I don't have any sympathy for jury conspiracy theorists.

Although if by "stay up there" you mean not act on DU, I will. I look forward to being a sane vote on juries.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1013&pid=3832

There may be suspicion that people are using it to make mischief, but the only people with access to the information that could show evidence of that are admin, and they have said repeatedly there is no such evidence. It would be really surprising if there were - when something goes to a jury, it gets a random selection of people, and it doesn't give the poster any chance of weaseling out with "I am not sexist/racist/I am jus tellin duh troof!" - they are judged without them even knowing it, by a group they have no way of influecing the selection of at all.

I don't see how you think DU is a 'scrap' and Discussionist a 'hunk'. DU is clearly a far more developed and featured site.

plus 1000. I agree. Discussionist is in the beginning stages. Don't see how it's giving the center right anything, really.

I've been over there. We live in a nation in which people are at each other's throats now and it doesn't take much to set them off either. We have got to stop shouting at each other and talking past one another. The people of this nation seriously need to start remembering that we are all in this together and come to an agreement on how to live together. Instead, we find ourselves constantly being divided by ideologues and big players and complaining about it. Skinner has put some real effort into this project and I would like to see it succeed. Civil discourse is something that has been lost here on DU, and I see people on The Discussionist actively trying to keep it civil and get to an understanding of what the other side thinks and what goes into their thought processes. It is a real opportunity to address misconceptions and misinformation. Divide and conquer is not working out so well for this nation and we actually do have to all share the same air. I have no problem with a person standing up for their beliefs. Civility goes a long way toward being heard and perhaps changing ideas and moving things forward.

Frankly, I've been bored with DU lately. There's just so much shit on here that I don't give a damn about, like the white privilege threads. Before that it was the booby controversy. People get stuck on one subject here and that's all people post about for days on end. Really substantive threads get ignored.

It's a real shame what has happened to this site with the level of discourse around here. There's much more variety on the other site. There are a couple of nasty people over there, but on the whole, people are civil. I don't want to see RW people when I come to DU, but there are other things about the other site that could influence DU in a positive way. Let's just give it a chance.

The simple fix would be actually enforcing the SoP, especially in GD. I don't know what the Hosts do all day, but they sure don't manage GD worth shit.

The hosts in some forums here seem to be very active, but not in GD. We need them to act sort of like the old moderators used to. They're rather laissez-faire around here.

to act like the old mods. That's a big part of the problem, some of them are trying to. Their only job is to lock threads that are off-topic. They shouldn't be using their position to advance their own agenda, or to try to enforce their own standards.

Skinner could tell them what he would like. The hosts act a bit like mods in other forums on DU, and they do just fine. GD is such a mess sometimes. I don't mean they should do things exactly like the mods; they used to hide things all the time that I saw no problem with. But a lot of the threads around here ain't nuthin but shit, and it really makes GD suck sometimes.

There are instances where a host has been involved in a rumble in say, GD, had a post hidden and then instantly scamper off to a group THEY HOST and pule and whine about it there with all of their pals. IMHO it's bad form and cowardly. There is absolutely no way that behavior should be allowed.

I think that is the point I stopped taking DU seriously. Community standards my foot.

but not nearly often enough. And it's not just hosts that are doing it, it's the group members as well, but some hosts allow it in the groups. The problem is that jurors see some of these groups as safe havens where community standards don't apply. That was the problem with Meta. Community standards apply everywhere on DU, and they should be consistent across the boards. Whining about a hidden post is, most often, repeating what was hidden. In those cases, juries should hide it again.

And you're right. It is not always a host of the group. And I also agree a potential juror might judge a post in a group with different criteria than say GD.

Frankly as I said I just don't take it seriously any longer. You cannot make sense out of crazy. And regardless of how fabulous our esteemed admin team believe their system is, IMHO at least it is arbitrary and crazy.

Oh and (I hate this phrase) as I grow older discussion boards seem more and more a colossal waste of time.

It's too easy for an agenda-driven host to be obstructive.

If you still feel the same ... Jump.

but to be honest, all the conservatives there are the kind of fringe-right crazies who think all liberals are commies and Rush is a god. They also make me wonder how you force someone to stop lying when you're not allowed to hit them. Since my blood pressure is already high, I can't read too much of it.

so the first people to sign up have been (a) DUers (b) far right nutters who obsessionally read DU. The kind of conservatives, or independents, who can be civil, and actually know what socialism or communism is, rather than Rush's idiotic claims, are less likely to have found it so far.

It seems experimental to me, so far; DU had already established its Commumity Standards, and its community, when the jury system came in, and so the standards have stayed roughly the same. Starting with mainly 2 groups who are widely divided (and one of them is more or less nuts) may not work.

Once I've seen they are there to slag on liberals (using phrases such as "just like a lib", or going to insults instead of arguments), I hit 'total ignore'. Trashed a lot of threads and found a few discussions worth reading. You can't stop them from lying, but you can avoid ever seeing the lies.

is that you can't control the debate, but you can inform the debate.

A recent problem with DU is that there were (at least) two camps trying to control the debate and I fell into the trap of taking sides a few times myself.

But sometimes the issues are bigger than any one side and I think that's where Discussionist will come into its own.

it would be frustrating for the owner of a site to constantly be nuking trolls and trouble-makers and missing out on the clicks.

Why not capture that revenue stream with a site like Discussionist that doesn't turn those clicks away?

Long contentious trolly argumentative threads are revenue beneficial in that sense.

Why not expand your customer base. It can be seen from the number of bannings that there are a lot of people out there looking to give page hits that don't fit in here.

people are, the more they post in a thread as you can see here at DU from which threads are the longest.

I noticed the same thing. $$$

I am pretty sure Skinner is about to take a good portion of their page hits. They love to argue just as much as we do here. Even amongst themselves. I think when it all works out it is actually going to lower their (fr) page hits. The effect on du will be minimal. Conservatives from other sites are going to attempt to take it over. Progressives from some sites will do the same. Might be fun.

I think people should be worried about discussionist just like they worry about other sites. They shouldn't worry. If people like it more than du of fr, then those people will spend more time there.

for the most part.

That is a very pleasant surprise.

I think it's kind of brilliant and here is why...

1) You have had a few "conservative" message boards that exist solely to comment on and/or ridicule DU. Why should an outside party get the traffic and associated revenue based on what Skinner et al have built here. By making the site they will automatically carve a significant portion of those other sites traffic.

2) It will be a relief valve for pressure that gets built up here. We have all seen the ridiculous infighting about whatever topic of the week sets people off. I would imagine that having another place to go and discuss the issues with a wider range of viewpoints will give some people the option to let off steam there instead of here.

3) It will be a disincentive to troll and disrupt here. If you have the option to troll liberals associated with DU you will be more inclined to do it there where you are less likely to get banned while still, ostensibly, talking to your target audience.

4) A real world test of the jury system

Just my 2% of a dollar.