DU for decent and civilized people, 2010 short edition

[franksolich]

Introduction.  Welcome to the new DU for....., replacing an older edition that first came out in 2008.  Given the increasing popularity of P-J Comix's most excellent DUmmie FUnnies, the Best/Worst of DU forum on conservativeunderground, and the DUmpster and DUmping Ground here at conservativecave, it is important that such a guide to watching the DUmmies in DUmmieland be up-to-date in time for the coming mid-term elections.

One supposes the first question is, why bother watching the DUmmies, as compared with watching paint dry or changing the air in the tires on the automobile?

There are several good reasons for watching the DUmmies, the first being that DUmmieland is after all a news message-board, and one is always curious for news.

And then watching the DUmmies, who represent the Democrat party and the liberal viewpoints, gives one an insight in "opposition" research; what the other side is up to.  Tied in with this reason for watching the DUmmies is that of "quality controlling" the DUmmies--examining and testing the DUmmies to be sure they are what they allege themselves to be; open-minded, tolerant, socially conscious, honest, respectful of diversity, those sorts of virtues.

For the record, it needs stated that in nearly nine years of the existence of DUmmieland, no DUmmie at any time has ever met, much less exceeded, any standards the DUmmies they themselves have set as being particularly enlightened or illuminating.

Perhaps, however, the most popular reason for watching the DUmmies is simply for sheer entertainment, as DUmmieland can sometime be funnier than the comics-strips in the daily newspaper, or a half-hour television comedy.

For a select minority of DUmmie-watchers, DUmmieland is a rich field for scientific research into matters anthropological, sociological, and psychological.

Terminology.  "DUmmie" and "DUmmieland" are the widely-used names for the primitives on Skins's island; "primitive" and "Skins's island" tend to be favored by those more interested in the scientific aspects of DUmmies and DUmmieland, rather than in their comedy relief.

"DUmmie" and "primitive" are interchangeable, and one uses the term with which one is most comfortable using.  "DUmmieland' and "Skins's island" likewise.

Despite this interchangeability, there are subtle differences in meaning.

For those who see the primitives as silly or stupid or ridiculous or laughable, "DUmmie" fills the bill.  For those who see the DUmmies as coarse cruel savage barbaric beasts, "primitive" works best.

"DUmmieland" reminds one of a wockenkuckenkuckensheim, a cloud-cuckooland where all is fantastically unreal.  "Skins's island" reminds one of a remote patch in the middle of a vast ocean, far isolated from the real world, the rest of the world.

But at all times, there is no "rule" about usage of these terms; one simply uses those one is most comfortable using.

In addition to general terminology, there are some who refer to particular DUmmies by names other than the DUmmies' actual screen-names.  This is because the DUmmies are singularly lacking in imagination and taste, and usually have screen-names utterly inappropriate for themselves.

Some of these re-baptismals are obvious--"my fellow alum Skins" for "Skinner," for example--and some not so obvious--"Pedro Picasso" for "Atman," for an example.

If one is confused about these multitudes of more-appropriate names, it is considered utterly acceptable to ask the DUmmie observer using a particular name for its origin, and the "official" name of the DUmmie.

The history of DUmmieland.  DUmmieland, or Skins's island, was founded in late January 2001, after Alphonse Capote Gore had tried to steal Florida, and failed.  DUmmieland was a joint creation of both the Democrat Leadership Council (DLC) and my fellow alum Skins, "Skinner."

Having ascertained that the Democrats had lost the presidential election of 2000 because of the nuttier fringe elements in the Democrat party turning off decent and civilized people, it was decided that while it was not wise to disavow such supporters of the Democrat party and Democrats, it was a good idea to hide them away from the public view, so as to not offend.

Stash the DUmmies into the attic, so to say.

And hence the purpose of Dummieland, Skins's island: to identify, attract, and segregate the wilder, more rabid, elements into one central place far away from sight of the real world.

The structure of DUmmieland.  DUmmieland, or Skins's island, is owned by a private entity whose composition has always been vague, other than that my fellow alum Skins, "Skinner," is the boss of the firm.

My fellow alum is assisted by two known others, "EarlG," or Lord Marblehead, and "Elad," or the elusive enigmatic one.  It is probable that a "board of directors" exists, perhaps someone representing the DLC, so as to provide guidance to the "executive board."

