DU General Election Season Begins Soon: What You Need To Know
This discussion thread was locked by EarlG (a host of the Announcements group).
Last edited Wed Jun 15, 2016, 12:55 PM - Edit history (1)
UPDATE: General Election Season Begins June 20. More info here.Last week I wrote an announcement providing some broad information about General Election season here on Democratic Underground. Now that the primary voting is almost done and it has become clear that Hillary Clinton is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, we are sticking with our plan to transition to General Election season
This formal transition to General Election season is not a new thing for our website. For every presidential election since this website was founded in 2001, we have expected our members to support the Democratic nominee. It has been written into our Terms of Service for nearly as long as the site has existed, and all of you agreed to it.
But this year's transition is a little different because during the switch-over we will also be instituting some big changes to the way we run the site -- including software changes. We have two main goals with these changes:
1) Making this website a more civil and welcoming place for everyone.
2) Making clear that this website actually has a partisan purpose, especially during election season.
Here's what's going to happen:
[div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold;"]DU will have rules again
For the past six months we have been planning and developing a hybrid system which takes the parts of the Jury System that work well, throws out the stuff that doesn't work, and incorporates a number of ideas from the "old" DU. In a post about the primaries back in March, we noted that the new system would focus on "reducing drama, providing better guidance for jurors, and setting clearer standards that better lay out our expectations for what Democratic Underground should be." We want this community to be a friendlier place for everyone, and we believe the only way we can do that is to insist on some standards of conduct.
The first step is to bring back rules -- a set of standards that members are expected to follow when posting, and that members are expected to enforce if asked to serve on a Jury. These rules were created by looking at where we are now as a community, but also by reviewing our old rules from DU2. In fact, if you joined DU any time between 2002 and 2011, much of this will look very familiar to you.
The rules are separated into four sections. Here they are:
CIVILITY
No personal attacks or flaming
Do not personally attack, insult, flame, threaten, bully, harass, stalk, negatively call-out, ascribe ugly ulterior motives to, or make baseless claims about any member of this community. Do not post in a manner that is hostile, abusive, or aggressive toward any member of this community.
Why we have this rule: Civility begets quality discussions. Democratic Underground members are highly passionate about politics which means discussions can get heated -- but they don't need to get nasty. There's no reason why a community of intelligent adults who agree on a majority of political issues can't have a conversation without insulting each other or resorting to other anti-social behaviors.
No divisive group attacks
Do not smear, insult, vilify, bait, maliciously caricature, or give disrespectful nicknames to any groups of people that are part of the Democratic coalition, or that hold viewpoints commonly held by Democrats, or that support particular Democratic public figures. Do not imply that they are fake Democrats, fake progressives, conservatives, right-wingers, Republicans, or the like.
Why we have this rule: Substantive disagreement on important issues is always welcome on this website, but our members should not be made to feel unwelcome simply because they hold a different point of view. Democratic Underground welcomes all people who are members of the Democratic coalition, including the full range of center-to-left viewpoints and supporters of all Democratic public figures.
No bigotry/insensitivity
Members are expected to respect diversity and demonstrate an appropriate level of sensitivity when discussing related topics. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or other forms of bigoted intolerance are not permitted.
Why we have this rule: Democratic Underground is a diverse community which includes people of every race, sex, religious belief (or lack thereof), sexual orientation, gender identity, body type, disability, age, etc. We want to promote a welcoming atmosphere for all of our members, and do not want to provide a platform for bigotry.
POLITICAL
Support Democrats
Do not post support for Republicans or independent/third-party "spoiler" candidates. Do not state that you are not going to vote, or that you will write-in a candidate that is not on the ballot, or that you intend to vote for any candidate other than the official Democratic nominee in any general election where a Democrat is on the ballot. Do not post anything that smears Democrats generally, or that is intended to dissuade people from supporting the Democratic Party or its candidates. Don't argue there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats.
Why we have this rule: Democratic Underground is an online community for politically liberal people who understand the importance of working together to elect more Democrats and fewer Republicans to all levels of American government, and as such we expect our members to support and vote for Democrats at election time. Rare exceptions are granted at the sole discretion of the DU Administrators. (Current exceptions: None.)
Don't bash Democratic public figures
Do not post disrespectful nicknames, insults, or highly inflammatory attacks against any Democratic public figures. Do not post anything that could be construed as bashing, trashing, undermining, or depressing turnout for any Democratic general election candidate, and do not compare any Democratic general election candidate unfavorably to their general election opponent(s).
