Anyone here ever visited Discussionist or the Gun Group?

[kentuck]

If so, how many posts did you make there?

I tried Discussionist but they seemed to be just a bit too right-wing and slightly lacking in human skills.

Did you leave these places and come to DU and are you happy that you did?

[Turborama]

1. I can honestly say no. Never. n/t

[Wounded Bear]

2. Yes to DI, no to Gun Group...

DI, I agree with your prognosis. Posted a few times, but they had roving RWers defending the cause that were quick to swoop on 'deniers' such as me. When my computer crashed a couple of months ago, I lost the link, never reconnected.

No interest in guns, and as a certified "gun-grabber" I don't feel I'd be welcome in the group.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. I'm over at Discussionist every other day...

and the trick is to never take it too seriously.

[Lurks Often]

8. It's wise not to take DU or DI too seriously

or for that matter, just about any discussion board.

[LannyDeVaney]

4. I'd rather drive a nail through my forehead

I avoid EVERY forum that is lacking in human skills.

[GGJohn]

5. I post there now and then when I get tired of all the discourse on DU. eom.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. No and which gun group?

I trashed one after accidentally posting in it, but occasionally post in the gun control one.

[Brickbat]

7. Yes to both.

[Aristus]

9. I lasted three days in Discussionist.

The repeated use of the word 'libtard' convinced me to leave. At least I kept my DU user name from being bogarted and used by some right-wing blockhead.

[Hekate]

18. I'm glad I chose an alternate user name when it was new. I didn't stay.

The question is, why has the original DU been allowed to devolve? Discussionist can do what they will, but I want the Democratic put back into DU.

[Aristus]

21. The trollers have developed a skill far out of proportion to their intelligence

for managing to go unnoticed as trolls for quite some time.

They usually surface as third-way advocates, or concern trolls, or "I like Hillary/Bernie, but..."-types, or some other pseudo-Democratic wolf in sheep's clothing.

[bigwillq]

10. I have never visited Discussionist

I don't know what the Gun Group is.

[lumberjack_jeff]

11. I have almost 5000 posts at DI.

If I was looking for an agreement board rather than a discussion board, I wouldn't spend so much time in GD/P.

[Hortensis]

13. You'd have seen it then. What is their fascination

with DU? Contempt normally leads to dismissal, but the handful of times I went there they acted more like an obsessed ex- boyfriend who can't stop stalking and spying.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. By far the majority of posters there have found out about it through DU

Many are people who were banned from DU who kept reading DU, and then saw there was a related site they could post on again. Others come from sites that exist to be 'anti-DU', like Conservative Cave, and they post there to get their anti-DU stuff actually read by liberals. A few DUers use it as somewhere they can say things they can't on DU.

These are the types who will start threads about DU. In addition, you have many normal DUers who post there, and they'll keep such threads going, just by being reasonable about DU.

[lumberjack_jeff]

20. In fairness, I see a similar degree of "fascination" with DI, here

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=DI+site:democraticunderground.com

6,800 hits.

At least their obsession can somewhat be explained by the fact that many of them actually are "ex-boyfriends", cast out of DU.

A major part of the reason that liberals like me are outnumbered at DI is because DU'ers a) dislike defending their views and b) comply with the peer pressure lest they be contaminated in the eyes of their DU'er peers.

[Hortensis]

22. Thanks for the insight, Lumber and Muriel.

It all makes sense. Except that DU really does not have a similar degree of "fascination" with DI. To the contrary, I have trouble remembering that DI exists, or sometimes just what its name is, for lack of common mention on DU. Plus, when it is discussed, that discussion as often as not relates to something on DI that is about DU itself.

Whatever. I did visit DI when DU was down a few months ago, thinking broader ideologies might be good, and I did post a couple of times, but that was all.

As for broadening the discussion, there really isn't any difference between conservative and far left need to spend endless hours slandering the Democrats/liberals/Hillary, so that was neither reason to stay or reason to leave. But the admittedly minor but real forum theme of spying on and gossiping about people at DU, even giving them special DI nicknames, was repellent, and also suggestive that of the two DU was "the" place. I figured why talk about it when you just can be here?

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. I gave up on Discussionist after a jury left a call to murder French imams 1-6

I nearly got to 2,000 posts, but that high support for extrajudicial murder was just too much for me. There are too many people there who are typical Trump fans.

[Marrah_G]

14. I think I would have liked discussionist when I was younger

I think it's a good place for people who really like to argue and debate with republicans.

[Yo_Mama]

16. Discussionist can be very good. Never been to Gun Group - don't know what it is.

As for Discussionist, here's a thread from today:
http://www.discussionist.com/1014246583

It refers to the Pakistani religious authority blocking yet another law that would protect women:
http://www.oann.com/top-pakistani-religious-body-rules-womens-protection-law-un-islamic/

A powerful Pakistani religious body that advises the government on the compatibility of laws with Islam on Thursday declared a new law that criminalizes violence against women to be “un-Islamic.”
...
“The whole law is wrong,” Muhammad Khan Sherani, the head of the Council of Islamic Ideology said at a news conference, citing verses from the Koran to point out that the law was “un-Islamic.”

