July 29, 2014

What can and cannot be posted in the General Discussion forum (updated 6/22/16)

The Statement of Purpose for the General Discussion forum says this:

In an effort to provide greater clarity to members posting in this forum -- and to hosts trying to enforce this statement of purpose -- here is a detailed list of examples that should give some idea of where the line is drawn. As much as possible, we have attempted to describe current hosting practices rather than to place greater restrictions on what can be posted.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE

• Threads about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are not permitted under normal circumstances and should be posted in the Israel/Palestine Group.


• Open discussion of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is permitted during very high-profile news events which are heavily covered across all newsmedia.

RELIGION

• Threads about current events related to religion, and threads about church-state issues are permitted under normal circumstances.


• Threads about the existence/non-existence of God, threads discussing the merits (or lack thereof) of religion in general, and threads discussing the truth/untruth of religious dogma are not permitted under normal circumstances and should be posted under Religion.


• Open discussion of religion is permitted during very high-profile news events which are heavily covered across all newsmedia.

GUNS

• News stories (and related content) from reputable mainstream sources about efforts to strengthen or weaken gun control legislation in any jurisdiction in the United States, national news stories (and related content) from reputable mainstream sources about high-profile gun crimes, and viral political content from social media or blogs that would likely be of interest to a large majority of DU members are permitted under normal circumstances.


• Local stories about gun crime and "gun porn" threads showing pictures of guns or discussing the merits of various firearms are not permitted under normal circumstances and should be posted in the Gun Control and RKBA Group.


• Open discussion of guns is permitted during very high-profile news events which are heavily covered across all newsmedia.

SHOWBIZ

• Threads about showbiz/celebrity culture which do not have a political angle are not permitted under normal circumstances and should be posted under Entertainment.


• Open discussion of showbiz is permitted during very high-profile news events which are heavily covered across all newsmedia.

SPORTS

• Threads about sports/sporting events which do not have a political angle are not permitted under normal circumstances and should be posted under Sports.


• Open discussion of sports is permitted during very high-profile news events which are heavily covered across all newsmedia.

July 10, 2014

NPR: Could A Socialist Senator Become A National Brand? (Bernie Sanders)

Great story about Bernie Sanders on NPR this morning:

http://www.npr.org/2014/07/10/330193246/could-a-socialist-senator-become-a-national-brand

April 21, 2014

Easter at my house

I did not celebrate or even acknowledge the existence of Easter for about 15 years, from my early 20s until my first child was born. As far as I was concerned, it was a holiday that did not exist. But when my wife and I started a family, we thought it would be fun for the kids to have a little Easter egg hunt on Easter, like we did when we were kids. So after a decade-and-a-half hiatus, Easter returned.

Our next-door neighbors had children the same age as ours, and when we saw them outside on that Easter morning five years ago we decided on the spur of the moment that it would be more fun for everyone if we combined our Easter egg hunt. So we combined our eggs and spread them around both front yards. The kids had a blast. The whole thing lasted about 15 minutes, and then we each went back into our houses. It was a very modest event. What we didn't realize at the time was that it was the beginning of an annual tradition.

The next year we once again combined our Easter egg hunt with the next door neighbors. And we decided to add brunch, and a few other people. So EarlG came over with his wife and son. And one of my wife's co-workers came over with her family. And my adult niece was there.

The next year we invited a few other people -- families with young children. And the brunch got bigger. And the next year we added some more people. And more people the year after that. We started inviting other families in the neighborhood. This year we invited pretty much everyone we know on our block, along with a bunch of our other friends. We had about 50 people.

Among the people attending our Easter egg hunt and brunch this year, we had: Church-going devout Catholics, church-going devout Protestants, observant and non-observant Jews (including an atheist Jewish Reconstructionist who keeps kosher on Passover), lapsed Catholic and Protestant Christians, some atheist and agnostic former Christians, a number of atheist Hindus (and possibly some observant Hindus), some children with mixed families that include one Western parent and the other parent from an Asian religious tradition (Buddhism and maybe also Shintoism), a pair of Swedish nationals of indeterminate religion, and some children (including my own) whose parents are not raising them in any faith and do not tell them what they are supposed to believe.

My wife and I stayed up until 2am on Saturday night cooking the food, cleaning the house, and stuffing candy into plastic eggs. It was hard work, but it was worth it. The food was fantastic, and the people were friendly. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

That's what Easter is to me. It is not a religious holiday. But it is also not a time when anyone is made to feel bad about what they believe -- whatever it is. You can be religious or non-religious, and you don't even have to celebrate Easter in your own family. Everyone is welcome at my house on Easter. All we ask is that you be friendly and respectful to other guests, and please help yourself to all the food.

April 3, 2014

Seven-person juries go into effect today.