Why we have this rule: Our forum members support and admire a wide variety of Democratic politicians and public figures. Constructive criticism is always welcome, but our members don't expect to see Democrats viciously denigrated on this website. This rule also applies to Independents who align themselves with Democrats (eg: Bernie Sanders).
Don't peddle right-wing talking points, smears, or sources
Do not post right-wing talking points or smears. Do not post content sourced from right-wing publications, authors, or pundits. Exceptions are permitted if you provide a clear reason for doing so that is consistent with the values of this website.
Why we have this rule: News media and the Internet are already awash with conservative propagandists attacking our candidates and our values -- we're not interested in providing them with another outlet. We understand that many of our members might hold some conservative viewpoints on isolated issues, but nobody here should be parroting hateful garbage from the RNC, the NRA, or the Family Research Council. Forum members should expect that the only time they'll have to read a right-wing smear or an article from Breitbart is when someone is pointing and laughing at it.
Don't keep fighting the last Democratic presidential primary
Regardless of whether you supported a winning candidate or a losing candidate, do not prolong the agony of the last Democratic presidential primary by continuing to pick fights, place blame, tear down former primary candidates, bait former supporters, or do anything else to pour salt on old wounds.
Why we have this rule: Most of our members want this to be forward-looking, friendly community that is focused on creating a better future for our country. Continuing to rehash old fights that have already been resolved is divisive and counter-productive.
CONTENT
Don't interfere with forum moderation
Don't post messages about site rules, enforcement, juries, hosts, administration, alerts, alerters, removed posts, appeals, locked threads, or anything else related to how this website is moderated (except in the Ask the Administrators forum).
Why we have this rule: The purpose of Democratic Underground is to discuss politics, issues, and current events. Open discussion of how the website is run tends to distract from our core purpose.
No graphic content
Do not post content that is Not Safe For Work (NSFW), which includes sexually explicit material, graphic depictions of bodily functions, or images of extreme violence, gore, pain, or human suffering. Exceptions are permitted when an image adds important context to a legitimate news story, but the post must include a "graphic content warning" in the subject line.
Why we have this rule: Most people do not enjoy stumbling across extremely graphic content while browsing the web.
No kooky, extremist, or hate content
Do not promote ridiculous, bigoted, or extreme-fringe conspiracy theories. Do not promote extreme fringe views. Do not reference hate sites or other extremist/fringe sources.
Why we have this rule: Democrats are supposed to be part of the "reality-based community." Some amount of skepticism toward powerful institutions is healthy and appropriate, but that doesn't mean every paranoid fantasy is true. Posts about mass shootings being "false flag" operations, 9/11 being a controlled demolition, no airplane at the Pentagon, chemtrails, black helicopters, the Illuminati, or other nonsense make us all look like fools. This website may have the word "underground" in our name, but we are not extreme fringe.
No commercial spam
Do not post commercial spam or hawk commercial products or services.
Why we have this rule: It's fine for established members to plug or post links to their own products, services, or publications every now and again, but we do not wish to provide free advertising space for spammers.
Don't start threads in the wrong forum or group
Don't start new threads that conflict with a forum or group's Statement of Purpose. The Statement of Purpose can be found by visiting the main page of any forum or group and clicking the "About this forum" (or "About this group"
button.
Why we have this rule: All forums and groups on Democratic Underground have a specific purpose, and we want to ensure that new discussion threads are on-topic for the forum or group that they are posted in.
LEGAL/ADMINISTRATIVE
Respect copyrights
Excerpts from copyrighted sources must be no more than four paragraphs and include a link to the source. See our DMCA Copyright Policy for more information.
Don't post anyone's private or personal information
Don't post private or personal information about any person (including public figures) even if that information is available elsewhere on the Internet.
No malware, phishing, cracking, or other malicious code
Don't post or link to malicious code, or attempt to interfere with this website's software or administration in any way.
Don't post anything that violates U.S. law
Don't post anything that violates U.S. law -- including but not limited to: linking to illegally-shared files, attempting to organize hacking or DOS attacks, sales of weapons, alcohol, illegal drugs, or other illegal products, etc.
Don't use an avatar or signature line that violates any of the other rules
Members may opt to make use of an avatar or signature line that is appended to all their posts. Avatars and signature lines must not violate any of the other forum rules.
