Is there any way to improve the atmosphere in GD: 2004 Primary?

[Bonobo]

Sorry if this is a dupe but I haven't seen any discussion of this.

I have no brilliant proposal, but I will offer this:

I think the trouble occurs when people post messages trying to shoot down other people's choices. I believe that at this point, those who have chosen a candidate will stick with them, with very few exceptions, without changing.

FORUM A:
I propose that a forum be created for "undecideds" to try to explore the issues. If the people in said forum are truly undecideds, then they should have no signature endorsing a particular candidate and they should have no vested interest in posting a thread which is flame-bait. For that reason, in that forum alone, mods will have the right to move any overly flaming threads to:

FORUM B:
A chaotic, mostly unmonitored and unrefereed discussion between those who HAVE chosen a candidate and intend to stick by them.

Can anyone see my point? I want to allow those searching for answers and intelligent info to have a forum to DISCUSS, not throw their opinions around with no intention of ever changing their minds or even examining their positions. Comments please? Let's discuss a solution whether you like my off the cuff idea or not.

[bloom]

1. no

my idea is to have one forum for anyone who likes Clark and one for everybody else.

[maxanne]

3. bwaaaahahahahaha

good point, bloom. :D

[ithacan]

2. I like Skinner's suggestion

to go out into the real world and work for your candidate of choice.

I think this shutting down of GD2004 is a good idea, even if it is due to technical problems.

[arcos]

10. no...

everyone moved to P&C to continue flaming... GD2004 is needed, even if it is only to "save" P&C

[bitchkitty]

21. It's still not anywhere near as bad though, or

maybe it's just that my mood has changed. Being away has certainly helped me calm down and put things into perspective. Also, I've brought the ignore button out of retirement. This helps immensely.

I think everyone benefitted from the performance art last night, because it reinforced that words on a message board are not necessarily what they seem on the surface, nor are posters always what they claim to be.

I'm focused - my eyes are on the big prize. I won't be sidetracked!

[nostamj]

13. "technical problems" nudge-nudge

wink wink

the only technical problems with GD2004 is GD2004. Carrie is throwing her prom night in P&C now.

Safety Sally Says: Be sure to check the door for heat before opening the door.

insert tongue in cheek and check out the Ask the Admin forum.....

;-)

[salin]

17. bwahahahaha....

to the Carrie reference!

[jpgray]

4. Forum A: where people lie about being undecided. Forum B: worthless chaos

Not a good idea.

edit: Sorry if that sounded a little snappy, but I too am very disgusted with the mostly *useless* candidate bashing that happens, even though I mostly avoid the GD 2004 forum.

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. Yes. Free Speech. But the people overwhelmingly rejected it

People want draconian rules and forbidden speech, and they want to be able to go howl at the speech police whenever they see something that displeases them, and have that person "punished."

When you start there, you are not going to have a pleasant atmosphere.

You can ignore posters, ignore threads, you can choose to read and reply to the posts you feel are thoughtful or interesting.

But that is not what people want. They want a hybrid of a bad S&M IRC channel and a kindergarten.

[jpgray]

8. This board would be one big flame war without rules

Sorry, but an internet message board is nothing like real life. As long as that's the case, there have to be limitations on how much you can disrupt a board. Don't think so? Well, I think I'll waste the moderators' time by filling page 1 of all the forums with "CANDIDATE X SUXXXXXX MAN!" Can't do anything about it, friend--it's my free speech.

[DuctapeFatwa]

11. It is your decision whether to read or respond to posts that displease you

No matter how many rules you insist that the administrators enact, it is a political campaign, it is a public message board, and people are going to disagree.

Some have the ability to do so in a lively but civilized and intelligent manner, and others may have other abilities that are not as evident on a message board.

This place already has enough rules to choke a goat, and it is absurd to demand that the administrators just keep on piling on more and more rules to compensate for posters' inability and/or unwillingness to ignore idiots.

Hell, they have put in stuff that lets you ignore it programmatically if you just can't resist the urge to cooperate with trolls.

[jpgray]

14. I've never used "ignore" or "hide thread" here

I have no trouble cohabitating with trolls, and ignoring them without extra features hasn't caused me too much trouble. But there is need for some basic ground rules above and beyond "free speech" to deal with the imperfections of the online format. Other posters have a right, in my opinion, not to have to scroll past twenty copied and pasted threads to get to something else. Posters should also have a right to be free from personal attacks, which have no real place in a true discussion.

