(UNREC?) What a mess

[Orwellian_Ghost]

This 'unrec' thing not only gives the board a messy appearance making the aesthetics of the board rather unappealing but is a complete disaster in the sense of how it draws and/or diminishes attentions to the most important part of the entire project, which are the threads themselves.

Reminds me of the scene in "Crumb" where the interviewer and Crumb are walking along the streets and you get a look at the innumerable wires overhead and she asks him if in his drawings he imagined these things and Crumb points to the tangled mass of wires overhead and says sardonically something like, "You kidding me? You can't make this stuff up."

[Boomerang Diddle]

1. It's just a message board! n/t

[scheming daemons]

2. I think the appearance of the board is clearer now...with better aesthetics

The shit threads are more easily identified.

[Laelth]

3. The + signs are completely unnecessary.

All the numbers on the Greatest Page are positive. There's no need to have a + in front of every one. The ones with negative recs can't make it on to the page.

That is, in fact, aesthetically displeasing.

:dem:

-Laelth

[SemiCharmedQuark]

7. This is absolutely true of all the positive numbers. Either a number is positive, or it is zero.

So really no reason for any plus signs.

[redqueen]

11. The option to display negative numbers is probably available...

which is likely what necessitates the positive sign on the positive numbers.

They should just let us see the negative numbers, instead of just <0, that'd fix it.

[Junkdrawer]

4. Crumb...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ym5n-ZZWUs

[dionysus]

5. maybe to the 10 people who are offended by it, but not to everyone else.

[mopinko]

15. +1

it is absolutely the shit stirrers who are whining.
get over it, folks. this is what democracy looks like.

[HamdenRice]

6. Enthusiastically unrec'd

The great result of the new feature is that deceitful, inaccurate, groundless, lying and malicious attacks on Democrats are not likely to appear on the Greatest Page any more.

Oh wait a minute. That's why, from your perspective, you think it's a "mess".

[Orwellian_Ghost]

23. The colonial heart

lives on.

Defenders of the status quo come in so many shapes and sizes.

Who "we" bombing next week? Which wedding party gets to die at the hands of the liberators next week?

Don't worry your pretty mind about that.

[HamdenRice]

34. You Win! You've written the single dumbest post in the history of DU or the internets!

So in your view, one's being in favor of the unrec feature means one is also in favor of colonialism and the bombing of Afghan wedding parties?

Do you have any clue how utterly and hopelessly idiotic you appear by writing that?

:silly: :crazy: :silly:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[HughMoran]

35. Arrogance is a virtue

...right?

[TexasObserver]

8. No, it's a perfectly normal system.

The hysteria exists only in your head.

There's only one rational way to interpret the voting: most DUers feel that most threads are not worth the time it took to read them, and would not recommend them to others.

The truth hurts, doesn't it?

[omega minimo]

9. INGSOC

[Democrats_win]

10. That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.

aesthetics be "darned."

[slipslidingaway]

12. The left side of the GP is no longer as useful, if a thread makes it

to the GP and then someone gives it an unrecommend, it drops off the page.

If/when it does return it could be far down on the page.

The left side of the GP was a easy way to scroll through the latest threads that at least 5 people thought were worth highlighting.

That use is now gone.

In edit - did anyone else use the left side of the GP in this manner?

[Laelth]

13. I certainly did. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[slipslidingaway]

14. Thanks it was easy to pick up on the latest/greatest threads :) nt

[Laelth]

18. If 5 people on DU tell me something is worth reading, it probably is.

If 100 people on DU tell me something is worth reading, it almost certainly is (even if a lot of people disagree with the OP).

Now I can't tell. I have to open them all.

:dem:

-Laelth

[slipslidingaway]

22. You make a good point about having to open them all...

I've seen a few threads that have only 3 or 4 recs, but then I look and see they have had several unrecs as well.

Did they ever make it to the left side of the GP or not.

The left side used to be an easy chronological list on the latest/greatest, now I do not see a function.

[Hepburn]

19. Yeah...

...when pressed for time, that is often what I did: Checked out the latest to make the GP and then checked out Breaking News.

I really hate this new bullshit.

JMHO

[slipslidingaway]

27. Much easier than going through the individual forums, which

I would do if I had time.

I'm pretty sure this was my complaint last year as well, the functionality of DU has been diminished, at least for some of us.

I hate it as well.

[nashville_brook]

36. yes -- exactly

most people don't have time to sort thru all the hundreds of threads in GD as well as the sub-forums. it was nice to have the filtering of the Rec system to be able to quickly see what threads/ideas/stories are sparking interest either positive or negative. if naysayers get to erase visibility of threads/ideas/stories, then the Rec system is useless -- showing only the threads/ideas/stories that pander that elicit groupthink. i don't need a measure of groupthink, that's what the MSM is for.

[slipslidingaway]

37. Posted this a few times, this is how I used the GP and I would

start a new post about it, but it would get rec'ed and unrec'ed and most likely never make it to the left side of the GP, where people from different forums might see it and comment.

Bring back the Latest/Greatest Combo with a time sequence.

:)

I disagree, the left side of the GP was very useful, not so much anymore. Posted this in another thread, although I realize that we all may not use this method, the latest/greatest combo was an efficient tool IMHO.