We will expect all DU members to follow these rules when posting, and enforce them when serving on a Jury (Note: All alerts sent on rules in the "Legal/Administrative" section will be handled directly by Admin. Alerts sent on the rule "Don't start threads in the wrong forum or group" will be sent to Hosts).
[div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold;"]The Jury System: What's staying the same and what's changing
Next, we have made technical changes to the Jury process, implementing various improvements that people have requested over the past five years, and adding a few of our own. We also ditched a number of things that we felt were not working. With all of these changes our focus was on looking for ways to increase civility, set clear expectations, and reduce forum drama and meta-discussion.
Serving on Juries should be as straightforward as it was before -- in fact, we've streamlined the process to make it even simpler. You do not need to know all of the technical details below in order to serve on Juries -- they are provided merely for people who are interested in exactly what changes are taking place. Please note that we're tried to make the list below as comprehensive as possible, but it's possible that there may be further changes or additions as we go forward.
What's staying the same
- The software will seat a Jury by calling seven randomly-selected eligible members.
- Jury service is optional; members have five minutes to decide if they want to serve as a Juror.
- Jurors will be given a maximum of 30 minutes to evaluate whether a post is acceptable or not.
- Jury results will be decided by majority rule.
- Posts deemed acceptable by Juries will be left alone; posts deemed unacceptable will be hidden.
- Jurors won't be asked to serve again for at least 18 hours (unless the site is really busy).
- If a Jury votes unanimously that a post is acceptable, the alerter will not be able to alert again for 24 hours.
- If your post is removed, you will be notified.
- There are still certain triggers that will flag your account for review, and we are adding some new ones to put the brakes on people who repeatedly break our rules. When flagged for review you will not be able to post or use other site functions. (This is a stop-gap measure: We have a number of changes planned in this area that we aren't ready to implement yet; we'll have more to say about this at a later date.)
- The privilege to serve on a Jury is now only offered to members who have been registered for at least one year, have more than 1,000 posts, and have an active Star membership.
- Alerters will no longer be asked to provide an explanation for their alert. Instead they will be presented with a short list of rules written by the Administrators and asked to select which rule they believe the post breaks.
- Jurors will no longer be asked to evaluate the post based on the alerter's comments and their own gut feeling. Instead they will be asked whether they believe the post breaks the specific rule selected by the alerter.
- Jurors will no longer evaluate posts in-thread. Instead they'll be taken to a separate page. On this page only the portion of the thread relevant to the alerted post will be displayed (or just the OP if the OP was the alerted post), and usernames and other identifying information will be removed.
- The Jury system still forbids "double jeopardy," but posts which were alerted for a particular rule and survived a Jury can now be re-alerted for a different rule.
- Previously Jurors had two options: "Hide it" or "Leave it alone." Now Jurors have four options: "It clearly breaks the rule"; "Close call, but it breaks the rule"; "It doesn't quite break the rule"; and "It clearly doesn't break the rule."
- Jurors will no longer be able to provide comments.
- Alerters and Jurors will no longer receive notifications after Jury service is complete.
- You will not be able to peek at other members' hidden posts. Only the author of the post can check the text of a removed post.
- You will be able to officially appeal if a Jury removes your post. We have built in an appeals system that allows members to send an appeal directly to Admin. Admin will review the post and provide a final ruling. If your appeal is convincing, the post will be reinstated.
- The Admins may also step in from time to time and remove a post if we think a Jury blew it and allowed a rule violation to stand.
- If you can't bring yourself to enforce a particular rule when serving on a Jury, you can object to that rule and you'll never be asked to serve on a Jury for that rule again. The Admins will keep a tally of objections which will give us useful feedback about the rules.
- Transparency pages are going away, since they only seemed to serve to create forum drama. (They may be replaced with something else at a later date.)
[div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold;"]Software Testing
These are big changes, and they require some pretty big changes to the software we use to moderate the site. Elad has spent countless hours this year programming all this stuff, and it's almost ready to go. But before we go live next week, we need to test it to make sure it works. That means we will need some DU members to serve as testers for the new software. We'll have more information on software testing coming soon.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Thanks! Looks great!
Thanks Skinner.
I can help with the testing, seeing as how I'm testy myself. 
I think the rest just turn a blind eye to it and other questionable behavior. I will respect the rules here as laid out by skinner, it's his site. I'll just choose to bite my tongue. Time to go into stasis for the next four to eight years here at DU. 
I'll need to re-up my star membership, because I like serving on juries. 