If you can't ignore idiots, I agree it's your problem and not the administrators'. But when said idiots become a real blemish on the community, to the point where participating is neither easy nor desirable for civil folks, you have to draw the line. You can still be an idiot here almost to any degree you wish, but you cannot overwhelm the board with your idiocy or make other posters miserable by insulting them. Maybe some of the other rules are unnecessary, but those two I think are important if you want your forum to have any semblance of civil behavior.

[DuctapeFatwa]

15. I don't use them either. I scroll. It's a popular board. Scrolling is

one of the things that happens.

What you find idiotic or blatant trolling, someone else may not. So scroll, let the person who fed the troll learn.

It is not possible to have any meaningful discussion in a labyrinthe of rules and a tattletale culture.

No matter how polite you think you are being in your criticism of Candidate X, you can be sure that there is at least one person reading your post with a butt still burning from their new Candidate X tatoo, who will immediately demand that the thought police come and expunge your inexcusable spew on the subject of the Candidate's brilliant plan to turn Swedish immigrants into Living Sculpture to bring beauty back to America's wetlands.

Free speech is messy, it is annoying, and it is the last hope you have of changing your government. Throwing it away here is beyond inappropriate.

This board is a private business, they can make any rules they want, but the administrators ASKED. They took a vote. And people OVERWHELMINGLY voted for virtual totalitarianism.

If THIS is the Resistance, it does not bode well for the nation.

[Bonobo]

23. I never saw the vote. Where/when how did I miss it!?

But I'd like to take a moment to say that I'm happy to have you here, Mr. Fatwa. I have occasionally been angered by your posts when you hit a hot spot, but I am really happy to have someone that is even further to the left than me to meet once in a while. Shit, these days I feel SO far left of the DP that I sometimes don't know what to do... Nice to have an idealogue llike you, that's all.

However, I think your position of advocating complete "freedom" is a bit simplistic. For example, where is the "freedom" of an old woman with a soft voice in a room full of screaming Sean Hannittys or Bill O'Reillys? Does she have the "freedom" to express herself if the other two don't allow her to talk?

It would be easy, if there were no rules, for a poster who is technologically savvy, to fill up the entire board with post after post of profanities or nonsense words or whatever. Will you allow that? I think the answer is no -so there is rule #1. etc., etc.

Tyranny can take many forms and sometimes it comes in the form of bullies who talk loud and say nothing. That's what there is too much of in this place if you ask me. "Freedom" almost always involves taking away the freedom of others. A double-edged sword to be sure, but in the interest of creating a useful place for reasonable discussion we all make a contract to abide by some rules. That is a social contract and if you think that is "virtual totalitarianism" than what kind of a social contract would you recognize as legitimate?

[DuctapeFatwa]

28. On a message board, the grandmother can be heard

Her voice is the same line of text as the loudmouth's.

You make a good point about nonsense words and spam.

I would not consider that speech.

Nor would I consider that deleting 20 repetitions of "Candidate Boofus will WIN" and leaving the original one as censorship.

There is a small board called global conflict, I like their rules.

You can say anything you want except advertisements for commercial products or servives, contact info of private individuals, and calls to genocide.

IMO, the third one is about as futile as the rules about "inflammatory" on here, people manage to call for genocide subtly and in code, and on here what "inflames" one person is ignored by another, and heartily applauded by a third, so you are back to the infamous "subjective and arbitrary" which we have all seen deal swift deaths to interesting, thought-provoking, informative and productive discussions, because in someone's subjective judgment this or that rule was broken in post 76 or someone else turned on the computer and found the subject matter inflammatory.

Once again, this site is a private business, and they have the right to set any rules they wish, and enforce them or not, as they wish.

What I take exception to is that they ASKED people, and the people rejected free speech by more than a 5 to 1 margin. On this progressive board.

That scares me.

[jpgray]

30. Well, as pointed out above, the problem with total freedom is this

Some are more ambitious than others, and some are meek. The more ambitious will rob the meek blind because they aren't satisfied with an equal share--they'll want more. The rules here exist in theory to give a fair share of the speaking space to those who are unwilling or unable to constantly fight for it. In a perfect world, these rules would level the field without limiting speech in any way. Unfortunately, it never quite works out that way. You remove the rules, all you have left to hear are those who want to constantly fight for their share, and the meek pass quietly away. I suppose it depends whether or not you value the input of those who are unable or unwilling to constantly fight to voice their opinion.

