I am a leftist pseudo-blogger, and avid follower of the commentary and discussions found on Daily Kos, as well as other sites like Talking Points Memo, Firedog Lake, Crooks and Liars, even the Huffington Post. But I’m also self-employed, trying to run my own business in this flailing economy, and I just don’t have the time to contribute or even participate in Daily Kos as much as I would like to. My own standards are quite high, and there’s no way that I can come up with an idea, flesh it out, do the research and find supporting material on any subject that won’t be done by someone else sooner and better than I could. So, most of my contributions to Daily Kos are limited to recommending good posts.

But I have often wanted to have informal discussions, explore an idea, or get more information on things I’ve read about, and Daily Kos itself does not facilitate these goals, at least not to my satisfaction. So I created this profile here on Tribe, and created Tribe or two here to do just that.

Having spent much time on both websites, I believe that Tribe, if used seriously by Kossacks, could be a very useful discussion, socializing and networking facility. Tribe has many features that DKos does not, such as profiles with more features, including photo galleries, reviews, site-wide postings, event calendar, etc..

In other words, Tribe allows better organizing and sorting of all postings. The Tribe format lends itself to sustained and fruitful discussion, in a potentially friendlier atmosphere, provided it is moderated properly and the participants care enough to not abuse it.

I’ll be honest: I would much rather that Daily Kos lease or purchase the Tribe software and attach it to their own system, such that one gets a Kos Tribe account by joining Kos, and all the troll-filtering and other niceties inherent in Daily Kos go along with participation in the tribes. But this will have to do for now. I think it can do well.

Disclaimer: Tribe has numerous technical issues. It would take a week to explain the site's history, so suffice it to say that its lucky its still alive. The only reason for staying alive is the doggedness of its dedicated users. Don't be surprised by the frequent down days and glitches. Have hope they they will eventually be corrected, and maybe increased traffic will help its ad revenues, thereby garnering greater technical support from its masters.