Off to the Greatest Page with You!

[Pacifist Patriot]

Disclaimer: Some of you will undoubtedly consider this a typical whiney how dare she tell us how to behave oh my god its censorship at its worst kind of post. If you're inclined to that sort of reaction, I ask that you simply put me on ignore and save yourself some trouble. :)

As the primaries have dragged on in their unmitigated rancor I find myself less and less able to use DU the way I normally have. On a typical day I go straight to My DU (yes, my vain self has that bookmarked) to see if anyone has responded to something I have written. The next thing I do is click on the icon for Greatest Page. Sadly that has become ever more useless and sometimes downright painful.

As I mentioned to someone on another forum, when I click on a topic that made the Greatest Page I expect (or hope) to see either something of substance, insightful or novel. I'm also a realist. When something intriguing happens I also expect to see at least 5 or more different versions of the same story sprinkled liberally throughout the Greatest Page. (Nice pun, eh?)

But over the last few months the Greatest Page has moved from the occasionally amusing to the frequently annoying.

People can post whatever they'd like and people can respond however they'd like. But seriously I have to wonder what some people are thinking when they nominate some of these threads. It's not the author, but those nominating it for Greatest status that baffle me.

I refer to threads that have absolutely no substance, no personal analysis, no concrete attribution, etc. No humor even, now that's taking it too far!

Quality of writing often resides in the subjectivity of the reader so I'm not commenting on that aspect of these posts at all. Sometimes I wonder if these threads are being nominated simply to watch the troll-fest that unfolds. A motivation I can imagine but cannot fathom, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Nothing anyone can do about it, so yes this is a waste of my time to write it, your time to read it and the bandwidth to store and access it. But I feel better for saying it even if I'm the only one to see it this way.

Cheers and Happy Hump Day!

:toast:

[tuvor]

1. How I hate that phrase.

That and "Wow. Just wow."

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. Here's another one.

"If I could only recommend this one twice!"

[pacalo]

20. "Get thee to the Greatest Page" is like 3" fingernails scraping across a 20' chalkboard for me.

[annabanana]

2. Happy Hump Day to you too, PP!

I too, look forward to more lucid days here.

[Kittycat]

4. Isn't there a way to stop the GDP posts from showing?

I'm pretty sure you can for latest (where I choose to view).

[Pacifist Patriot]

5. Except that would block everything and there are diamonds to be mined there.

[LostinVA]

7. Like my threads

[Pacifist Patriot]

9. Right!

[LSK]

17. yes but the top Greatest still show up on the homepage

Even if you block GDP

[UpInArms]

19. you can block GD:P from showing on your Latest and the Greatest pages

by going to you options menu and changing your "preferences"

Home » Discuss » User Options » Preferences

scroll down the page - looking for this option:

Hide General Discussion: Primaries from the Latest page?
Selecting "yes" will remove threads from GD P from the Latest page

it will also hide them from the Greatest Page

[Pacifist Patriot]

26. But it hides everything and there are a few things of value to be found there.

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. AGGGHHH!!! Nobody else better...

dare nominate this for the Greatest Page. Please, I beg you. This is a worthless post and exactly what I'm talking about. I could not stand the irony.

If you want something to nominate, go to this post. I'm much prouder of what I've said here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5154275&mesg_id=5154275

[LostinVA]

8. K&R

:rofl:

[Pacifist Patriot]

10. Smart ass

:silly:

[LostinVA]

14. I couldn't resist

[SoCalDem]

11. I have "My DU" as my default too and I NVER

go to Greatest, Latest, Home Page or even Lobby..
:hi:

I guess we even have a blog thingie now too.. Occasionally someone will PM me about something i wrote that showed up there.. I do;t even know how to GET there :)

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. #5

:)

[Pacifist Patriot]

13. A pox on you!

[Javaman]

15. Nice post, Hitler. LOL nt

[LSK]

16. you can remove GDP posts from the Greatest you know

Its somewhere in your options.

[Pacifist Patriot]

18. But some of them are worth reading. I'd hate to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

[pacalo]

21. It helps a lot & I thank the administrators for that. But the GDPers skirt around it

& post their crap on other forums; their fellow auto-mode GDPers rate the crap up & it ends up on the Greatest Page.

[crimsonblue]

22. it's kind of ironic

that this post completely exemplifies everything the author was lamenting about.. Now that's humorous...

[Pacifist Patriot]

25. Kind of? See response 6

[Missy Vixen]

23. Pacifist Patriot, you have made so many brilliant posts over your time here

I look for them, because I know I'm going to learn something.

I hear your cry of frustration, because frankly, I've wondered the same thing. Items of substance drop off the page, while poo-flinging lives on and on and on.

Thank you again for speaking up.
Julie

[Political Heretic]

24. I try to be very selective with my recommendations - key word: try

I try not to recommend things in haste / anger / spite / frustration, because then posts that really aren't the "best" we have to offer get plastered on the front page.

I try to recommend genuinely good, fair insights or analysis across campaign divides - again, key word is try. I am sure that sometimes bias interferes with my ability to judge that.

I try as much as I can to reward some of the awesome, thoughtful posters who actually do post in GD: P in the middle of all that crap. :)

[scarletwoman]

27. GD-P won't show up on the Greatest page if you change your preferences.

You can hide the GD-P forum, which takes it off both the "Latest" and "Greatest" pages.

Click on "Options" at the top of the page. Then click on "Preferences" -- scroll down to where it says "Hide GD-Politics forum?" and click "Yes".

Easy.

sw

[Pacifist Patriot]

29. Yes I know, but there are some things still worth reading there.

Plaid Adder's excellent post about Obama's speech for example.

[DeepModem Mom]

28. I think the problem is that supporters of the 2 candidates rec most any post...

favorable to their candidate or trashing the other.

K&R