[DuctapeFatwa]

31. On the contrary, free speech lets that person speak

That unambitious person whose opinion might inflame you, whose logic you might find not worthy of the name, the odd man out with the unpopular view - I am saying let him say his piece - there is no better argument for my own position than a block of senseless drivel opposing it.

No one should be forced to keep his ignorance and stupidity a secret.

Let them share it, proclaim it to all who click. ;)

[jpgray]

32. I may drown him/her out with louder speech

And there's the crux--if there is total freedom of speech, one kind of person will shout back, and another will fall silent. I want the opinion of both kinds of people at DU. If there weren't rules here, only the former would remain. I don't want rules to punish people who are "wrong" or "irrational", I want rules to punish people who would deny another his/her right to an opinion on the board. I don't approve wholesale of every DU rule, but I support the rules that maintain the ideal I mention above.

[DuctapeFatwa]

34. LOL I think your rules sound more like a high school debate team

I am not comfortable with the whole idea of "punishing" people because of someone else's subjective opinion of their views.

If what is desired is open discussion and free exchange of ideas, stultifying rules and a culture of denunciation, revenge and punishment is counter-productive. People who want to discuss things without participating in all that crap end up having to set their brains for a text-based MOO game, not talk about ideas.

The vast majority of people who post here are not trolls, nor do they post repetitions of nonsense syllables, sure there are people who register in order to do so, but I can promise you, if they did not receive the encouragement of attention, albeit negative attention, they would quickly seek a more satisfactory audience.

But you know, the whole point of free speech is different strokes for different folks, maybe they should set up a forum that IS like a high school debate team, and let people who want a lot of rules and structure and prohibitions go there and revel in cyberbondage ;)

[jpgray]

35. You are speaking to yourself

Your Forum of Freedom is in denial if it has hope that trolls will not "receive the encouragement of attention." On the contrary, trolls here are rewarded with dozens more replies than an average post, the numbers often eclipsing your more substantive pieces on the I/P conflict by many times, for example. These are not people with "upsetting views" that are subjectively deemed troll-worthy, these are often folks who say "u commies suk". The thread need go no further into "opinion" than that--ad hominem attacks can make up the remainder of the thread. If the thread were not locked, it would be inundated with a few hundred replies--the troll of course responding gleefully to every one to further build up the thread. Then a few threads would be started complaining about said troll, and the troll would gleefully start a few more threads, on slightly different subjects--there is no one to stop him. In all this, threads not having to do with this crisis can easily be ignored or buried. Those not willing to aggressively kick their threads will not be heard at all. A troll can eventually post some random letters as his thread and attack systematically all those who come to complain.

The troll of course doesn't really care about liberals or conservatives, he/she comes online to tweak people, and stir up controversy. There is no defense in a "free" forum, unless it is your rather naive hope that no one will respond to a troll. Ask the administrators here how well that strategy has worked.

[DuctapeFatwa]

36. Why should your speech be restricted because your neighbor is too

stupid to recognize and/or ignore a troll?

While "u commies suk" might not strike ME as something I would consider worth a single keystroke, if someone else wants to engage on that, let him!

I see no need to "punish" YOU by tying you up in a strait jacket because of the intellectual failings of either troll, benefactor, or both.

[jpgray]

38. There's the fallacy

Online, the only type of violence available is verbal. If all speech is allowed online, so is all violence. You might not be harmed by verbal violence, but others may be. Those who take no harm from personal attacks will stand by as those who do become the victims of a pogrom. Certainly folks like you, who do not see the need for any personal attack rules will see no harm in driving these people away from their former communities, but to me that would be a great loss. If you have no rules against this sort of thing, it *will* happen.

It would be an interesting experiment to see what would happen in DU if all rules were erased. In my opinion, many posters would leave without ceremony as people tested the limits of the new system. Those who stayed on would mostly be involved in personal attack wars, where the subject isn't as important as pitting two personalities against one another in a silly social game. Are those who would leave important to you? They are to me.

Offline discussions have no rules about what can be said, and I prefer them infinitely to those I have online. People will take on false causes, make up personalities, and generally compensate for whatever their social failures are in real life. If online discussion had a more personal and face-to-face element, it would be possible to live with it having total free speech.