I do not use the right side of the GP as much as the left side...

which Was a combination of the latest/greatest threads from any forum (that you could rec) placed in chronological order of when they hit the GP.

You could come back the next day or hours later and easily scan through the left side for the latest/greatest of the past several hours and then pick up where you left off from your last visit. If time allowed then you could visit other forums, but this was a quick and efficient use of the left side of the GP...IMHO.

What happens now is a thread might get 5 recs and be placed on the left side of the GP, then someone gives it an unrec, so it drops off the left side, a couple hours later it gets another rec and gets placed back on the left side, BUT it remains where it was placed earlier when it first hit the GP left side.

The right side of the GP does not change nearly as fast so it was not as useful, the left side is pretty much destroyed with threads dropping on and off as people rec and unrec. I can see why they are not placed at the top again as this could happen several times a day, so that would not help the functionality either.

If you look at the current "latest page" there is only about one hour of posts, several of which I would have no interest in reading and I do not want to scan through 12 pages to catch up.

In contrast the left side of the greatest page has the last day or so of threads that at least 5 people thought should get a rec, much easier to look through and also to pick up at a later point as they remained in the same order instead of dropping on and off.

Hope that makes sense, it was the best way to see a combination of the latest/greatest from all forums.

[slipslidingaway]

39. Giving it a try, please rec if you agree...TIA

Bring back the Latest/Greatest Combo with a time sequence

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6041515&mesg_id=6041515

[Cronus Protagonist]

16. K&U

Conformity is not a good thing.

[sfpcjock]

17. Yes!

[Spazito]

20. I unreced your thread simply because I don't think it should be on the Greatest...

and, seeing as that is the ONLY affect my using of the option will have, it does NOT affect your opinion, right or wrong, at all. It does not inhibit DUers from posting in your thread, it does not move the placement of your OP in the forum, at worst, it may keep this from the Greatest page, that's it.

[Hepburn]

21. Arrogant much? N/t

[Spazito]

28. If you want to read it that way...

there were those who seem to feel the unrec was being used in an inappropriate way and that those who used it were doing it surreptitiously for nefarious reasons. My point was very simple, this thread may well have ended up on the Greatest based on a mere 5 DUers whereas now, if it does end up there it will be because the majority of DUers feel it belongs there and if that were to be the case, I would be fine with it.

I am aware you do not like the feature, I do. I think we are both entitled to our opinion with neither taking precedence over the other. You would only have to recommend to neutralize my unrecommend, it is not the 'end of the world as we know it'.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

24. Oh

Two days of US drone attacks kill nearly 80 in Pakistan
By Barry Grey


9 July 2009

The United States fired multiple missiles from pilotless drones on Wednesday in two separate attacks on insurgents in Pakistan’s South Waziristan district, killing up to 60 people. The attacks followed a US missile strike in South Waziristan on Tuesday that reportedly killed 16 people.

The missile strikes mark a further escalation of US drone attacks, bringing the total since last August to 45. The stepped-up US military violence in Pakistan coincides with an ongoing offensive by the Pakistani military in the Swat Valley and preparations to launch an offensive in South Waziristan, a mountainous region in the northwest of the country bordering Afghanistan.

At the same time, the Obama administration has launched a major ground offensive in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand Province. Taken as a whole, the intensification of US military actions in the two countries, together with Pakistani air and ground operations launched at the insistence of Washington, constitute a massive military escalation aimed at drowning the insurgencies in blood and terrorizing the civilian populations on both sides of the border.

The Pakistani offensive in the Swat Valley has turned 2 million residents of the region into internal refugees. There are no reliable figures on the number of dead and wounded. US drone attacks have increasingly been aimed at Pakistani militants led by Baitulluh Mehsud, who are based in South Waziristan. Mehsud is considered by the regime in Islamabad to be its most dangerous internal enemy. He is not, however, involved in cross-border attacks on US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, the original justification for CIA-launched drone strikes on Pakistan’s tribal regions.

...

www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/paki-j09.shtml

[omega minimo]

26. LOL

good point.

[Spazito]

30. Well, if you choose to put a very good article within a thread complaining about...

the unrec option then I guess one could assume you really don't feel the article should stand on it's own but, rather, be used to get your original OP about the feature to the Greatest and that is, imo, very disingenuous of you.

[omega minimo]

25. I UnRecced your post for proving and pointing out again the pettiness this is revealing.

:thumbsdown:

[Spazito]

31. Ummm, just like the unrec can't affect an OP beyond the Greatest...

I give you a :thumbsup: to your :thumbsdown:, neither of which is worth a hill of beans, lol.

[lame54]

38. I'm rec-ing it - not because...

I think it deserves a rec on it's own - but to cancel out your un-rec

[fishwax]

29. I agree with you, but only about the aesthetics of the plus sign

Skinner mentioned that he they used the unnecessary "+" to make it clear that the system had changed, but I hope after a few weeks, when everyone is familiar with the new system, they can drop that.

[Laelth]

32. Whoops. I missed where Skinner said that. My bad.

Feel free to ignore my comment above.

:dem:

-Laelth

[blindpig]

33. imho

This is a blatant effort to stifle criticism of the administration and the party, particularly when their action or inaction is indefensible.

And watch out for the sock puppets.