http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4798898The parts in bold and italic are Skins's, not mine.
Skinner ADMIN (1000+ posts) Wed Feb-27-08 03:09 PM
Original message
A few reminders about the Democratic presidential primaries, and the general election to come.
This has been a long, intense primary season both here on DU and elsewhere. I get the feeling that a lot of people are feeling a bit fatigued by it all. Nerves are frayed, tempers are short, and some of us occasionally post things on DU that we know we should not (and end up regretting later).
At this point we don't know how much longer this primary season is going to last. It's been going on for quite a while now, and the DU admins feel that the time has come for us to post a few reminders. None of this is new. Some of you will know it already, but some of you will not.
THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW NOW, WHILE THE PRIMARY IS STILL BEING CONTESTED.
I think the most important thing you need to know is that (contrary to what some may say), this website still has rules and the moderators work very hard to enforce them. But you need to understand how those rules are enforced. Rule enforcement here on DU depends to a large extent on the active participation of the community. If you see a rule violation, you need to click the Alert link on that post. The alert link appears in the bottom left corner of every post when you are logged in to DU. This website gets tens of thousands of new messages posted every day, and we do not pre-screen or systematically post-screen any of them. If nobody clicks the Alert link, the offending post will almost certainly remain on the website.
The same goes for alleged trolls. If you think someone is a troll, you need to click the Alert link on one of their posts to let the moderators know. The moderators have access to a great deal of information about each person who posts here. Chances are, if you think someone is a troll, then that person is probably already on the moderators' collective radar screen. But alerts often provide useful information, so you are encouraged to send them. Keep in mind that the moderators may not ban a person as quickly as you might like -- in fact, they might not ban someone at all. It is their job to be fair to everyone, to weigh all the evidence, and to come to a consensus before taking action.
Many rule violations (like personal attacks against other members of this website) are obvious, but some are very subjective. During primary season, the moderators' most difficult job is deciding which attacks against Democratic candidates or their supporters should be shut down. After much trial-and-error, the DU administrators have come to the conclusion that during primary season we should give our members a fair amount of leeway to discuss the primary candidates, their supporters, and their positions -- whether those discussions be positive or negative. Obviously, this approach is not perfect, but for a number of reasons we believe it is the least bad of many imperfect options. You would be wise not to take this as a green light to post a bunch of inflammatory crap. Be advised that we do have minimum standards, as many former members learned only after it was too late.
Having done this job for more than seven years -- including one previous presidential primary season -- the DU administrators are realistic about our ability to unilaterally make things "better" here on DU. (We can't.) So if you are waiting for the administrators and moderators to swoop in and ban all the perceived "trolls" (who curiously all seem to support the candidate that you do not), you will be sorely disappointed. My advice is that you try to skip past the first four stages of presidential primary grief (denial, anger, bargaining, and depression), and jump straight to acceptance: During primary season intra-party squabbling is both inevitable and perfectly normal. Democratic Underground -- and the Democratic party as a whole -- will be fine.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN HERE ON DU WHEN WE HAVE A PRESUMPTIVE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE.
Let me be clear: We expect our members to support the Democratic nominee for president. This expectation has been written into our rules since as far back as 2002, and we aggressively enforced this rule in 2004 after it became clear that John Kerry was the presumptive nominee. In other words, this is not a secret. If you are at all shocked or surprised by this, then you have not been paying very close attention. Don't even bother trying to convince us otherwise. This was decided long ago, we've already heard all the opposing arguments over and over a thousand times, and we're not going to change our policy. Here is how this will work:
At some point between now and the Democratic convention in August, one of the two remaining Democratic front-runners will drop out of the race, and the remaining candidate will become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. When we have a presumptive nominee, the time for fighting on DU will come to an end. The squabbling will not drag on until the "official" nomination at the convention in August. The transition to general election mode begins when we have a presumptive nominee. And we have no doubt that the vast majority of our members -- regardless of which candidate you support in the primaries -- will be glad to move forward and support the nominee.
We understand that not everyone will be prepared to immediately put the primaries behind us. There will be some jerks on the winning side who insist on gloating. And there will be some sore losers on the other side who will want to keep attacking the nominee. Once we have a presumptive nominee, those people will have one week to get it out of their systems. We believe that a one-week transitional period is more than fair for those of you who cannot switch gears easily or quickly. After this week-long adjustment period, we're done.
At that point, the moderators and admins will step in and shut down the primary infighting. The vast majority of people on this site will be glad to be done with the primaries. Sadly, a very small number of bitter partisans will not be able to let it go, and will likely be removed from this community. Few people will miss them when they are gone.
As usual, we will continue to permit constructive criticism of the Democratic nominee and of other Democratic candidates and officeholders. We will also continue to permit sincere, non-disruptive expressions of ambivalence toward the nominee. But we will not permit politically motivated attacks designed to tear down the Democratic presidential nominee.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope it addresses many of the questions that you have about the presidential election. If you have any questions, please feel free to post them in this thread and we will do our best to respond.
Thank you for your understanding, and thank you for being a part of our community.
David Allen ("Skinner")
Democratic Underground Administrator
You know, sometimes when my fellow alum lays down the law to the primitives, it's almost as if he's issuing a Papal Bull.
But popes issue Bulls; Skins issues bull manure.