[DuctapeFatwa]

42. I do make a distinction between online and "real" life

I have no problem with real life rules that say I cannot hit you in the head (or invade your country) just because I am bigger and stronger.

There is a difference, in my opinion, between the harm done by being hit in the head and being called a doo doo head by a disembodied line of text on a message board.

I don't mean to trivialize the distress of those who sincerely feel harmed by B, but I don't think that a message board is an adequate mechanism for treating their problem.

As is the case with almost everything, it depends on what the goal is. Freedom of speech online and offline is not popular with those who prefer a rigid, authoritarian iron-cage kind of structure. A surprising number of people are in favor of free speech for themselves and those who agree with them, but consider that allowing the expression of opposing views to be irresponsible, foolish and dangerous.

I have seen people complain to the administrators here because someone said they were "fed up" with a candidate.

A culture of represssion and punishment, restriction and "tattling" will definitely have a stronger appeal to certain personality types than one that encourages the free flow of thoughts and ideas and open debate.

There have been a number of readers and thinkers who have been purged, or have purged themselves, as the web of rules has expanded. An increasing % of activity here has become what you describe as a "silly social game," as people sift and comb every word against the tangled kudzu beast of rules, emitting triumphant little cries of "alert" as they rush off to the weary speech police with their prize.

Whether this is good or bad is, like interpretation and enforcement of the rules themselves, subjective and a matter of opinion.

In the larger society, I see the same trend; this forum is just a microcosmic reflection - people want to be told what to do, what to say, what to think. They want an intricate system of tripwire rules, and they want an easy to use mechanism for denouncing their neighbors, and they want to see those neighbors gibbeted in the public square.

[DuctapeFatwa]

37. LOL Thanks. BTW. "Ideologue" is a refreshing upgrade from what

I get called on here occasionally, and in email, pretty frequently

:hi:

[jpgray]

26. Again, you are confusing real life with online communities (nt)

[DuctapeFatwa]

29. see post 28

[CWebster]

40. It is much deeper than that,

since there was an organized influx that sought to utilize the rules to stifle certain viewpoints. They rallied around the rules and used their newfound majority status to impose their dominance while driving many longtime posters off.

Once the plan to astroturf and dominate DU had been outed, the rules became a secondary consideration. I am glad the forum was closed. It was poisoned.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. Yes.

Just ignore the assholes.

There really aren't very many of them, and there is absolutely no law of God, Man, or nature that says anyone has to argue with them.

[liberalmuse]

7. Yes, get rid of it--permanently...

and let people who have nothing better to do than disrupt a message board by bashing any one of our Democratic candidates buy their own message board and fill it with this sort of garbage. Getting Bush out of office is too important, and believe me, at times it's gotten so ugly here I have forgotten how much I detest Bush. That's scary! All the energy wasted on raking Democratic candidates through the coals could be better spent on more positive endeavors. I agree with Skinner on this.

[DuctapeFatwa]

12. Do you agree with Skinner on the incongruity of having a political forum

where the discussion of politics is forbidden?

[KoKo]

9. No......there's no way......n/t

[gate of the sun]

16. maybe if people

were willing to be honest and say Yes my candidate is not perfect and he has made mistakes etc...instead of always defending them. I think an honest discussion of the issues is great...really we can all learn alot from them. I myself am a kucinich supporter and have found some things about him I do not like and do not support. I can honestly say he most represents me but I can't fool myself into thinking he is some God. Obviously all these candidates have flaws. None of them are perfect. I don't think people need to get so hot under the collar. People don't need to be so blatantly supportive in a blind way either. This is a discussion forum and I think the 2004 primary forum is just fine. Personally I rarely look at it anymore. It's not worth my bother for the most part to say what I'd really like to about some of the candidates and attitudes people have. I can live with what we have at the moment. I don't have to particpate if I don't want to and If I feel overly compeled to join in the forray I will.

[bearfartinthewoods]

25. i'm with you. avoidance of issues is the real problem

the non responsive responses are a cause of incivility.

first attack the messanger, then the messenger's candidate. then
say the issue hhas been discussed to death. finally out right disruption.

a lot of people never ever actually respond to the issue, just snipe
like some sort of counter-cheerleader. anything to prevent those who want serious discussion from having same.

[Tinoire]

33. Well, when you get marching orders to go to certain boards

this is the calculated result- designed to shut people up at all costs...

