DU: DISCUSSION BOARD or ON-LINE THINK TANK?

Sometimes a topic posted at DU gets a flurry of responses then disappears. A few minutes, hours or days later the same thing happens again and again... and again.

There are many topics posted at DU for which there's just no continuity. Where this COULD be an on-line think tank for Progressives... the pace here prevents ideas from ever being fully developed. That's not a problem with the ideas.... it's a problem with the structure of these forums. I think some see the fast pace here as an asset. In some forums it is. But there's so much more potential to DU than is being realized.

I believe the DU need to think big!

As possibly the premier forum for Progressive Left politics on the web... what should its role be? Is this just an information site? A place to rant or discuss ideas? A place to network? I'm thinking bigger. I think DU should aim for nothing less than using grassroots energy to reshape American politics and our political system. It needs to explore the potential of becoming an on-line Progressive Think Tank.

I believe that can be accomplished by revamping the topics of the forums. Think about the function of such forums. They serve to bring people together around a topic of mutual interest. If the topic is too narrow the forum languishes. If the topic is too broad like the General Discussion forums.... it becomes a mess. Last March when I first raised this issue the General Discussion forum averaged about 280 threads a day... not posts... THREADS.

Good ideas are being lost simply because the pace is so frantic they can't be developed fully developed. Because DU focuses on being a discussion board it lacks an institutional memory. The GD forums are so full of duplicate threads on the same topic there's no synergy of ALL those interested in that topic. In a day ort two they're archived and locked... and the random discussions begin again... and again.
Anyone interested in what dedicated Progressives are thinking would have to wade though a sea of posts to find some gems. It's a lost opportunity to build up DU and for those, possibly Democrats, who could benefit from an additional source of ideas.

DU already gets some national attention. It's time to make DU indispensable not just with the quality of our ideas but how efficiently we generate them... and much of that depends on how the forums are structured.

I'd like to see another grouping of forums on longer range ideas of where Progressives want to take this nation. They could include dedicated forums on Constitutional reform, abolishing corporate personhood, taxation, democracy 101, federalism, international relations, property rights, etc. There are other web models that can provide continuity in brainstorming. Anyone ever been to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page ? It's a community encyclopedia. Anyone can edit it or return it to a previous state. It seems chaotic but it does work. Check out some of the articles. I think such a feature here could help in developing more focused strategies, talking points, ads, whatever.

Unless we focus and develop a vision for a Progressive agenda.... then 20-40 years from now the Progressive movement will still be trying to tweak a dysfunctional political and corporate system.... as corporations continue to run amok and our federal government becomes more anti-democratic and more reform-proof.

What might also be nice is a way to rate threads, like yahoo news articles. That way they can become "need to see" threads, or whatever.

A thread rating system also has some other advantages. It would push down troll threads. I think 250 posts here just to start a thread is excessive. I think when I first came here is was maybe 20.

eom

Not sure if others have posted on the topic but I first posted last March... first in GD: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1251971

Then in the Ask Admin forum:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=120&topic_id=15666&mesg_id=15666

Skinner missed my main point and responded only about the 2004 campaign:

Skinner ADMIN
Mon Mar-22-04 08:36 AM
1. You're not nuts.
We are considering a number of options to change the forums for the campaign. I am extremely doubtful that the Kerry campaign would (or should) take our advice regarding how they run their campaign. But I do think that we can make some changes around here so our members can more effectively help the campaign.

It was a VERY useful and good tool! It gave posters a chance to rework some of those posts that now sink so fast! I too have watched some GREAT ideas go shooting by, into never never land! Coupled with the ability we have now to re-word our topic,(hook) lines, the hit count would give people a better shot at getting their posts looked at!

for folks interested in working together or separately on the issue of polling problems... thought that would be helpful to get people on the same page...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2617639&mesg_id=2617639

Obviously creating new forums is not that difficult. Some 50 new ones were created for each state last summer. But what about topical forums where ideas can be developed? I've included one on election reforms. Some may be duplicates of existing forums. Some are issues progressives should be discussing and aren't.

Election reforms
Constitutional reform
Taming corporation
Taxation issues
Democracy 101
Rethinking federalism
International relations
Property rights
Environmental protection
Consumer issues
Religion
Race issues
Gender issues
The Rabid Right
Health Care
Income/wealth distribution
Science
Grassroots organization

how about also including one like 'take action now' or something like that?

B-)

What ever list is created.... I think the categories have to be mutually exclusive. If necessary they subdivided into subcategories. Not that it will do any good unless we can convince others to convince the powers that be that the DU has more potential if it sees itself as more than a bulletin board. Now the seeds of this are already planted. The State databases were an example of a collective project.

In theory, though hardly implemented, Usenet was to be a discussion group hierarchy of mutually exclusive topics. Not all of the topics in Usenet are relevant to a board on Progressive politics. Can they be implemented? Sure if Skinner or whomever sees the value in seeing DU as more than a discussion board/info distribution source. I think that's the standard model of for such on-line sites. But with the exception of the Campaign Underground here, The vast majority of the energy spent here is without direction and yields no lasting "product". It's like we're constantly reinventing each other's wheel, forgetting we did so and we reinvent it again. There's too little structure. Which, again, is not to say I favor the existing forums be scrapped... only that some forums dedicated to "projects" be added. Hopefully Skinner et al see the potential in further expanding the standard Internet model.

This is a great point. Have you tried suggesting this directly to the main boys behind the site yet?

Last March I posted a suggestion something along these lines in GD and the Admin forums. At the time one idea was to harnessing DU to help the Kerry campaign. It was time to dust off the other ideas again... to get more input and possibly support.