I Humbly Propose a "3-Unrec-Per-Day" Limit to Skinner and the Admins.

Bicoastal

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Sun Jul-12-09 08:32 PM
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I Humbly Propose a "3-Unrec-Per-Day" Limit to Skinner and the Admins.

First of all:

Second of all, I want to state that I really enjoy the Greatest Page now that it doesn't have flamebait or crude, abrasive threads at the top it. The most DISCUSSED threads on DU are are easy to find--just click on "Replies" at the top of the forum--but the way I figure it, the Greatest Page should be for OP's that most represent Democratic Underground as a whole, not the ones that have merely been the most contentious. I also think that people who have suggested that criticism of Obama or other Democrats missing from the Greatest Page should notice that "K/R IF YOU THINK MICHELLE LOOKS HOT IN THIS DRESS!!" threads are also now not considered the best that DU has to offer. And that, I think, is undoubtedly a good thing.

The one issue I HAVE been thinking about is that perhaps it shouldn't be as easy to unrecommend threads as it is to recommend them. Now that we have this dual function, everyone feels like they HAVE to pass judgment on OP's--whereas before there were plenty of threads with a 0 next to them, now nearly all have a positive or negative rating. Clearly, people here have strong opinions about everything--but hey, we already knew that.

And while I do think some are too sensitive about perceived criticism, let's face it--when you see a post with a >0 next to it, assuming you click on it at all, you click with a different expectation than you would a +4, +2 or even a 0 thread. You expect something that is controversial at best, poor quality at worst; and yet, it may be a perfectly innocuous post that the first few people who saw the subject line didn't think it was worth their time, and others stayed away when they saw a negative rating.

I think this system IS making us rank everything that appears on GD or GDP, consciously or unconsciously, into "good" or "not so good," leaving us without a useful neutral category. There was something to be said for a DU where you knew that not everything you proposed to the group was expected to be solid gold, and you didn't feel inclined to keep checking your post rating to get a sense of how the rest of us felt about it. A lot of times, most of us don't feel that strongly one way or the other--so in this new system, those who DO feel strongly get to pass the hardest judgment.

So what I propose is this: make it harder to unrecommend than recommend. Unrecommending IS a useful safeguard against ugliness and even factionalism on our Greatest Page, but when there is a "reward" for a high rating, somehow a low rating (which previously didn't exist) is seen as a judgment of quality, not a consensus of opinion. If we could only "Unrec" three threads in a 24-hour-period, we couldn't waste it willy-nilly on a simple "aye/nay" vote. We'd press "unrecommend" it when it really expressed strong opinions, not a simple knee-jerk or a "cancel out" vote--AND it'd have the added bonus of making all of the recent criticism about meritocracy vs free speech disappear.

After all, what could be more liberal than promoting positivity and free expression over negative reinforcement? As Cenk Uygur would say, are we not merciful?

All of the above is the motivation behind a Unrecommend Limit, similar to the post limit in GDP during the Primaries--three clicks, and you're done for 24 hours. If you like this idea, or you just plain hate it (as DU is currently missing a middle ground) well, you know what to do. :hi: