Gaming the Jury

[TygrBright]

Reaching under my desk and rootling around to find my 'Original DUer' ball cap... brushing off the dust and an old Milk Dud... punching it back into shape.... putting it on...::

....approaching soapbox doubtfully....

....testing a little before climbing on.... giving a little test bounce....

....leaning into the mic.... tapping it... jumping back from the feedback squeal and just barely not falling off soapbox... ("Hey, Elad! Can you adjust this thing? Test... test..... OK, that's better.&quot

....clearing throat....

Howdy.

I see as how the time's come to trot out some Institutional Memory, and throw in a little Rousing of the Rabble.

So lemme start with a disclaimer:

No, I have never seen anything quite like the level of appalling that live-stalking a DUer through the actual paper US Mail, with DU references and claims of membership, etc., manages to reach.

That's a new low.

Congratulations, whoever came up with that one, you're doing your job superbly well and I hope that whichever higher-up-in-the-food-chain helot of our Beloved Oligarchs you report to rewards you suitably. You've been remarkably effective at sowing pain, chaos, and dissension.

But you have not shut down this website.

You have not even materially impaired its operations or function.

The Admins of this website have eaten more serious threats than your vile, puerile action for lunch without a burp, and triumphed, and this website and the discourse it enables has survived and thrived anyway.

And I hope you get a chance to think about that while you and the cheesy legal counsel your bosses accord you (if any-- they tend to cheapass stuff like that, yanno-- ) are strategizing how to respond to the US Postal Inspection Service's enquiries. My money is on "you get thrown under the bus" as the ultimate strategy, by the way. It's how your kind of 'organization' rolls.

End of disclaimer. You, Sir or Ma'am, and your employers and co-conspirators, do not get mentioned again, you are not worth my time.

I'd like to talk to some people care about, now. People who are important to me, and to a community I love. People who believe in making the world a better place, and who put their passion and their time into discussing ideas and processes and decisions and policies, and how they affect us all.

My fellow DUers, in fact.

Hey, y'all.

Gettin' a little rugged, here, lately.

Seems to happen on DU, at intervals, when two things converge in time:

Thing one is what I think of as "an evolutionary consciousness crisis." We're all here evolving together toward awareness and valuing one anothers' humanity, and building political, cultural, social, and economic systems that support equity and justice.

DU is a very big tent, just as the Democratic Party has historically been in my lifetime. (And yeah, it's a longish time and you kids stay off my lawn, okay?)

Part of what that means is that while we all share some ideals and goals about equity and justice, we're a very diverse group and we come from many levels of experience with injustice and oppression, with many beliefs about our own privilege or lack thereof. We have widely varying ways of defining the same terms, and when others' definitions and experiences don't match ours, the cognitive dissonance results in a lot of churning.

And mostly, that churning happens around the experiences of oppression and privilege that divide us. It can create frustration, passion, and sometimes conflict. It can pull us in, absorb our awareness and focus, and it should.

Because we learn from it. We grow. We evolve.

But it's not a comfortable process and sometimes it involves pain. Just ask DU's LGBTQ members. And our black members. And those of us with vaginas. The intersectionality of privileges and oppressions is rife, here. I enjoy some kinds of privilege, you enjoy other kinds. You can't understand the particulars of my experience of oppression and I can't understand yours, until we share and validate them for one another.

These are old, hard knots of injustice woven into the fabric of our culture by patriarchy and the oligarchy it created millenia ago. To keep us divided, to keep us apart, to sucker us into doing their work of keeping us oppressing each other for them.

When those issues rise up, there are usually two things happening, one of which is a genuine, organic process of examination and testing among ourselves, finding the fault lines and examining attitudes and beliefs that can divide and conquer us, and trying to grow beyond them.

The other thing happening is the deliberate shit-stirring focused on keeping us from doing exactly that.

Sometimes they look a lot alike. Neither will go away, they're part of the process.

Thing two is the calculated exploitation of a technical vulnerability in how the process of discourse is facilitated here on DU.

