A call to action...

[Flying Squirrel]

I've seen it before, people who think they can't make a difference so why try. With regard to DU, specifically, they bemoan the inattention that their cause seems to get from the administrators of the site. They posted once in ATA, or someone else did; there was no response, therefore they don't care and nothing anyone says will change anything.

Well maybe nothing will change, but maybe it will; and there's no way of knowing if you don't try.

So if you're concerned that the jury system may be, ahem, systematically silencing strong Black voices on DU, then speak up - whether you're Black, White or Purple!

I will now post here what I posted in ATA, NOT to get into a Meta discussion (and in keeping with that, I won't respond to critiques of the ATA post) but to hopefully inspire DUers of any color who feel a connection with the AA community to add their voices in support of a less draconian system of punishment for jury hides.

This was my post, speaking only from my own perspective; please feel free to add your own in ATA and perhaps together we can change some minds.

RE: Criteria for receiving a time-out

As noted here,

http://betterment.democraticunderground.com/118722616

Many people feel that the jury system is being unjustly used to silence strong voices.

Is there currently any discussion of the possibility of tweaking the system?

It seems to me that 6 hides out of 489 posts is obviously quite different than 6 hides out of, say, 49 posts. Then you add in the fact that 3 of those were 4-3 hides, and the system looks pretty arbitrary.

Rather than allowing a computer program to decide to stop a person from posting, shouldn't a real person evaluate things once a person gets the requisite number of hides, and decide whether such an extreme consequence is warranted? And isn't it possibly just as disruptive and detrimental to DU to continue to allow people to be silenced who perhaps would not have been if a live person had made the call?

One of the things I most admired about DU when I first came here was how carefully the moderators discussed my posts which were causing a big disruption, and respectfully asked me to cease and desist from that line of posting (which I willingly agreed to do) rather than just, say, hiding/deleting my posts and/or banning me. Real human decisionmaking, a genuine respect for all DU members which it seems has gone by the wayside sonewhat, better due process... Take these things away and replace them with a computerized process, it's like "zero-tolerance" policies - so dehumanizing. I find it hard to believe that DU cannot do any better.

Good luck to us all!

[Number23]

1. Bring back the mods and increase the number of people on the jury blacklist.

For non-donors, increase the jury blacklist to 15; 30 for donors. Those are two things I think would make a huge difference.

Thanks so much for this thread. Hope you get a response in AtA.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. I love the idea

Of increasing the jury blacklist!

[brer cat]

2. Thanks for the nudge.

I will start working on one. I just need to keep calm...I'm feeling pretty hot now and that is not the way to approach the admins.

Thanks for encouraging us to not just give up.

[MADem]

4. I would like to see the process by which DUers attain "full citizenship" here be a bit elongated.

Any punk wanting to cause trouble can open up an account, post a couple of hundred posts each day (stuff like "I agree" and "What a good idea!" and "+1!!!!" and "Thank you for posting that," and "Wow--that's news to me! How interesting..." and ramp up to the sixty percent jury duty shot in NO time.

I think the admins ought to consider changing the dynamic for the sixty percent jury participation shot to 1000 posts AND six month's of membership--whichever comes LAST. That would put troublemakers on notice for six months, they couldn't create socks and just flame 'em out and create another one to wreak havoc so easily.

Make them WORK for it--the longer they work, the easier the n'er do wells are to spot. They just can't help it. Shenanigans delayed are shenanigans denied. It also gives MIRT a longer look at them....and speaking of MIRT, they ought to be able to look askance at anyone with six months or less under their belt here. They ought to be part of the 'elongated' process, too.

The moderator process wasn't all rosy. Back in the day, stuff got hidden. We didn't see the ugliness. But there it was, lurking in the background. Just below the surface.

I'd rather know who I need to look out for, even though it is upsetting. I would like to see the admins do a few more "reversals" than they've done to date (and they have done a few rare ones), particularly during this contentious primary season. I don't like seeing black voices silenced in an unfair fashion--and I do believe Bravenak and others have gotten some very bogus hides, here. Having the crust to HIDE a post from a group HOST within that host's own group? That was outrageous. The person alerting on that should have been tombstoned.

