Do you ever feel like your on a fool's errand?

I don't mean to step out of line, but I've got to ask if putting an end to the thread derailments as you hope to do is really possible.  Politics and policy go hand in hand-for most of us I'd hope good policy is why we're interested in politics.  A lot of times we have to talk policy to understand a campaign or a poll or the dynamics of a race or to explain why some of us support certain candidates in the face of bad polls or fundraising.  The bottom line is, while you clearly don't like doing this sort of thing, as long as you run this site you're most likely going to be doing it without end, human nature and politics being what they are.  Trying to stamp that out seems ultimately to be an effor that will prove fruitless no matter what you do.  So I have to ask,why do it?

http://www.bluearkansasblog.com

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by: ARDem @ Sun Dec 20, 2009 at 07:41:49 AM UTC

I guess you could say

it's a matter of whether we can rise above our human nature and deal maturely with emotionally-intense issues.

Or whether we can let out our steam on other websites.

party: Democratic, ideology: moderate, district: CT-01

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by: Glenn Magus Harvey @ Sun Dec 20, 2009 at 08:02:59 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

personally, I would lean toward suspensions

rather than bannings. It's a fine line to walk as an admin, because David is right that repeated off-topic flamewars detract from the atmosphere of this board.

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by: desmoinesdem @ Sun Dec 20, 2009 at 15:01:06 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I like well-moderated and free-for-all discussion

boards. Where you get into trouble is when you try to do something in between.

I think that I have a pretty good idea of what kinds of comments David finds unacceptable, but the line between horserace politics and policy can be a very fine one, indeed. I occasionally find myself making comments that, taken alone, are purely about policy (or legislative process), but in the context of the overall discussion, are clearly relevant to horserace stuff. David doesn't really owe us a more thorough discussion of this, but I would feel more comfortable commenting if a had a better idea of what David is looking for.

At the end of the day, it's David's site, and he gets to moderate as he wishes. I respect that, and because I like SSP, I do my best not to fall afoul of what I understand the comment standards to be.  

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by: andgarden @ Sun Dec 20, 2009 at 18:05:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It's Human Nature

We all have expectations of what we want out of something that we created. If we are not getting the desired result, our instinctive reaction is to try and stop it. DavidNYC's warnings are a sign of someone who is trying to control the debate, and by definition he has a right to do so since this site is his creation.

Unfotunately, he didn't count on the instinctive impluse of people to respond to topics online in whatever forum they happen to be in. A riveting topic such as health care or climate change is bound to incite a reaction from anyone who has something to say, and I'm pretty sure the first thought of the culprit is NOT whether this is the proper forum for such a discussion.

This to me is also an example of someone trying to limit Internet freedom. He has a right to outline his agenda for this website, but to actively ban users from logging on here ever again seems draconian, even dictatorial in my view, for a mere Internet host to engage in.

And it is at this point I expect to be banned as well :-P

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by: Don't Tase Me, Bro! @ Mon Dec 21, 2009 at 16:43:41 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Here I think is the real problem

I think you are right in that it is hard to not debate politics without policy, and I think it is a safe assumption that we are going to slip and talk about policy every now and then.

What drives me nuts is when people take the accidental run of the mill policy comment and turn it into some giant debate.  Just because a person decides or goofs in adding in the policy aspect of something doesnt mean we as a community need to engage in that and turn it into some 50-comment long block that I skip over.  It always gets me all excited, wooo, this thread on MO-Sen has over 100 comments, I better grab a beer because we must really be delving into something about MO I know nothing about.  Oh, someone had to make a comment pertaining to health care so now everyone has to comment on it.

I think we are all just really tense now when it comes to politics as we are all very clearly unhappy with the direction our country is still going, we are unhappy with the Dem leadership, Obama, and yet we killed it in 06 and 08.  

But lets not turn this place into somewhere to release our frustrations, there are plenty of other lefty blogs that were created for that reason.

Yeah, now that I think about it, I havent learned something new in quite some time.  Instead of us talking about uber geeky geography, history, and political science topics, we all just bitch about the current state of our country.  I miss finding out the little quirks about a state and their voting habits, like is NV really that true blue, is it going to stay that way?  What evidence is there that the Dem shift is going to last?  None of that occurs, its all bickering and back and forth about Blue Dogs vs Progressives, Reid is a douchey Majority Leader, Lieberman needs to go in 2012, etc.  While some of those may be pertinent, the real down and geeky discussions are lacking now.

And Im calling bullshit on anyone who thinks it's too hard to debate politics without policy.  Ive been here for a few years now and have never been suspended, so it can be done.

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by: Andrew @ Mon Dec 21, 2009 at 19:58:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

As someone who's sometimes gone off-topic

I agree with you here:

I think you are right in that it is hard to not debate politics without policy, and I think it is a safe assumption that we are going to slip and talk about policy every now and then.