By popular demand, we have increased the number of jurors to evaluate community standards alerts from six to seven.

This is a fairly large technical change, and there are likely to be a few glitches. If you encounter any issues that you think the DU Admins need to be aware of, please post them in this thread.

Thank you for your understanding.

Skinner
DU Admin

April 2, 2014

Who nominated them, and how they voted...

Key:
Supreme Court Justices who were nominated by Republican presidents are in [font color="red"]red[/font].
Supreme Court Justices who were nominated by Democratic presidents are in [font color="blue"]blue[/font].

List of Justices who voted to STRIKE DOWN caps on total campaign giving:
[font color="red"]John Roberts
Samuel Alito
Anthony Kennedy
Clarence Thomas
Antonin Scalia[/font]

List of Justices who voted to KEEP caps on total campaign giving:
[font color="blue"]Elena Kagan
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen Breyer
Sonia Sotomayor[/font]

March 20, 2014

Science Fun: Can you identify this drawing?

Yesterday, my 5-year-old son drew this picture at school, and cut it out. When he brought it home he asked me if I knew what it was. I immediately recognized it.

I just had to share. I'm curious if anyone else knows...

March 10, 2014

Should Democratic Underground switch to seven-person juries?

This topic has been discussed a number of times in the Ask the Administrators forum, and the DU Admins have discussed it here in the office repeatedly over the last two years. Currently, if a community standards alert is sent, it is evaluated by a jury of six DU members. Should we increase the number of jurors to seven? This would likely have the following effects:

• There would be no more 3-3 ties. Every alert would result in a majority decision.


• There would be a modest increase in the number of posts that get hidden. If the number of alerts stays constant, and if we assume that approximately half of the current 3-3 ties end up as hides, then the number of additional hidden posts per day would be less than five. Possibly two or three.


• There is a chance that the total number of alerts might increase. Some people have stated that the current difficulty in getting posts hidden acts as a disincentive to send alerts. It is conceivable that alerters might have a greater incentive to alert when the chance of getting a post hidden increases, and would therefore send more.


• Democratic Underground would probably see a modest increase in civility, for two reasons. First, uncivil messages that are posted would be more likely to be removed (and the authors of those posts blocked out of threads). And second, people would be less likely to post uncivil messages in the first place due to the increased likelihood that they could get hidden.


• There might be a modest increase in "misfires" or perceived misfires, in which juries hide posts based on some sort of misunderstanding. This occurs rarely, and would likely remain rare.

The purpose of this poll is to get a sense of the opinion of the community. The DU Administrators will not be bound by the result.

(Note: This poll has two options -- you can either vote to change to seven-person juries, or you can vote to keep six-person juries. If you came to this thread hoping to discuss the merits of the jury system as a whole, I want to make clear that it is here to stay -- we are not getting rid of it.)

February 5, 2014

Some advice about the Olympics and possible spoilers

As everyone here is probably aware, the Winter Olympics start this week. And once again NBC is going to be showing many events on tape-delay during primetime. That means that many DU members will probably not see the events when they are actually happening, and will instead see them for the first time during primetime -- hours after they have actually happened. This of course raises the possibility of "spoilers" -- when you learn the outcome of the event before you actually watch it.

With this in mind, here are a few thoughts...

[font size="3" font face="arial, helvetica"]Advice for people posting about the Olympics on DU[/font]

• Thread titles: If you want to post about the Olympics it is common courtesy to refrain from posting spoilers in the subject line of a discussion thread. Posting spoilers in the subject line of a thread is considered rude by many people and may put your thread at risk of being hidden by a Jury.


• Repeatedly posting spoilers on purpose: During the last Olympics, one person loudly and proudly proclaimed that he was deliberately posting spoilers for every event (for what he believed was a perfectly good reason). Even if you think you have a perfectly good reason for maliciously disrupting DU in this manner, don't do it.

[font size="3" font face="arial, helvetica"]Advice for people reading DU during the Olympics[/font]

• If you feel strongly that you do not want to accidentally encounter Olympics spoilers, you should not be on Democratic Underground or any other social media during the Olympics. That is just a fact.


• You should assume that any discussion thread about the Olympics will include spoilers even if there is no "spoiler alert" warning in the title.

[font size="3" font face="arial, helvetica"]And on a related note...[/font]

There are a number of DUers who have already indicated that they intend to boycott the Olympics this year to protest the horrific treatment of LGBT people in Russia, and the laws passed by the Russian government which serve to legitimize anti-gay hate. If you decide to watch the Olympics, and discuss the Olympics here on Democratic Underground, you should not be surprised if some DU members question the appropriateness of your decision to watch. I fully expect this discussion to occur here on DU, and I hope that members who choose to engage in a discussion on this topic will make an effort to remain respectful.