t prudes and are not against colorful language. The Moderation team had to decide whether to allow all words and phrases and sort the offensive ones out once they’re reported (playing catchup, so to speak) or send some things that could be ok or offensive based on usage to the deactivation queue, where a human Moderator will sort things out. And that sorting generally occurs within 30 minutes (but may be delayed outside of working hours). In other words, it’s not simply using the word pussy or fuck or coon, it’s the context in which those words are used. Maine Coon pooties and pussy willows are good. Derogatory slurs, definitely not. So to that I say, thank fuck for that, or I’ll be bojoed quickly as election season heats up. Platform issues: Increased formatting options in comments. At this time, advanced comment formatting such as bold or italics is outside the contractual deliverable scope of Viafoura (our comment platform provider). It was noted that current absence of complex comment formatting is a primary driver of the site’s much-improved scrolling performance. [note: if you are not seeing this improved performance, please reach out to the Help Desk as for the majority of users, myself included, the site IS faster] Getting rid of “# Likes of your comment” in the Notification Bell. Viafoura limits the ability for customizing notification settings, including filtering those out. Staff will reach out to see if a configuration setting could be provided to filter them out. Group Management: When the site migrated most groups were migrated as well (if you have one that wasn’t, PLEASE comment so we can see if it can be recovered). But in many cases… including three of my own groups… there are either Zero admins still alive or active on the site, OR there are 25 Admins. Groups also have many inactive members. I’ve been asked to remind everyone to take a look at your groups and make sure there are at least several active Admins for every group. If you are a member of a group with no active Admin (not Moderator, Admin) PLEASE comment here or reach out so that can be fixed. That’s pretty much it. I want to remind you that if you’ve got questions or comments, please comment here or reach out to one of us. The seven community members of the panel are: Angela Marx, belinda ridgewood, Besame, Chitown Kev, G2geek, zenbassoon and yours truly. Or contact the Help Desk!! Thank you for all that you bring to the site, and keep posting!! [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/9/2/800091810/community/community-advisory-panel-august-recap/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/