What drives me nuts is when people take the accidental run of the mill policy comment and turn it into some giant debate.  Just because a person decides or goofs in adding in the policy aspect of something doesnt mean we as a community need to engage in that and turn it into some 50-comment long block that I skip over.

I admittedly find it hard not to make what I think is a clarifying post now and then, in response to a sub-thread that is at best tangential to the subject matter here, and I promise to try harder not to do so, but I think I've gotten better at not initiating anything off topic, so it least that's an improvement.

And I really don't want this site to turn into another DailyKos. I already read and post there and like the fact that this is a different kind of site which can be based more on the real-world ways that electoral politics really work.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  

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by: Pan @ Mon Dec 21, 2009 at 22:40:41 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

That's where Im at

I admittedly find it hard not to make what I think is a clarifying post now and then

Sure, it is a slippery slope and this is what can cause the debates that ruin threads but I feel that I limit myself to those rare clarification/exclamatory posts that says my position and for such and such reasons and let that be that.

I guess I just dont see the need to debate people very often on policy, particularly with fellow Democrats/liberals.  To me it's Congress.  I can give all sorts of excellent speeches articulating my position, but it's not like Im going to change anyone's opinion.

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by: Andrew @ Mon Dec 21, 2009 at 23:37:06 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I found that during the primary

I was on safer ground avoiding policy completely and sticking to number crunching, maybe because I don't understand it in as much detail as some or maybe because my positions are a tad to the right of the majority in the netroots.

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by: conspiracy @ Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 00:20:26 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Speak for yourself Andrew

"I think we are all just really tense now when it comes to politics as we are all very clearly unhappy with the direction our country is still going, we are unhappy with the Dem leadership, Obama, and yet we killed it in 06 and 08."

First off although we hate Reid and ocasionally Pelosi, not everyone here hates Obama, not by a longshot. Anytime I read a off topic post about him there generally support him and like the guy so to say were ALL UNHAPPY with him, I flat out disagree and I call BS on that one. Sure there are some here that are disappointed with him. But for the most part people here like him and are behind him here. I don't see much dislike for him here. It's not a hatefest like how it is at OpenLeft regaarding him. So I believe your wrong on that one. Everyone else you said your right, espically about Reid (leadership).Your right on the money on that one but you were pretching to the choir on that one Andy.

As for whatever David and Co. makes the right move regarding bans/suspensions I stand behind him. One thing I admire about this site that it's truely a site where you can come to solely talk about election races and I like how David, James and Cristunity really hold the fort down on that rule. I myself was a victim of David's suspension hammer. Few weeks ago me and a man named Mark got into a heated debate about the sin tax and morality in a thread that certainly not about that. Meaningless to say I was granted a one week ban because of it. I was peeved by it but deserved it because I knew the strict rule about it and my emotion and anger towards Mark's comments ignored the rule. I believe David should hand down bans/suspensions if you go off topic severely like what we saw in the thread about the MO-Sen race. This is a place to talk elections, not policy. Policy talk is for places like TPM, Daily Kos, Fire Dog Lake and even though I despise the site: OpenLeft.

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by: tim thomasen @ Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 00:33:53 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Well sorry for exaggerating

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by: Andrew @ Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 02:54:41 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Don't be Sorry

You were just exaggerating on thst one part. You were right on the money on the leadership. I mean finding a guy or girl on here that actually think Harry Reid is doing a good job as leader is trying to find a needle in a haystack. Oh hell that's probally easier then finding someone why actually like 'Ol Harry.

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by: tim thomasen @ Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 03:01:27 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I still give him credit for one thing

He engineered the Jeffords switch in 2001. He'd been working on Jeffords for years, and he agreed to let Jeffords take over a committee that should have been Reid's if Jeffords switched.

Getting the Democrats control of the Senate for that 18 months (June 2001 to December 2002) was very important, because who knows what the GOP could have rammed through both houses of Congress when Bush's approval rating was above 70 percent.

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by: desmoinesdem @ Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 03:11:42 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yeah i'll give him credit on that

That was a good move on his and the Senate Democrats behalf. There I said one nice thing about him and it took me four years to do it lol.

Above 70 percent? I'm pretty sure after 9/11 Bush has like a 80-90 some percent approval rating. Scary times, scary times.

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by: tim thomasen @ Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 03:19:38 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Even I approved of Bush back then. Scary times, indeed.

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28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)

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by: californianintexas @ Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 17:26:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Well, for what it's worth, instead of just wanking about Reid,

I start to consider, what are politically viable methods of removing him from his position, and what are their consequences.

Also, I'm wondering whether I'll still be living in Connecticut come 2012, and wondering about Lieberman's likelihood to run as an indie versus a Republican, and stuff like that.

I have some of those same sentiments.  I think the important point is what we do with those sentiments.

party: Democratic, ideology: moderate, district: CT-01

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by: Glenn Magus Harvey @ Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 06:38:30 AM UTC

[ Parent ]