Below the owners and employees of DUmmieland are moderators.  Unlike most message boards, the moderators are not allowed to make individual on-the-spot decisions about things (deleting a post, moving a post); it instead being "moderation by consensus."

The hoi polloi, the unterprimitiven, the DUmmies or primitives themselves, can be roughly separated into seven different categories (or tiers of primitivity), but for the casual observer of the DUmmies, it is not useful to describe those categories in this guide; there will later be given out a scientific analysis of Skins's island dealing with that sociological minutae.

Tools for watching the DUmmies.  The easiest way to watch the DUmmies, or primitives, in their natural state is simply by going to DUmmieland itself; alas, no link is provided here because my fellow alum might have a cow about it.

One can of course actually register to become a member of DUmmieland, but caution--not just anyone can get onto Skins's island.  The owners keep a close eye on newcomers, and at the slightest whiff of mischiefery, pfft! one is gone.

Most decent and civilized people however prefer to view DUmmieland and the DUmmies through the "filter" of forums less amenable to coarse language and other brutalities.  Such forums also allow decent and civilized people to make comments and remarks about the antics and Gross Barbarities of the DUmmies.

The oldest such forum is http://www.conservativeunderground.com/.  This site deals with topics other than simply DUmmieland, and one has to go to the Best/Worst of DU category, to find the primitives and others' observations of them.

The most famous such forums is undeniably http://dummiefunnies.blogspot.com/, the world-famous DUmmie FUnnies by the remarkably talented and witty P-J Comix, accompanied by the equally gifted Charles Henrickson and Paul Heinzman.

However, most read the DUmmie FUnnies at http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/bloggers-forum/index, a part of freerepublic, one of the oldest and certainly the largest political forum on the internet.  There are a great many things posted in the bloggers' forum there, and so one has to look for the DUmmie FUnnies, but it is well worth it, given the cornucopia of reader responses.

Finally, there are the DUmpster, http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/board,10.0.html, and the DUmping Ground, http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/board,40.0.html, here on conservativecave.  The Dumpster is the general forum for being amused by the DUmmies, or analyzing the primitives; the DUmping Ground, much smaller, is sort of an "encyclopedia" of DUmmieland and the DUmmies.

[franksolich]

An excerpt of this cross-posted at

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2396044/posts?page=1

if one is interested in reading additional comments, if any comments gotten.

[Karin]

alas, no link is provided here because my fellow alum might have a cow about it.

Why do you say this Frank?  We post a link to DU with every thread opened.  I thought it was sort of required. 

[franksolich]

Why do you say this Frank?  We post a link to DU with every thread opened.  I thought it was sort of required.

Oh.

I never thought of that.

It was a busy weekend, the mind juggling about sixty different things while I was writing this.

But I'll leave it as it is, as sarcasm.

[franksolich]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democraticunderground

Democratic Underground, also known as DU, is an online community for US Democrats and other progressives. Its membership is restricted by policy to those who are generally supportive of progressive ideals and support Democratic candidates for political office. DU was established on January 20, 2001, the day George W. Bush was inaugurated President.

According to Democratic Underground, as of June 2008, over 122,000 user accounts have been registered and over 38 million messages have been posted. DU publishes articles several days a week and has an online store, a directory of links, and forums where members may post on various topics of interest.

Forums

The DU Forums are sites for political and non-political discussions by registered DU users. As of January 2007, the number of individual posts in these forums exceeded 27,000,000. The main forums on DU have been re-arranged since the close of the 2004 US election season. They now include:

The Big Forums

This section is the most active. Latest Breaking News, General Discussion, and General Discussion: Politics (which superseded "General Discussion: Campaign 2004") are the largest and fastest moving forums on DU. The Big Forums also include The Lounge, a friendly forum for general non-political discussion, Editorials and Other Articles for op-eds written by forum users, a Wiki-like Research forum, and the Video forum which contains links to Youtube.

Topic Forums

This section contains single-topic issue forums. Popular forums under this heading include Election Reform, Guns, the Israeli/Palestine conflict, Political Campaigns, and September 11. Other topics include Education, Homeland Security, and Drug Policy. Some of the most popular forums under this topic are also some of the most controversial, and therefore the most closely moderated. (see below)

State & Country Forums

These provide a specific forum for each U.S. state, where state-wide and local issues are addressed. Residents and others with an interest in localized issues, such as congressional primaries and gubernatorial races, are encouraged to post questions in the state forums. Threads covering local news or events can be found in the state forums, and informal meetings of DU members are often coordinated from them. These "meet-ups" or "meets" include social gatherings, protest events, and political fundraisers. DU also provides forums for posters residing in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, as well as a catch-all "Democrats Abroad" forum. These serve a similar function to the U.S. state forums.