May I ask, why will we not receive a notification after jury service is complete? I like to know how it went. Obviously, it's not that important, but I genuinely do like to know how others voted and whether my views are out of step with the majority.
You've obviously put a ton of work into this, and I thank you for providing such a great place for us all to gather.
Although, couldn't you make it a rule not to post jury results on the thread? I've done it, for transparency, but if it's less than ideal, I can easily stop.
I'm not going to argue the point into the ground - it will dilute my larger point that I think the new rules are in the main absolutely fantastic! But there does seem to be some support for this idea downthread too.
Got my star! Seamless jury service without interruptions come the 16th. 
I've been a star member since 2003 and have quite a few less than 1000 posts, so will likely never be on a jury again. I'm more than happy to have everyone else do the housecleaning for me Looking forward to the changes!
from another person who's been registered here for ages, but still has a really low post count.
I don't really know how that happened. IRL I'm pretty talkative.
was 'I remember some of those followed by they have so much energy...'
Seriously, I think most of those changes will make DU a friendlier place. The main objection I have is that I'd still like to be notified with the results of the jury.
I had a cast on my hand for 6 weeks this winter, and it was such a relief to get it gone. Hope you are back up to speed quickly.
Unless of course one's agenda is to create more drama and divisiveness
Posting here to see the answer.
Now he did mention "hosts" in the explanation above, so I would assume that the basic set up would essentialy remain the same.
Glad you asked...
Used to be we could, but not now. 
Nicely done!
I look forward to these changes and getting back to the DU I once knew and loved.
Thanks, Skinner.
But a different person can send a different alert.
Would that also end "thanks for sending the troll back to his bridge" threads?
Anything that gets us back to civil is welcome! 
*polishes it*
Was this a Hillary campaign idea? #InBefore16
But, I would hope that something doesn't have to have been published in the WaPo to qualify as not "bashing."
that's why there's a presumption of First Amendment protection, something that some on this board have expressly asserted doesn't extend to DU. I don't think we should be making up community standards on a case-by-case basis, and need some sort of guiding principle.
For my own .02 worth, I sorta subscribe to the old standard applied to pornography cases - if it has "redeeming social value," even if raunchy and offensive to some sensibilities, it's protected speech. Then, there's Justice Stewart's more sensual pornography definition, "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it." 
It's "Congress shall make no law..", not "Anybody, anywhere shall make no rule..."
We are on virtual private property here, not even in the public commons. As such, any rule (serious, silly, or anything in between) is perfectly legal.
There is no 'protected speech' on a private, non-government website.
Thank you guys so much!!! I don't have much, but I just sent an extra small donation. Sorry it can't be more, but if DU becomes a sane, welcoming place for Democrats again, I swear will find SOME way to donate more. You guys work so hard...thank you again.
I suppose a lot of people will have to learn the relevant differences between criticism (e.g., "X policy is bad due to..." and name-calling ("HRC worship" .
That those relevant difference are both obvious and simplistic, we may presume the only one's unable to distinguish these differences are those who simply refuse to learn the differences.
"Exceptions are permitted if you provide a clear reason for doing so that is consistent with the values of this website. "
I look forward to you trying to be civil. Good luck. 
There's a first time for everything I guess...
Looks like a good way to reduce overall forum drama. While I may not personally like a few of the changes (Jury duty for paying members only, for instance; paywalls suck), they do make sense in the grand scheme of things.
Much needed changes. Here's to DU's future improvement. 
Let's roast that big ole chicken!
GRAPHIC IMAGE ALERT! 
The chicken attached to that head is somewhat disturbing too.
Yes! So many discussions are derailed by this now. Really looking forward to the changes!
I can go with that . I have fallen into the abyss lately and am trying to crawl out. I have been on some juries that made me very sad about DU. Hopefully these new/old rules will help. I still love this place, it has just been harder lately.
I would not want your job Skinner. This is clearly herding cats.
instead of throwing everyone under the bus? Sweet!
I'm glad that an official written top goal is to increase elected Democrats and decrease Republicans. Sometimes people forget and it gets crowded under the bus with the relentless punishment.
6 years of tea party congress control needs to end. It would be sweet for Dems to have the white house and both houses of congress for the next judicial appointments and general direction of budgets and legislative priorities.
Just kidding.
and going after republicans! Especially Rump.
Because that's how progressives are.
.
Last edited Sat Jun 11, 2016, 01:32 AM - Edit history (3)
EDIT TO ADD:
FOUND IT!!!
