The segregation of GDP has been an unqualified disaster

This forum is now utterly worthless. It used to be awful, but now it's almost random... signal to noise ratio off the charts.

The thing is, there were people who liked to talk about the election in GD, and others who liked to talk about it in GDP.

Each forum had its own flavor and cast of characters.

But now the volume of posts in GDP is so high that only the most vacant flame-bait can attract attention, a survival-of-the-fittest dynamic that leads, and will lead, to more and flamier flame-bait. Meanwhile. political posters who put a lot of work or thought into their efforts have no pay-off for being thoughtful, because in the new double-volume of the forum things that don't outrage the sensibilities are bound to plummet like meteors.

But apparently some GD users couldn't bear to have their endless posts about amber alerts and gruesome true-crime stories interrupted with political discussion. (Actual post from today: "Two charged with stealing pet dog and eating it")

The result has been to finish off all possibility of DISCUSSION of Democratic Party politics at Democratic Underground.

I said that making GD: P into a ghetto was a good idea, but I was wrong.

It sucks.

After Feb. 5th, all of this will be pretty much over.

I expect Clinton to get 55-60% of delegates on Feb 5, and Edwards to get a few. (8-10%?)

So though Clinton will be the odds on favorite, the delegate race will be way too close for anyone to ease off the pedal.

We may be going to Ohio.

Now I/P or the 9/11 forum, those are "ghettos". But this one is still up front and easy to find. There's two camps stirring up most of the shit in here, and we all know who they are. It's primary season. I didn't post here in 2004, but I read the board often enough to know it was pretty much the same.

A ghetto can, in theory, be a nice place. Doesn't usually work out that way, but it's not an intrinsically negative term.

The 9/11 forum is more like a dungeon.

Yeah, I suppose that it is. Though, it wasn't exactly a walk in the park beforehand.

due to the traffic increase. So the atrocity posts are higher and higher profile.

I was going through pages 2 and 3 looking for things to kick, and noting that posts that actually say something have been attracting much less attention than they were a week ago.

In GDP it was rare for almost anything to not attract some volume of replies because it was such an intimate forum.

It does seem that "good" posts are disappearing in minutes and that the only stuff that survives is either ridiculous flamebait or a post that will garner half a hundred "me, too!" responses.

The depth of responses also seems to be dropping rapidly. Some people seem to have devolved to knee-jerk posting the same one-line snark in every thread, even if it's completely unrelated.

Maybe it's a temporary thing caused by the "newness" of the process. We can hope, I guess.

It's like practice-boxing to get in shape to take on the Champ. Only you get to take off the gloves. And use knives. And steel pipes. And brass knuckles. And guns. And not get hurt for more than a few minutes.

If I was a Republican, I wouldn't be watching this and laughing. I'd be watching this and wondering how any of the Republican candidates can hope to survive the monster they have turned the Democratic Party into.

We are strong. We gnaw on our own ass for breakfast and it grows back by lunch time. By 2012, they will be lucky to hold ten seats in the House and two in the Senate.

--p!

Anything with any meat falls off the page.

I never expected any discussion to happen in GDP the night of a primary, for instance, because there would be a high volume of "WE WON!!!" posts... as there should be.

But it seems like the volume in GDP is now like a constant primary night.

More like a bulletin board than a discussion forum.

But even with that, I still end up seeing a whole page of "YOUR CANDIDATE SUCKS"... "NO!!!YOURS SUCKS"...posts.

And once you find a good discussion KABOOM! It's a flame fest. I've actually put a few people on ignore, for the first time ever...just so I can read the GDP more easily.

They even tried near "no moderation" for a while to see if it would let off enough steam to settle down.

That. Was ugly.

Most of it is worthless anyway.

I think I was blocking it out. :)

That was pretty brutal, though I have to admit that the past few days have seemed to rival the old Dean/Clark wars of '04. We seem to be devolving to the same one-liner, knee-jerk responses in every thread that mentions a particular candidate.

"Clark's a Republican plant!" ;)

I think the population of concern trolls in GD being added to those in GDP created a critial mass of concern.

Just my theory.

I do believe they are posting more frequent concern, though. Perhaps they are emboldening each other.

As DU becomes more popular, the number of posters increases, and thus the proportion of bullshit increases with it.

The internet is a nearly free resource, like the village green. No way around it, really.

I tried to advocate strongly for a forum, a corner SOMEWHERE where people that actually wanted to communicate and exchange ideas could gather and talk to the other side.

Somewhere free of the "agenda" posters. Although sometimes we can all slip into that mode, what I was advocating was a place to go when we were NOT in that mode.

In the end, I tried to make a point about how ridiculous it had become by posting a thread called "Did Anyone Else Thing Hillary Sounded Angry, Almost Hysterical?" My point was to see who would run with such an obviously disgusting angle and I was surprised to see many or my fellow Obama supporters go with it big time.

Those who called me a sexist were right. I posted REALLY OVERT sexist flamebait to see who would use it and who would criticize it. But I think the larger point is that there are supporters on BOTH SIDES that knowingly say things they don't mean just for their agenda. We all know what the real bullshit is and some don't want it anymore.

In the end, I am glad to have a place to go to (GD) where people are not acting like this. I am sorry that GDP has gotten even worse, but it was already unusable 2 weeks ago.

Then you can see the new ones come up and not miss them just because they're not in the midst of a flame-war.

If there are any where you're interested in following the back and forth, you can bookmark them and check back, right?

Just a thought.

that will still lead to most posts being in bullshit flamebait threads.

especially since the default view is last-reply-sorted. It only helps you individually not miss other threads.

This isn't the solution.

Something drastic has to be done. But this wasn't it.

It was like this last time and it will be like this until a nominee is chosen.

There are issue folders for "Democrats" and "Politics/Campaigns" that might work better for you if you want thoughtful discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=296
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=108

Long-time posters seem to have disappeared from this place, probably for good reason.