DU Groups

Open to donating members only, Groups of users may charter discussion forums for topics of mutual interest such as hobbies, fan clubs, and potential 2008 presidential candidates. Many of these forums cover non-political topics, such books, sports, and cooking, as well as political issues surrounding ethnicity and religion. These forums are generally not as fast moving as the "Big Forums".

An "Ask the Administrators" forum was maintained until April 26, 2005; this forum allowed users to pose questions to the board administrators. This forum has now been shut down by the administrators. A "Rules" page, a "Frequently Asked Questions" page, and a "Contact the Administrators" page showing the email addresses of the administrators have been substituted.

Administrators sometimes ban users for violating site policies.

New members can be confused by DU vocabulary which includes references to pop culture ("this thread needs more cowbell"), spelling that parodies other websites (such as "HUGH!", "series", and "cazy,") and famous images ("moran"), and long-running threads that have worked their way into DU lore ("dupe," "the kudzu thread").

Some common terms:

Bulletproof: The apparent ability of some members to flagrantly violate DU rules without punishment.

Tombstoned: To be banned from posting.

Repug/Rethug: Short for "Repugnican" or "Rethuglican". Both are pejorative neologisms for Republican.

Freeper: A term specifically for a member of the Free Republic website. Sometimes turned into the pejorative "FreepTard".

Kick: To post to a thread to send it to the top of the forum.

Gungeon: The Guns Discussion board under Topic Forums. From "Gun Dungeon".

The Research Forum includes a "DU Glossary".

When a new user posts a message, the message header shows the total number of posts that user has made. At the 1,000 post mark the total number of posts are no longer shown in the message header. The total number of posts a user has made can be found in his or her profile. Some prolific members have written many thousands of posts.

The website is owned by Democratic Underground, LLC (a limited liability company), and run by David Allen, who posts under the screen name "Skinner" while on the boards and handles most of the issues relating to the forums. The other two administrators, "EarlG" (of Washington, D.C.) and "elad" (of Portland, Oregon), handle the articles and technical issues, respectively.

DU runs quarterly fund drives. Everyone who donates is recognized with a gold star next to his or her user name for the succeeding twelve months. Before each fund drive, members are invited to suggest charities that might benefit, and ten percent of the money raised is donated to those charities. For example, after the fund drive in the fourth quarter of 2009, Skinner announced that a total of $1,855 had been donated to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Modest Needs (helping low-income workers), Treehouse for Kids (aiding children in foster care), the Remote Area Medical Foundation (providing medical services in remote areas), America's Vet Dogs (providing service dogs to veterans), and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

Discussions from posters at DU have drawn criticism. One example of this was the dialog about the 2004 tsunami disaster, in which a few posts explored the possibility of "earthquake weapons". The posts were reported by The New York Times and Fox News. The DU administrators deleted these posts and the threads were locked.

The administrators officially disavowed what they called "kooky tsunami conspiracy theories". They added, "One wonders why the author [of the Times article] did not spend five minutes over at Free Republic and instead write an article about how conservatives think the tsunami was some sort of retribution from God, or how Muslims deserved it." The administrators also sent a letter to the Times, which was printed.

Another example is the conspiracy theories revolving around the August 2006 terror plot to blow up airliners between the UK and the US, which received mention in USA Today. Some posters felt that the American government's push to release the announcement of the plot was a conspiracy to bump Joe Lieberman's primary loss out of the news cycle.

The site also saw criticism when, in 2003, a poster explained why he or she wished to see continued bloodshed in Iraq, and in the days following the death of Ronald Reagan, when profane comments appeared that expressed joy over his passing.

Two posters to Democratic Underground were investigated by the Secret Service for posts that, according to David Allen, violated the DU policy stating "Do not post messages that could be construed as advocating harm or death to the president or other high-ranking official in the United States government." Neither the comments nor the posters' identities are public knowledge, but David Allen said that both members had been banned prior to DU being notified of the investigation, and that no subpoenas have been issued to date.

[rich_t]

Are there actually any decent folks that post on DU?

The few times I've ever visited there, it seemed to be populated by fanatics.