I think the unrecommend will cultivate and institute mediocrity.

[cornermouse]

You're not going to find any original ideas or thinking "outside the box" from the center. That comes from people who don't always accept traditional beliefs and thinking and who keep searching for answers that are not always popular, not always comfortable, not always accepted by the general public. Not that we're aiming that high, but the great minds and great leaders of history did not accept traditional middle of the road thinking; they were made by people who thought "what if" and defied the status quo. Historically speaking, the advances we've made in science and society were not made by accepting traditional thought. Thinking inside the box is basically the definition of "the center" or "centrist thinking".

I don't think this is going to solve ongoing problems on DU. Just my two cents.

[demoleft]

1. just a little toy of no account, this UNrec thing. as to me, k&r for u. n/t

[cornermouse]

8. Thank you.

[Richardo]

2. Yeah, but most 'great minds and great leaders' also did not publish stilted tripe...

...banal observations and pathetic pleas for self-validation.

[Deja Q]

17. Or what's perceived as such.

It works both ways...

Perspective and perception are wonderful things... like idealism, all they need are some rational people to put the concepts to proper use...

(I did paraphrase from a quote nixed from my favorite fictional character, but then most fictional characters don't have anything meaningful to say so you now have 2 choices to contend with... and that fictional character is perceived as being any number of things by any number of people... and if you think I'm meandering all over the map, I'm merely representing everybody.)

[MrModerate]

3. I haven't invested much time worrying about the unrecommend feature . . .

But I will say that I think your post misses the point big-time.

"Original" and "outside the box" ideas hardly define the entirety of the intellectual spectrum. By definition, they occupy substantially less territory than conventional ideas. Playing conventional ideas off each other is a tremendously valuable activity, given that "the center" as you describe it is where we spend most of our lives.

If you look around at the real world, the vast majority of advances result from successive, slight iterations and improvements, not bold new ideas. In fact, the bold new ideas usually die when tested against reality, and only begin to impact the world after they've muddied their boots in quotidian striving.

Which is to say, originality is a great thing, but it's overrated.

[cornermouse]

5. You probably get tired of hearing this

but Martin Luther King and FDR were not guilty of the mainstream conventional thinking of their respective time periods. Conventional thinking merely follows and requires obedience and conformity to the accepted thinking of the time. Conventional thinking doesn't have to come up with new ideas (something that we need desperately right now) because they're satisfied with the status quo. Conventional thinking doesn't require any effort, doesn't need leaders, doesn't want anything new because the perimeters have already been defined for its followers. Conventional thinkers tend to get "C's" in the classroom.

I think you're the one who doesn't get it.

[MrModerate]

22. Let's see . . . "All men are created equal . . ."

Sounds like something King might have said, no? In fact I believe he said something like that every day of his adult life. But he sure as heck improved on that "conventional" thought as it was expressed in American society. And that nonviolence thing that Ghandi drew from various sources within his culture and turned into a tool that freed his country from foreign domination? I think King may have rung a few changes on that as well.

Esperanto is thinking outside the box. Orgone is thinking outside the box. Scientology is thinking outside the box. Those've all worked out like gangbusters, right?

I think you have a narrow, romantic, and unrealistic view of how private thought turns into public action.

[optimal-tomato]

4. Prepare for unrec flood...

For whosoever speaks out against the negative rep overlords.

[cornermouse]

9. I don't post here much any more.

And it appears that the little that I do post is too much for some. :eyes:

[Hannah Bell]

10. don't let the twits get you down.

[elocs]

6. "Recommend" is a robotic method of affirming a post that brokers no opposing idea.

Yes, get enough Recs and it makes the Greatest Page with the pretense that there is no disagreement when there may be a great deal of disagreement. "Unrecommend" finally gives a voice and choice to those who disagree. Choice: it is the Liberal thing to do. We do like choice do we not?

[cornermouse]

7. One little problem...

This will be used to discourage choice and thinking for oneself which will, in turn, limit and predetermine one's choices.

[elocs]

11. That's life. Deal with it. Those who disagree with a post deserve a voice also.

A good thread should have nothing to do with Recs or Unrecs. If an opportunity is given to in essence to give a thread a thumbs up, then it really is the Liberal thing to do to give an opportunity to give it a thumbs down. Myself, I see this as a very simple concept.