Here you go, links to OPs about your hidden OP (so I'm not linking to your post directly) - including link to said hidden OP - that DOES exist and was hidden and called out for anti-semitism:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1280115291
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1280115290
And done the cowardly way too, in a 'protected group'. Throw something like that out there and don't even give anyone a chance to rebut it. Sheesh.
Found this little gem of a post by someone else while I was searching:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511677501#post20
Wow. 
And btw... you didn't respond about why, if you think Bernie supporters are the worst offenders, you don't think that provides all the more reason to have enacted the rules sooner. Since then it would have obviously worked in your favor if your premise is taken as being true. So why not? Why make it a free for all, letting such egregious offenders loose to spew shit all over DU rather than enact the new rules and bring civility to the site sooner rather than later? Why?
----------------------------------------------------
Original pre-edited post:
You know very well what I'm talking about, it's one of your hidden posts, an OP. Oh, I guess I can check if you have a transparency page showing and it should have been soon enough to find or at least let you know which OP it was.
Well, I don't see it so it either was too old or I'm attributing it to you incorrectly - or maybe it wasn't hidden, just locked. If I am wrong I apologize, but memory tells me it was your OP. I will see what I can find because if I am wrong I would like to set the record straight, but again, I can't really do much searching as a non-star member.
.
Not that I really give a rat's ass at this point.
.
Same goes to Elad and EarlG. Great job.
I will be happy to be a tester for the new system. I would like to get a feel for how it works before going live.
My only issue was stated above by others, no results on jury decisions. I like to know I got it right. Since there will be names attached, we won't know the players anyway. Just a thought. The rest is spectacular!
I like civility.
and Thank You!
yes INDEED
I predict a world of hurt with that. But I guess time will tell if it's working or not.
These are kind of strange too:
Transparency pages are going away, since they only seemed to serve to create forum drama. (They may be replaced with something else at a later date.)
but again, we'll see what happens. Your decision to once again enforce civility and to discourage the bullying, stalking and personal attacks that have run rampant on this site for years is very encouraging news. Thumbs up from me!
GOT style...thank you for the upgrade.
I agree with the others in this thread that want to still see the results of juries they've served on. Respectfully, I think the rule about not 'posting the results after' should be sufficient to tamp down any drama on the subject.
I'd also like to bring up the change regarding 'no comments (in the jury form) from the jurors'. I don't understand the reasoning behind that. Jurors are already prohibited from saying anything in those comments that are out of line. I think it serves a purpose (for other jurors, the alerter and the alertee) to see a juror's reasoning behind a vote.
Also, about the different categories: since it's a binary result (hide or don't hide) don't the "Clearly breaks a rule" and "close call" count exactly the same as each other (likewise a "doesn't quite break a rule" & "Clearly doesn't break a rule" . Why four categories vs two if the result will be exactly the same.
I can say this now. Can't say this when it goes into effect. But thats my opinion. the second person who does not have enough Delegates Bernie is more of a spoiler if you want to call it that for Plump. Because by and large most people who don't like trump have been rooting for Bernie. I don't expect Independents and Republicans to root for anyone else other than anti establishment candidates. for GE discussions I'll refrain from such discussions although this should be allowed in the groups right? or are Bernie only groups barred? I haven't been on the site much since April. Mostly for my own health. Way too many attacks from non Bernie supporters and they were very personal attacks but DU tended to let those slide. Except those attacks alienated me from ever supporting her. She'll have to live with that. Either that or she doesn't know what her own supporters are doing. It was those attacks I was defending against and after having a number of free speech postings hidden. I gave up. Joined a Bernie Sanders discussion group and thats mostly where I post. The only Spoiler there might be is if there was another establishment Candidate. And that is probably the idiot running as a Libertarian but he's actually a Republican. X_X do'h. never supported him even in 2012. I did support someone else at the same time as Obama But only up until the Convention. But again airing this now before the rules set in. And right now she's 200 delegates away. So as messy it is here it will be very messy in Philly. I've been told circa 1968. Although I feel more like a combo of 1968 and 1984. Not as bad as 1984 though. I will support down ticket Democrats. Since change always happens bottom up. Hopefully we'll have a much more Liberal Congress next year. Veto proof.
The right will use all possible arguments against Dems, some legitimate, some not. I can't believe DU means to prohibit reasonable, fact-based critique?
I'm OK with that.
I heard that twice
Response to Skinner (Original post)