The 54-year-old council is known for its controversial decisions. In the past it has ruled that DNA cannot be used as primary evidence in rape cases, and it supported a law that requires women alleging rape to get four male witnesses to testify in court before a case is heard.

There are things you cannot say on DU, and things that you cannot post. But they deserve discussion.

The four-male-witnesses requirement is Sunni. If a woman accuses a male of rape, but cannot produce four male witnesses to support her testimony, she is considered guilty of zina (illicit consensual sex), the hudud penalty for which is flogging in public.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudud

[Lizzie Poppet]

17. Frequently, for both.

For a good few months, I was posting a lot more on DI than DU. Pluses and minuses. Yes, there's an awful lot of toxic RW nonsense. But there's also far, FAR less of a sense of having to walk on eggshells all the time, to cover your ass. Despite there being a much greater political divide between posters there (or so I'd thought until this shitshow of a primary), alert swarming, frivolous alerts, irresponsible jurors, etc. have actually declined there over time...and gotten really bad here.

I post in the "gungeon" from time to time. Not so much for a while. It's kind of spammed into uselessness with Googledumps from a couple anti-gun folk on a daily basis, and there's virtually no actual discussion...just two groups talking past each other.

I haven't been posting nearly as much on DI lately, either. But I suspect I'll be taking a hiatus from here at some point (should Hillary become the nominee...), probably to return after the GE. May or may not make up the time on DU. Better idea: get off the goddamn computer!

[CTyankee]

19. tried, didnd't like DI. Trashed Gun Group and Men's Group.

Last edited Sat Mar 5, 2016, 05:44 PM - Edit history (1)

The gun thing is personal for me, having lost a niece to gun violence. Couldn't put up with the whining in the Men's group.

[kentuck]

23. The reason I asked?

Sometimes it seems that Discussionist has taken over DU. Perhaps it is just me but it seems that trivial posts can sometimes overwhelm interesting and important posts? Trolls have learned how to hijack and minimize important issues. I think they have integrated DU to an unhealthy extent. In my opinion, too much tolerance is given to posters whose main goal is nothing but disruption and snark. Just my opinion. Maybe it is just my imagination?

[hfojvt]

33. there has always been a lot of snark on DU

It may be the glory days syndrome, but what I think has taken over DU more and more - is the TV. Whatever the TV decides is the issue du jour, well GD usually follows suit.

It always seems like every six months somebody would post a thread about how "DU is not what it used to be". The past gets glorified like that. When you first fall in love with the place there is so much that is new and so much that is awesome. After a while though you take things for granted that you used to find new and exciting, and other things come up that you find annoying.

But here is my glory days anecdote. When I first stumbled across DU, drawn here by the top 10 conservative idiots and hated.com I remember reading a thread. There was one person who wrote a three or four paragraph argument, and I thought, "yeah, they made some good points". Then the other person responded and I thought "damn, that first argument got trumped, big time". It was like a chess match of ideas between two very good players, and I wanted to hang out with those people.

Only one of the debaters do I remember though. That was NSMA. For me, that was like love at first read.

I just don't know that we have debates like that any more, at least not in the big forums. Or if we do, it is hard to find them in all the poo flinging.

I remember my complaint from 2009. I wrote a response to Bobby Jindal's response to Obama. Meanwhile GD settled into a dozen threads about the name Piyush. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5133615

[Fred Drum]

35. snark ... this may be self referencing

factually, DU and DI are "integrated" , at least at the corporate level

sarcasm can be subtle

[ileus]

24. Don't know what the "discussionist" is.

[PoliticAverse]

28. It's a general political discussion site operated by the same people that run DU.

http://discussionist.com/

[HughBeaumont]

25. You couldn't pay me enough.

Revising history so your team doesn't look bad and justifying economic policy that screws the middle/working/poor isn't "having your views challenged"; it's giving failure and dumbfuckery an undeserved platform.

[Agnosticsherbet]

26. Yes to both, but

I am not masochistic enough to stay in either.

[Recursion]

27. I lost interest with Discussionist after about 15 minutes

Though I acknowledge it serves the purpose of keeping all that stuff there rather than here.

The Gun Forum (we're dating ourselves by still calling it that) used to have better discussions than it does now; I haven't been back in a while.

[Loki]

29. Not without protection.

Nt

[littlewolf]

30. never been to DI .... and yes I post at RKBA

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

31. I might actually have a better time sticking needless in my junk. So no. nt

[Warren DeMontague]

32. DI was fun for a few days. I still check in over there on occasion, but if I'm rigorously honest

I admit that pretty much the only thing that makes me go post over there anymore is when some self-righteous yarblocko here goes into one of these stompin' rages about "SHUT THAT CESSPOOL DOWN, SKINNER! GOOD DEMOCRATS DONT POST OVER THERE BLARGLE DARGLE BLARG!"



As for the "gun group", I suspect they might object to your characterization of them as not, actually, part of DU, but that said I don't think I've posted in their once in 12 years. I'm far more concerned about the myriad very real threats to the 1st Amendment than the mostly imaginary ones to the 2nd.

[Fred Drum]

34. they ban me there occasionally

can't have a civilized conversation with republicans

by that , i mean I can't remain civilized , the stupid hurts too much

[malaise]

36. I went to Discussionist once

never posted, never went back