::...reaching up to adjust my 'Original DUer' ball cap slightly::

We've been here a while. There is a reason this is a popular political discussion platform. All you have to do to perceive why is go and look at some of the other examples out there. Echo chambers for various Oligarchic agendas, moshpits for the low-information end of the spectrum, circle jerks of hate, and well-intentioned failures abound.

::...tipping the ball cap briefly::

Our Admins actually put a lot of work into this site, not just because they make money from it but because they care about it stands for and what it facilitates, and they, too, are committed to making a better experience of politics, economics, and culture for their children and their children's children.

Part of what that means is, they're constantly having to adjust how conflict is managed here. A certain level of conflict is desirable and baked into the site DNA. We're not an echo chamber and we're not expected to agree alla time.

On the other hand, too much conflict, the wrong kind of conflict, drives people away and impairs the site's ability to do what it's supposed to do.

And, yes, there are people who want this site to fail, to go away, to be silenced, to become a mockery and/or an echo chamber. To be ineffective. To be negligible. There are people who want that, a LOT.

And they are not averse, as individuals and/or organized groups, to getting in here and trying to make it fail. Trolling. Gaming. Finding ways to disrupt the process.

They've been trying for fifteen years.

They've tried to game the process. They've tried to exploit design flaws. They've worked hard, and sometimes they've even succeeded, in short term goals. And the Admins track those efforts, and constantly refine the process and tweak the software design to deal with those efforts.

The jury system evolved because of efforts to game the old moderation/alert system.

It's not a perfect solution.

Some of the flaws are emerging now, as those who'd like DU to go away hammer at it.

And I have great confidence that our Admins will do what's needed to refine the process and the software, once again, to deal with it.

Which takes time.

And in the mean time, we have the convergence: A painful evolution in consciousness around racism and privilege and their effects among us, and a dedicated, vigorous hammering at the infrastructure of our discussion.

So, yeah, it's a little rugged right now.

But I am here to tell you two things:

First, DU's lived through this before and we'll live through it again and we do it BY GETTING BETTER AT WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO.

And second, I'm doing my damndest to check my white privilege at the keyboard. Feel free to call me on it when you see it. Black DUers matter, and they matter especially NOW, when we are dealing with a culture-wide awareness and revolution that has the possibility to evolve our culture to the next level.

So, thank you to all the black DUers who've been part of that.

Stick with us.

We DO evolve.

We will.

And thank you.

::... steps off the soapbox, takes off the hat, waves it cheerfully, and wanders off to make dinner...::

lovingly,
Bright

[longship]

1. Well written and expressed, Bright.

I concur.

R&

[TygrBright]

3. Thank you. n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

2. Dear friend, you can have that soapbox any time you want it!

Those kids you scooted better not show up on MY lawn, though.

[TygrBright]

5. Thanks. Kids today... they get around, yanno? n/t

[AuntPatsy]

4. Thank you....

[TygrBright]

7. You're very welcome. Thanks for responding. n/t

[Skittles]

6. everyone is acting like a bunch of children

for the record I NEVER alert unless it is an obvious troll, nor do I serve on juries

all this sniping and fighting and accusations being thrown all around is SICKENING

[TygrBright]

8. It's difficult, but it's human. n/t

[Skittles]

11. I don't think so

they need to grow the fuck UP

[yardwork]

27. I wish you would serve on juries.

If sensible people won't serve, it means more space on juries for lurker-trolls. I always serve and almost always vote to Leave it Alone.

[2naSalit]

9. Yes indeed.

And Thank You!!

[ancianita]

10. A little oxygen, thanks.

[aikoaiko]

12. Thanks for this.

Sadly, we'll lose some good DUers over this recent unpleasantness. Some DUers have been hurt.

I can't help but think the answer lies within taking turns talking and listening even when its difficult.

[TygrBright]

18. Yes, we will. Loss is always hard.

But a strong, vibrant community that learns and evolves will also attract wonderful new voices.

If the past fifteen years is anything to go by, there's no shortage.

Change pushes everyone's comfort zone, mine included.