[pnwmom]

5. I don't understand how it should be possible for an outsider to hide a group host's post in his own group.

The rules should be changed to stop that.

[MADem]

6. Or at least to mandate an automatic-on-request admin review.

Where the admins would be responsive and contextual.

"Dear admins, HOST post alerted on/hidden--please review" kind of thing.

A host should not get a post hidden for just doing her job. And that IS what happened.

It's entirely possible that a jerkhost could use Host immunity to lash out at fellow DUers for shits-n-giggles. It only takes one to ruin it!

[Number23]

8. Yep, yep and yep.

Agree 100% on the six months, agree 100% with the admin reversals.

And the FIRST reversal they need to do is 1SBM's hidden post in response to a disgusting post from someone with apparently way more time on their hands than character openly and blatantly declaring 1SBM to be a "homophobe" who was "blocked from the gay forum" when NONE of that shit is true.

Two reversals should happen there: 1SBM's post defending himself against that smear should be UNhidden and that foul post should be. I'd love to see something happen, a suspension of sorts, against the 5 jurors who voted to leave that post alone too. One of whom was so emboldened that he POSTED THE JURY RESULTS in the thread. I could not have agreed more with indydem's post to the instigator in that thread.

[MADem]

9. And the next one they need to do is yours!

And...oh yeah...FREE BRAVENAK!!!

[DonCoquixote]

7. I was asked to post this here

I posted this reply to general discussion.

Skinner, now hear this

It's one thing to feed the trolls on DI who blatantly brag about attacking people on here, but it is another to allow the Jury system to be so abused that even the people that DU are supposed to provide a haven for have none. This hide was a blatant bit of abuse. To compare to another high profile event, this is not like a certain poster for New York City that admittedly tried to be too "cunning" to insult Hillary using the gender equivalent of the "n" word. Even people like me who are not too fond of Hillary could see "come on skipp, you did the crime, now you do the time." The only thing this guy did was say "I am not so and so."

Now, HOW is that some TOS violation? Are Black people not even allowed to say that are not someone else? Is the very identity subject to jury mobs? It would be one thing if we heard from Mirt that he was someone, because we know you can look under the hood and go "ok, it's him." But this was a jury mob. Are you saying that you do not have the power to look and at least see the true identity, or , are you simply wiling to let the lynch mobs have fun because you are scared of them? If the latter, than batten down the hatches, because this inch you are giving will soon become a mile, especially as the bigots on here have gotten very comfortable on the internet. What is worse is, in the short term, you may keep your books in balance, but just like PBS, whenever you allow the right wing to get a little bit of land, they start overgrowing everything like Kudzu.

If I may humbly add a few points to this, when folk like Seabeyond, 1strongblackman, bravenak get the hammer, there is so small amount of cheers, even outright grave dancing. However, I still remember the wailing and poetic odes when the said "cunning" poster got banned. You would think they shot JFK and his puppies. Heaven knows MLK's quotes have been used and abused, but there is still some truth to the line that "the silence of our friends" is loud. Yes, there are some people like me that have raised hell, but when I read someone try to whitesplain or mansplain to me that these people brought it on themselves, or worse, when some self described working class hero threatened to "straighten me out", it makes it very clear who the favorite children are. What is worse is that WE, those NOT the centre-right majority, have been the most loyal soldiers, we are not the ones that put up posts that say "you know, so and so libertarian has a point" which is often just their way of saying they can play coy on election day. Yet, because they have money, we seem to be counted as less valuable than them, perhaps only 3/5 ( historical reference put in to show a point.)

Well Skinner, if you want to chase the people who dangle birds in their hand rather than protect those of us in your tree, than we can play coy too. I am the sort of person that, poor as I am, would probably buy a star. However, this Jury system needs surgery, stat, even if it is some temp first aid measure to slow down the bleeding during the election. Until I see some of this, I will not feel good feeding the fire, especially when the main value of DU is to give a voice to the voiceless, instead of enabling and helping those who want to give them another beating for their jollies.