Most of this chronology is recounted in Chapter 2 of the book (after all, I interviewed Kos and Jerome Armstrong gave me some crucial last-minute insights and corrections* when the chapter was in galleys), but Kos’s brief history of his site is well worth reading to get the story from the horse’s mouth.
A few choice excerpts:
There was once a group of political afficionados who hung out at various political forums — starting with Delphi Forums, then moving on to ones run by a guy named Orvetti. When Orvetti closed shop, they all moved over en masse to Political Wire, which at the time had comments. But in the runup to the 2002 mid-terms, Taegan got sick of the constant flame wars in his comment threads and he shut them down
So everyone headed on over to Jerome Armstrong’s MyDD, which is where I entered the picture. Digging the site (which I had found via Buzzflash), I decided to start up my own election-themed site, Daily Kos…..
I had learned my lessons from Political Wire and MyDD’s community failures, and immediately shut the door on the Republican commentors who had destroyed the previous sites’ communities. I zealously worked to create a “safe zone” for liberal political junkies, despite howls of “censorship” from both liberals and conservatives, and the community grew….
But even back then, the site was no longer about me, it was about the community, discussion, and debate….