But it's better than the alternative.

thoughtfully,
Bright

[pnwmom]

13. Thanks for another thoughtful post, TygrBright!

[retrowire]

14. Quite possibly the most reasonable and well thought out post to a community I have ever read.

I commend you TygrBright! You brilliant bastard.

[TygrBright]

19. I think that's quite the nicest thing anyone's said to me today. Thanks! n/t

[hfojvt]

15. I think the notion of privileges divides us

Although I guess now that I seem to have a broken toe, perhaps I can charge the rest of you with oppressing me with your "being able to walk without pain" privilege.

To say that we are evolving "toward awareness and valuing one anothers' humanity,..."

That seems odd to me, like I need to evolve toward an obvious truth I have seemingly known forever.

Although at this particular moment, if a stranger should knock on my door seeking shelter from this thunderstorm outside, I am very likely to NOT let them in. Not even in one of my cars.

I know, I am a terrible person for that. One who volunteered yesterday at an after school program for underprivileged kids, and then went to training for over an hour, and then volunteered from 2-5 AM at the local homeless shelter (which really is not that big a deal. I read about 50 pages in H.W. Brands biography of Benjamin Franklin, and did some laundry. Also because I am the anal-retentive janitor, I had to sweep the stairs too, like I do every week. (If I could get my hands on a mop and some hot water, I'd mop them too.)

Thus, ended the last day of my three day weekend, although I called in sick tonight with that seemingly broken toe.

[TygrBright]

17. I'm glad you're here, hfojvt. n/t

[Live and Learn]

16. Nicely said. TY nt

[Flying Squirrel]

20. Cowards will be cowards

and bullies will be bullies, but I repeat myself. Someone very badly wanted to rub it in Bravenak's face without jeopardizing their own posting privileges. I hope they fail. I believe the jury system will be changed, and I hope that happens sooner rather than later. I also hope the Admin will reinstate both Bravenak's and 1SBM's posting privileges in view of the current atmosphere threatening to divide DU.

[Capt. Obvious]

21. When people I like go on time out the system is broken

When people I dislike go on time out the system works.

Here's Skinner and EarlG's latest response to the jury crisis:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12598513

[TygrBright]

25. Thanks for that link. A snapshot, but a telling snapshot.

Knowing our Admins, guys who embrace the category "geek," yep, I'm not surprised by the tracking tools they integrated into the site's tools and the management process.

Infrastructure is one of those things that has a paradoxical relationship of advantage to disadvantage. The advantage is that it's sturdy, secure, and difficult to damage, by design.

The disadvantage to that is that when problems or flaws come to light, the process of identifying a real problem, responding to it, and making structural change takes more time than can be optimal, on a human scale.

One way we can offset that, as human beings who CAN respond on a human scale, is by applying our human skills of connection and caring for one another.

appreciatively,
Bright

[demmiblue]

28. I think this is a little more recent (though a little more focused):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12598641

I think the admins may have been a little peeved that the OP tried to pigeon-hole them. Nasty tactics.

[Capt. Obvious]

29. Pretty much all of the people who end up on timeout have one thing in common

[snagglepuss]

30. Thanks for posting that link. imho that thread should reside

temporarily at least on the Home Page to get more exposure as I'm sure there are many, like myself, who never check out Ask The Admin Forum.

[kentuck]

22. Permit me to applaud this post.

[TygrBright]

26. Thank you kindly!

You, kentuck, and everyone who's taken the time to respond, are on my "grateful for" list today.

One of the things I value deeply about this community is the connection it fosters, among so many wonderful, diverse individuals all over the US and the world.

That's pretty amazing. I remember the days when if you wanted to have a friend far away, you had to respond to one of those "pen pal" adverts in a magazine that represented a shared interest. Then exchange snail-mail letters... a process that could take days or even weeks.

I love it that I "know" people all over America and the world, who share so many interests with me and are willing to talk and argue and laugh together.

gratefully,
Bright

[raven mad]

23. Bookmarked. Saved. Printed.

Yes.

[UtahLib]

24. Wonderfully positive post.