Does the "Presidency" part of GD:Presidency retain any meaning?

[maxsolomon]

many posts here have tenous connections to the Presidency. at best.

how about GD:USPolitics?

[mikelgb]

1. uh oh u dared mention it too

try mentioning in one of those threads, i dare you

[Captain Hilts]

8. Yeah, I've gotten chewed out. But, if you put a Lawrence Taylor thread in GD, it will be

immediately bumped to 'sports' where 12 people will read it, when it's part of a larger dialogue.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. It should not be changed. A US Politics forum should be *added*

[JuniperLea]

3. Isn't all of DU a "US Politics" forum? eom

[maxsolomon]

6. not the Gungeon!

but i see your point...

[JuniperLea]

9. They're all high on the smell of Hoppe's!

:rofl:

You know, I smell Hoppe's in the elevators here at work on occasion. I think they might use it to clean the lift machinery or something. Very distinctive odor.

[Go2Peace]

11. That won't change anything though. Many People post here for other reasons.

[flpoljunkie]

4. I like your suggestion. GD: USPolitics

[karynnj]

5. Good point

I think what has happened is that two separate cultures have come to exist in GD and GD-P. GD seems to be to the left of almost all elected Democrats and also tends to not be as interested in serious, detailed issues. It is also far more volatile. (Look back to earlier this year to see how each forum treated Kucinich before he backed down and voted for the healthcare bill.)

I know I have looked at any connection to the President as a justification to post in GD-P. I also admit that I have occasionally posted things that really are not connected to the President here - just because they were not LBN and I knew they would interest NO ONE on GD.

Here's an example - if I put together a post on the SFRC dealing with the Marjah effort that was held today, it would sink like a stone with many unreccs and a few comments that we should have left Afghanistan a year ago - with no one reading any of the content. All and all a wasted effort. In GD-P, there might at least be some interesting comments adding good information. It's not a hot button issue, so I doubt it would reach the greatest page, but at least some would have read it.

To me, the biggest difference now in the 2 forums is that they have developed distinct and very different cultures. Before Obama was elected, they served a different role - allowing some on going posting on issues, not directly connected to politics.

[Go2Peace]

14. "it would sink like a stone with many unreccs "

Although I disagree about the amount of "dialog" that occurs in GD: P, you are right that it is where people go to hang with people of the same opinion and indeed they know that others will rec their posts.

But why do people think that the "purpose" of DU is recs/greatest page? Because that effect ends up causing the very thing that everyone seems not to appreciate, polarization.

When everyone starts to think of this as a popularity contest or messaging fight then by it's nature there is little room for discussion. You outlined perfectly what is killing discourse on DU. They should fix the rec feature so it does not dominate discourse.

I have been on the site since 2003, and while it has never been a place where everyone agrees, it has been the more recent unyielding fighting over "message" that has polarized the DU memberships in half. People get their back up as a result, their posts get more defensive, and it gets more difficult to have discourse.

[karynnj]

25. I don't think the greatest page or reccs are that important

More important is that some read it and it gets some discussion. I should have written what I meant better. I would be perfectly ok with a 0 and many substantive comments, with a wide range of opinions on what I wrote. A thread with a phenomenal number of recommends and people posting nothing but "I agree" or "I like that" would be terminally boring and likely because it contained nothing but a point, long accepted as conventional wisdom on the left. I would hope that if you looked at threads I started, you could agree that I am trying to initiate a conversation. (If not, I need to relook at things myself and consider how to better do that.)

Not to mention, it is comments, not recommends or unrecommends that keep a topic near the top. I have been here since 2004 as a reader and 2005 as a poster (it took months before I was not too shy to post) I suspect that another reason their is more polarization was that pre 2009, the dominant polarization was all of us against Bush. Then as the pre-primary heated up, there were fights between supporters of various candidates along with the anti- GOP. When Obama became the nominee, DU became mostly a cheering squad, which was appropriate because there was no question that given that the choice was Obama vs McCain, it was not the time to have internal fights.

Since 2009, we are in a totally new environment. One that never existed at DU. (It did exist in the 1990s in Usenet political groups) I think the polarity between the two forums occurred because GD-P briefly had mostly articles on the President and his administration. I think that we as Democrats need to being doing oversight on everyonr in the government - including Obama. I just wish that many would attack specific positions or actions (or votes and bills for legislators) and, unless their is compelling evidence, stop with personal attacks on Democrats.


