I have noticed that DU has gotten the spotlight in both left and right

[LittleApple81]

leaning reports (Malloy, Limbaugh, Kerry, etc. etc.)
Shouldn't we use this to concentrate our efforts on having a lot of meaningful, constructive POLITICAL and ISSUE related discussions?

Issues of interest to EVERYBODY like BBV, elections, taxes, Iraq, world, etc. should get long threads.

I am not saying that discussions on other issues are not interesting and appeal to a broad range of DUers, but it seems to me that many of our most interesting and strong participants' efforts some times get diluted because we get distracted by other types of posts.

[ewagner]

1. I'm trying n/t

[Atman]

2. We need to keep our Eyes on the Prize

I jumped into a thread yesterday and entitled my post "What the hell did we expect??????" It described how BushCo has no intention of ever getting to the bottom of the leaks, the lies, the false reports, ANY of it, because America voted for complete Republican control of the government. It was a call to action.

It got positive response. Just as people started getting into it, the moderator locked the thread because I used too many question marks in the Subject line, and wrote one sentence in all caps.

So, the Bushista regime is stealing our democracy, and this important message gets thrown into the wastebin by the punctuation police.

Here is the link. Maybe we can re-start the discussion. It is too important to worry about having too many question marks. Maybe MORE (oops, all caps!) questions would have kept us out of this mess in the first place.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=529307

[LittleApple81]

6. Please do not get discouraged. I am sure that you are creative enough

to write a thread subject line that is more telling of the subject of the post and that it still attracts participants.
I know it is sometimes difficult but, in my opinion, the rules for subject headings in new threads might improve the discussion after we get used to them.

[Atman]

9. Sorry, I'm still "new" to DU.

I read the TOS, actually! And, while I did read the part about excessive punctuation, I didn't really connect. And you are right, I could easily have re-worded the headline...but it was written in the passion of the moment. As for the caps, I am no newbie to the political message boards. I know the caps mean I am yelling.

I am yelling.

I am standing on a freakin' box of TIDE and screaming at the top of my lungs.

I think this issue is that important.


(BTW, can't the mod simply take out the offending question marks since the subject/post or was locking the only option? I mean, this is what was posted in the lock notice... "Exceptions may be allowed for threads about our shared political opponents and/or policies which we generally oppose."

So? Is it impicit here that this an issue in which we don't share a common purpose?

[charlie]

7. When a thread is locked

for reasons other than being flamebait, you're free to repost. Just paste the stuff into a new thread w/o the excess.

[Renew Deal]

3. Don't forget School Vouchers.

I am still not clear as to what's going on there.

[bryant69]

4. Come on

The great thing about using a bulletin board as a metaphor for the Democratic party is its flexibility. If they want to prove that Democrats don't love America, well, there are plenty of people who say just that. If they want to prove that we want to abandon capitalism, again there are lots of posts that say that. We represent the entire spectrum of liberal thought (although it does seem like the far leftists get more representation here than they do in the real world).

But it's all deciet. Because if you pull out one post saying "Boy America sucks and all the American sheeple are dumb morons and we should hang Rush up by his feat and throw stuff at him" there are dozens that go in disagree. You can't pull one post off a message board and pretend it is representative of the whole.

But now that I got that off my chest, it occurs to me that you might have meant that we should focus on those issues not because of media scrutiny but because we might have new members showing up curious--and we should focus on important stuff for their sake. Which makes sense.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[LittleApple81]

8. That is exactly what I meant.One of the reasons why I am "addicted" to DU

is the variety of opinions and concerns I find here. Thanks for your comments.

[Zero Gravitas]

5. Rush "Wormtounge" Limbaugh

Wormtoungue only sent his dead-from-the-neck-up followers over here because he knew we'd be so overwhlemed with schadenfreud at his being revealed as a big fat HYPOCRITE that traditional Liberal compassion for the suffering wouldn't not be much in evidence when he made his little self-pitying announcement. No other reason than to say "look how the liberal scum are celebrating, see how they are really just as full of hate as we are".

[arcane1]

10. it also gave his ditto-crites something to focus their anger on

rather than have to, gasp, THINK about the dumbass who had been fooling them for so long.

There ALWAYS has to be a target, an enemy, a scapegoat, for these people. Otherwise they might wake up

[Bombtrack]

11. alot less of certain types of threads

like random conspiracy/ anti-war, anti-israel rants