The Democratic Presidential Primary on DU: The Lower Your Expectations, the Happier You Will Be. [View All]

[Skinner]

It's starting again: Presidential primary season on Democratic Underground, and all the ugliness it entails.

And along with it, the moderators and I have already begun to receive plenty of correspondence expressing shock, alarm, dismay, you-name-it, about some of the things that have been posted here and/or the manner which the moderators dealt with those things or chose not to deal with those things.

My basic message to all of you is a simple one: Get used to it.

Now allow me to explain why.

Political primaries are, by their nature, extremely ugly. Negative campaigning is the norm, and has been for a long time -- long before Democratic Underground ever existed. Why? Because it works. So campaigns scrutinize their opponents' records and personal lives and anything else, and then they take whatever they find and they twist it to deliberately mislead and paint their opponents in the worst possible light. Then campaign surrogates and the media and paid advertisements and regular supporters across the country repeat the attack over and over ad nauseum, either cynically as a deliberate effort to help "catapult the propaganda," or innocently because they are too gullible or naive to realize that they have been fed half-truths and spin. Inevitably, many supporters on all sides become both assailant and victim in this process, by spreading unfair and misleading attacks against their opponents, while taking offense at the unfair and misleading attacks against their favored candidate. If you believe that Democratic Underground -- a website filled with passionate, opinionated, and highly partisan people -- would be immune to this type of thing, you need to seriously modify your expectations.

Furthermore, blaming the problem on alleged "trolls" or "disruptors" is extremely naive. Yes, there are some trolls and disruptors here; after all this is a discussion forum. But I think it is obvious to any relatively unbiased observer that the atmosphere of partisan ugliness on Democratic Underground persists because relatively-good-people-who-should-know-better-but-don't allow themselves to get caught up in the cycle of recrimination. Perhaps they believe so passionately in their candidate that they think any type of ugliness is justified. Or perhaps they give themselves permission to act in a certain way because they see others doing it. Or perhaps they are not very good at recognizing their own glaring hypocrisy. Whatever the reason, the problem is not "them," the problem is "us." I would suggest that if you honestly believe supporters of other candidates are out-of-control, while supporters of your favored candidate are generally well behaved and fair, then you have a huge blind spot.

I know what some of you are thinking. "But... But... The moderators can make it all better!" We wish. If you believe that I or the moderators can significantly change the inherent ugliness of political primaries, you need to seriously modify your expectations.

Moderators: They're great, but they can't perform miracles. As you know, we have a group of volunteer moderators who help us run this website, mostly by deleting posts, locking threads, and dealing with people who cause problems. I think they do a great job -- they strive to be fair, they deal with countless headaches, they hold you all to some minimum standards of conduct, and they make relatively few mistakes. For their effort, they get paid zero dollars, and they get blamed for all the problems on the website. Without moderators, this place would degenerate into a free-for-all of flaming and personal attacks. It is because of their hard work that Democratic Underground -- despite its many flaws -- enjoys a relatively decent level of discourse compared with other discussion forums. But you need to understand that plenty of disruptive crap is going to slip through the cracks, either because you read it before the moderators delete it, or because nobody alerts so the moderators aren't aware of it, or because your idea of what is inappropriate is different from the consensus of the moderators.

Moderators are frequently called upon to make highly subjective judgment calls where no clear lines exist. For example: Is it over the line to say that a Democratic primary candidate lied? Is it over the line to say that a Democratic primary candidate is a "LYING SCUMBAG!!!111"? What if the candidate really did lie? What if he or she told a "white lie" to avoid hurting someone's feelings? What if he or she didn't outright lie, but said something deliberately misleading? What if the candidate just omitted some relevant facts? These are the types of things that happen in political campaigns -- and on Democratic Underground -- all the time. And because we are dealing in this type of highly subjective judgment, the results will always have some inconsistency. But that won't stop highly partisan supporters of various candidates to try to spin (either deliberately or by subconsciously cherry-picking) the actions of the moderators to make them appear biased against their candidate. I get this type of complaint all the time, and usually the bias comes from the observer rather than the moderator being observed. For example, an outraged supporter of Candidate X will complain that the moderators allowed someone to call Candidate X a liar, but did not permit someone else to call Candidate Y a liar. When I ask for links to the actual posts, inevitably the reality is much more complex and nuanced than the complainer would have me believe. Something like: One post said that Candidate X "embellished his record" and provided specific factual examples, the other post said that Candidate Y was a "serial liar" and "all of his supporters are idiots."

Which brings me to the related point that basically, anything you are told by a hard-core partisan supporter of any candidate should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Yes, there are plenty of candidate supporters who are fair and scrupulously honest and ethical and capable of seeing the world in a way that is not tainted by their love of one candidate. But at the same time, there are plenty of candidate supporters who are not very good at this type of thing. I'm not saying that they are deliberately dishonest -- usually they aren't. But they have a subconscious tendency to give the benefit of the doubt to their own candidate, while accepting uncritically any smear against an opponent. They're human, and this is perfectly normal human behavior. For that reason I try not to hold it against people. But it makes it inevitable that many highly dubious and self-serving versions of reality get passed around as "fact," with uncritical partisan allies simply accepting the half-truths as fully true. Even when the claims were obviously false on their face.

My ultimate point of talking about the moderators is this: They are going to do everything they can to be fair and enforce the rules and hold supporters of all the candidates to a minimum standard of civility. They are going to delete posts, and they are going to lock flame bait, and they are going to shut down threads when they get out of hand, and they are going to sometimes ban people. But many of you are going to hate them for it, because nothing they do could possibly make everyone happy. There are too many people here with wildly varying expectations. You would be wise to accept right now that the moderators' judgment is not going to match your own.

We do have some ideas for dealing with the primaries. I've already written too much, so I'll keep this part brief. I just want you to know that we do have some new ideas this time around for dealing with the primaries. Some of them are good ideas, and should have a moderate positive impact. But I don't want to get your hopes up, because no matter what we do, it is not going to satisfy everyone. In fact, we probably won't satisfy a majority of people here. The sooner you accept that fact, the happier you will be.

And don't forget that if you ever get annoyed by this place, you are welcome to take breaks. In fact, I would encourage you to do so. I do sometimes, and I find it very helpful for my own mental well-being. It is easy to lose perspective if you spend too much time here. Remember: It's just a message board.

Skinner
DU Admin