As to the split, I don't know which happened first, but people in the Nader/Kucinich spectrum seemed to leave GD-P for GD and people in the broad spectrum from Kerry/Durbin to Clinton to Warner/Webb felt unwelcome in GD. So, there are now Obama posts in GD and there are posts not primarily related to Obama in GD-P.

The fact that I would hate to name 2 forums (Democratic mainstream and Far Left) puts me with you. I would prefer issues discussed by the full diverse group. It is more interesting when there is disagreement - provided the discussion remains on the issue rather than personal attacks.

[Captain Hilts]

7. It drives me nuts how many 'presidency' posts are NOT about the presidency. nt

[Go2Peace]

10. It's because GD: P is a coordinated launching point for talking points

If they posted elsewhere they would loose the ability to watch for each other's post and give them an auto-rec. So they post all of the days talking point posts from this location, even if it does not fit.

I am surprised others don't notice this. If you pay attention you will see that the majority of posts come from a small group of people.

In a way many of them are indeed related to the President, because almost all of them are designed not necessarily to inform or dialog, but to promote specific messages related to the Presidency.

I have been wishing for a change to the way that "rec" works, because it has changed the entire nature of DU (I have been a lurker for a long while, and this is my second account (I was not tombstoned, just lost the password and changed email accounts so made a new account)).

The nature of the frenetic messaging posts and the arguments that ensue are to a large part responsible for the drop in civility. A forum is meant for "discussion", but this component (messaging integrity) has to fight honest difference of opinion and replace it with a standard singular message. It is at odds with the nature of a forum. But at least it tends to stay in one topic this way.

[Captain Hilts]

13. Yes. I actually think there should be limits on starting threads. nt

[Go2Peace]

15. That is a great idea

It might also make people think a little more about what they prefer to post.

Or how about having some forums that are indexed as "News" that have OP limits and the rec feature, and other forums that are for "discussion" and remove the rec feature and unlimited posts? Just more thoughts around that idea?

[Cha]

16. So what? Those are the people who have

been doing a great job for years..I enjoy them..oh, and they are very informative.

The sources they use have a long standing reputation for integrity.

The civility has improved immensely here with the new faster moderation action..I have no complaints.

[Corey_Baker08]

12. Actually I Was Thinking The Same Thing The Other Day!!! n/t

[phleshdef]

17. You have to accept that there is an ongoing conversation taking place in this forum.

A lot of the threads that aren't directly about President Obama (or other Presidents) are posted with the intention of making point in the ongoing argument of whether or not the results of this President's policies are leading the country in the right direction or not. Thats just the nature of this place.

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. Yes, but many don't even have that much to do with the Presidency. There is no reason

why they can't post those threads in GD, where they belong. Honestly, I am surprised the non-Prez threads don't get moved there.

[tavalon]

18. This was set up during the 2004 primary wars

I thought it went away after the "election" and then was brought back for the 2008 primary wars. I'm not sure why it stayed. Maybe because "our side" won so we kept it to keep a place to talk about Obama. I'll admit I do all of my talking about Obama in GD so it does look kind of superfluous to me.

[JNelson6563]

19. What I've noticed

It seems to be treated more as a political forum than just plain GD. I note the worst of our attention whores don't generally post their lounge posts in GDP as they do GD. So sad to see what was once a political forum (GD) morphing into a political forum/pseudo lounge. Most interesting though is that only some AWLP (Attention Whore Lounge Posts) get moved to the lounge while others don't. I wonder what that's about.

I'd rather GDP be abolished and GD go back to being about politics.

Julie

[boston bean]

21. This forum use to be General Discussion Politics....

in 2008 it turned to General Discussion Presidency - to post about the Presidential Election, including the primaries.

Now the word "Presidency" in the forum name, implies this forum is especially for Barack Obama.

[nyc 4 Biden]

22. if we're going to change it, it should remain GD:P ....

so...

GD: Politics
GD: Politeness (maybe not)

etc...

[Sebastian Doyle]

23. GD:MD LLC

:evilgrin:

[Mass]

24. It used to be GD:Politics when I came to DU in 2005. It changed to GD:Primary somewhere in 2007

and then to GD:Presidency in 2009.

I am not sure why there should be an artificial separation between the presidency and the House and Senate. They are all about how to govern this country. The purism of some here always amazes me.