There are twenty DUers (you know who you are)

[OmahaBlueDog]

Who are masochistic...er, I mean public-spirited and good-hearted enough to volunteer to host this forum - GD. To you, and all of the other DU hosts...


Thank you!

[Skittles]

1. you want I should kick their masochistic ass, OmahaBlueDog?

I'll keep hollering, "STOP SCREAMING OR I'LL STOP!!!"

[Fumesucker]

2. That's funny

I don't care who you are.

[Skittles]

3. I'm pretty sure you are due in two or three weeks, Fumesucker

YEE HAW

[Fumesucker]

8. I would consider it an honor..

[NuclearDem]

4. Yes Madam Skittles!

[Skittles]

10. I bet you are due soon too, NuclearDem

YEE HAW!

[NuclearDem]

12. I'd say so. Almost a year since you last kicked my whiny ass.

I need a checkup my ass.

[Skittles]

13. I WILL KICK WHINY NUCLEARDEM ASS!!!

LEMME AT YOU!!!

[NuclearDem]

15. Ho! Ha ha! Guard! Turn!

[madinmaryland]

28. Heh heh!! Madam Skittles. Whoda thunk you were a "madam"

madinmaryland awaits his obligatory "ass-kicking"

[Aerows]

17. I guess I'm in line for a butt kicking then

LOL. I started today.

[WillyT]

20. My Dear Skittles... You Keep It Fun... When Everywhere You Look, There's None...

Sorry for going all Dr. Suess...

[OmahaBlueDog]

31. No, let's save that for primary season

...then -- have at it

[Katashi_itto]

5. Poor bastards. A thankless job.

[In_The_Wind]

6. Hey, we do what we gotta do.

Oh, and it feels soooo good.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. GD has hosts? I'm a pragmatist, so unless I see evidence of such an assertion I do not accept

the assertion. Having seen GD of late and having read the SOP it is hard for me to believe there are such hosts. 'No sports, religion, showbiz, whining about DU' it says, but that's most of GD these days. The only enforced bits of the SOP seem to be Israel/Palestine and guns.

[Whisp]

11. They do the best the can with the tools and instructions they have.

And I appreciate that.
Too bad you don't.

[SidDithers]

9. Meh...

IMO, GD Hosting is completely dysfunctional. The group of "never lock anything" Hosts vote as a bloc, and prevent even the most obvious SOP violation from being shut down, under the guise that consensus means unanimity.

Might as well scrap the SOP, and allow everything.

Sid

[Tuesday Afternoon]

14. And do away with the lounge while they are at it.

[bettyellen]

16. incredibly dysfunctional. I recall some hosts would only show up when something was locked to

argue against that lock. Skinner once joked "lock nothing" and that's the bible a few there thump hard, everyone gets cowed by that. Lots of suggestions that things should stay unlocked because of who posted it. That surprised me. I don't think who posted it should matter.
So now EarlG and Skinner are basically the only ones who seem to lock stuff. It's a thankless job because the most vocal people- both posters and the most tenacious hosts-pretend that a locked thread is the fucking end of the world. Some erosion of the 2nd amendment. It's really not either of those things. There are other places to post.
But the peer pressure is tremendous. I don't envy a lot of them, the bullying and whining that goes on is pretty much endless.

[Aerows]

19. Hey, there's a pretty fresh group in there now

Caving to peer pressure isn't my style. For better or for worse, I have my own opinions and tend to go with them (which is sometimes a bad thing, and sometimes a good thing).

[bettyellen]

21. that's good. I was kind of surprised a few really put pressure on and tried to school me on

"how they do things" there, which was pretty weird. It was before hosts started completely ignoring the SOP- but there was a lot of pressure at the time to do so. There was a lot of pressure to ignore totally offensive crap and leave it for the jury. The results kind of sucked.
Having been at DU a very long time, I am a bit nostalgic for when the SOP meant something. I don't think anyone even pretends it does anymore- do they?

[Aerows]

25. I think it still does

I know that LBN certainly does. I've seen a lot of discussions where hosts genuinely have spirited debates about certain posts. I think most strive to be fair and to seek consensus. No one can act alone, nor should they. Double-edged sword? Maybe but DU is a community with various people bringing different things to the table and one person acting unilaterally isn't healthy. It didn't happen with moderation on DU2, either.

[bettyellen]

27. Most other forums follow their SOPs- but GD definitely stopped a while ago.

LBN has always been strict, and the Lounge always very tolerant. "Woo" was one of the few things that I recall anyone pushed for zapping in GD- even if people "were enjoying it" but everything else forbidden in the SOP was routinely ignored. I missed a lot of DU 2, but remember the original quite well. People didn't post whatever they felt like in GD, and now they do. Not sure how that happened.

[Aerows]

32. Those that serve

will do the best that they can. I can't promise anymore than that I will do the best individually that I am capable of.

[SidDithers]

24. Exactly. There were different rules for different posters...

and even for different alerters.

I'd love to see the Admis make the Host Forum read-only, so the general membership can see what really goes on in there.

Sid

[bettyellen]

26. you are speaking the truth. some alerters were completely ignored by some hosts and they were

very upfront about it. some very frequent posters hosted other groups (intead of waiting to be a GD host again) and would come into GD to defend their own stuff, some tried to "vote" in GD because they were former hosts. Or insisted really shitty things stay up till they could get more votes to not lock. Lots of shenanigans. I am interested in what Aerrows says in a month or two. There were so many great hosts- the vast majority, really. But it was not enough to keep it unbiased. Many hosts just basically threw their hands up and disappeared, and let the ones with a extremely libertarian view take more or less take over due to the vacuum created. Maybe having more hosts would help- because the drop out rate (without giving up the slot) was pretty high. I never even saw about 25-30% of them.

[Stinky The Clown]

30. Sid, I started pushing for that since the very first host group

The boss is opposed to it.

[Aerows]

18. Well, it's a good thing you aren't hosting anymore

isn't it? I mean if someone has that many bad things to say about the people that hosted the forum with them, it's probably for the best!

[SidDithers]

22. Yup. You and the rest of Das Kommitee can rule the Forum as you wish...

Knock yourself out.

Sid

[Aerows]

23. Not sure who "Das Kommitee" is

since hosts drop off the list every 90 days, and someone new takes their place - which means that there is a new host roughly every handful of days. Again, if you had such a bad experience with it, it's a positive thing that you don't have to do it anymore. A volunteer position shouldn't be painful.

Anyone that finds it not to their liking can also retire early.