[stray cat]

12. or it might cut back on uninformed outlandish commentary

rational thought isn't mediocrity and outlandish statements isn't always clever wisdom

[OKNancy]

13. I don't notice much difference in the greatest page

It looks like the same kind of topics are there as always.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

14. Oliver Cromwell said - "Paint me as I am, warts and all"

The purpose of the unrec is specifically to keep "unpopular" viewpoints from the Greatest Page. The "popular" viewpoint here is that President Obama is the best president we have ever had, that he rarely if ever makes a bad decision, that he has "only" been in office for 6 months, 7 months, 8 months, a year, a year and a half, etc. and what do you expect? IF you have an issue with anything substantive and issue driven, that involves the President himself, I will be very surprised if it makes it to the Greatest Page ever again or if it does, it will be at the bottom of the Greatest list.

I don't really care if a post of mine ever makes it to the Greatest page, but I agree with cornermouse, in that all the portraits that depict the moles or flaws of the President or this Administration will be removed from the main gallery and confined to an annex. The Greatest Page will be highly sanitized and I have to think, quite a bit more boring. The unrec will make it a lot easier for the snipe patrol to keep unpopular viewpoints submerged. To use the gallery analogy again, we'll have a Thomas Kincaid sort of front page depicting a harmonious, bland, idealized world that exists only in one's imagination.

There is an idefatigueable squad of posters here who make it their life's mission to browbeat and ridicule the minority viewpoint. The unrec button was described by someone else as the FU button and I think that is ultimately how it will be used. It only has value if the numbers for and against are transparent, because otherwise it is too easy for a small group of bullies to use it
only for its demoralizing value, which we have already seen happen.

[Deja Q]

18. Logical and well-reasoned. And may I add,

unlike those computer sites where they regulate every blog and have professional staff, ALL of us are merely peanuts in the gallery. The underlying context is grossly different...

Still, those who like to unrec for the thrill of it. More power to them. That's all they've got in life, so why take it away from them?

[Silent3]

15. You've got to separate the wheat from the chaff

...the great minds and great leaders of history did not accept traditional middle of the road thinking; they were made by people who thought "what if" and defied the status quo.

There's a common, annoying meme about progress and "new ideas" that goes something like this...

First, we start with an only partially true premise: Every great idea was considered crazy at first, met with resistance, etc.

Then we take that only partially true premise, and make the huge logical blunder of treating the converse as true: If an idea is considered crazy or met with resistance, it must be a great idea. In accordance with this distorted view of history, people who resist "seemingly" crazy ideas aren't learning some supposed lesson of history. They should be shutting up and giving the "seemingly" crazy idea a chance.

What you aren't getting is that history records and celebrates the few new ideas that turn out to be great ideas, and mostly forgets the failures. For the most part, most crazy ideas are just that: crazy ideas. It's a damn good thing that people reject them.

I suppose it's possible that a few really great ideas have failed to catch on because they just couldn't get any traction despite their merits. For the most part, however, a great idea should be one that can face up to resistance and survive the test of a skeptical reception.

[Deja Q]

16. Perhaps. The concepts work on other sites, but this is DU...

For one thing, this site is unique.

For another, you're spot on. REAL discussion doesn't always involve popularity contests or toeing the line. REAL conversation dares to ask questions, facets, and other ideas - which often don't conform to the norm. Many times real discussion is axed by the mob mentality. I by and large stopped talking about a certain issue in 2005. I found other web sites, which happen to be about said subject, and I am not alone on those, and there's no immature naive teeniebopper mob trying to act like second-rate overlords. (not the mods, I mean peers. Real peers.) Mind you, half of them are banned or left of their own accord (often to a misdirected belief that somebody was against them and for the slimmest of excuses too)...

Meh. It's all good.

[BurtWorm]

19. So people will write just to get recommendations, which will breed mediocrity?

How would that be any different from having just a recommend function without an unrecommend?

:wtf:

If you write with just the recommend/unrecommend functions in mind, you're already stuck in a box.

[Bjorn Against]

20. I was on the fence yesterday, but the more I see the more I think unrecommend is a bad idea

I am seeing a lot of the biggest bullies on this site bragging about how they get to vote down all the posts they don't like. I think there are some instances in which a flamebait thread gets 300 responses and only 5 recommends and in cases like that it would be nice to have an unrecommend feature as if the positive response is only 5 out of 300 then it is clearly not a great thread. I think if there is to be an unrecommend feature however it needs to be limited and steps need to be taken to ensure people don't abuse it, right now that is not happening and a few assholes are going to be voting down everything they disagree with.

[TexasObserver]

21. No, but it will identify mediocre threads, to the chagrin of their starter.

[fishwax]

23. the great minds of history wouldn't wither away just b/c they didn't make the greatest page

controversial posts will still draw plenty of attention and discussion, imo.

[Laelth]

24. Hear, hear. k&r n/t

:dem:

-Laelth