Disrupt, push for forced civility amidst the disruption, push rules, annoy the hell out of the admin & posters lamenting the 'change in tone' (I mean really- people with 20 damn post were lamenting the change in tone - If at 20 damn posts you're lamenting the "change" in tone, maybe this buds not for you), sock-puppet recycling, freep polls, play one team against the other depending on who you were told to woo this week, deny, deny, deny, spin, spin and demand more rules so you can snuff out all less-than-flattering discussion of certain shady aspects of your candidate. And of course, scream the entire time that people are doing Rove's work (because Rove, omnipresent that he is, is behind every other post) as if Rove doesn't have his own little treasure chest.

An attempt to hijack your way to a nomination thinking that if you can just get past the Primaries with all these dumb Progressives, what with the cries of ABB and "Bogey-man around the corner" everyone will be forced vote for you.

It's the most stupid, transparent, neophyte political strategy and it's back-firing. That's what all the wailing and gnashing of teeth are about as real people, on all sides of the aisle, get hurt and angry while the men behind the scenes pull their little strings and float their little memes.

Meanwhile the people's machine is marching on and the people are pushing their own candidate. It all boils down to stopping those people. The Dean machine, on which I'm not even on board is the DLC's worst nightmare- not because of Dean but because of the people being empowered in their choice. Dean made one spot on comment a few days ago that cut through all the crap when he said that "they're not trying to stop me; they're trying to stop you." It was spot on target. The same goes for the Kucinich movement. Too many people insisting on having our say in who represents us when that candidate hasn't been blessed.... The establishment's biggest nightmare- uncontrolled people on the loose in a democracy.

[bearfartinthewoods]

39. hey, i've heard that before.

the dean people do it too

[K8-EEE]

18. Great Idea To Separate It From This Forum

Hey, people are emotional and passionate about their candidates. This will unvariably lead to some...unpleasantness, when the primaries are over I don't think there will be a lot of impetice to trash the Dem candidate for most people.

I'm just glad there is a primary-free GD forum, great idea!!

[Cleita]

19. Since I have chosen my candidate, I don't see any reason

to argue with those who don't like him, so I don't bother with the GD 2004 forum. It keeps my blood pressure down.

[AP]

20. I doubt you can establish rules to achieve this,

however, I've noticed two problems in GD2004: one is the attempt to spread rumors. DU shouldn't be a place for rumor mongering. Inevitably there will be people who claim first-hand knowledge, and you can't avoid that. However, the "I heard from someone...{insert something really awful}" posts are really inappropriate.

Related to the first problem is that people simply don't make fact-based arguments. My favorite kinds of rowdy discussions are where you present your fact-based argument, and someone else presents their competing fact-based argument and you try to persuade each other.

The worst kind is when people just spin and then ignore the facts. How many times do you see a sub-thread end when one side simply cannot even challenge very clear facts. Those subthreads shouldn't have even been started. If you can't support your argument with a fact, you shouldn't be going back and forth.

As I said, I don't see any way to police those things which isn't hyper-punitive. However, it would be nice to delete the entire series of posts that do that.

It seems like one of the things people value here is that the time they put into writing something they want to see pay off by having that thing appear for a little while. I think if you make that labor worth ZERO by deleting the post, that's probably the harshest thing you can do short of banning someone.

[Cleita]

22. This is exactly the problem, just the blatant factless accusations.

It's like arguing with a freeper and shouldn't happen on DU. So it makes me think that a lot of the accusations are being framed by closet freepers although Skinner says no. It seems weird to me.

[bearfartinthewoods]

41. combined with the blatant factless defenses

if you have nothing to refute a charge, go find some facts or stay out of it.

[AP]

43. I guess there is a way to make a rule to stop this.

Rule 8.

[cryofan]

24. OK, you asked: here is my answer

The numerous supporters of a certain frontrunner candidate and their actions figure greatly into the dynamics of GD2004. THey appear to be very interested in using the rules and moderation to keep a lid on negative posts. I suppose they figure that since their candidate is in front, suppression of negative material here can can only help him.

So how does this dynamic affect gd2004 and how can understanding it figure into improving gd2004? I am not quite sure of the answer. But you asked, and now you have the only answer I have for you.

[Bonobo]

27. That's a pretty interesting answer.

Thanks for that. I'm not sure how it helps either. In a way, it is a pretty understandable position (from that point of view). Anyway, I appreciate the observation and I will dwell on it a bit.

[Moderator]

44. Obsolete.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1021130