Does this group want or need a host? Please discuss.
This is the new info about having a host sent to me by Skinner.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1013434
"Does your Group need a Host at all?
The first thing that needs to happen in any Group before someone is assigned as a Host, is that the regulars in that group need come to some general agreement that they want a Host at all. The position of Host (especially the most senior Host) holds a significant amount of power in a group -- with the abilities to lock threads, hire and fire other Hosts, and block people out of the group. Are you sure you want to hand that power over to anyone?
Keep in mind that if you do not choose to have a Host, your group will still enjoy some amount of protection. No matter where they are posted, violations of our Community Standards are handled by the random member juries. So even if your group does not have a Host, there is still a system in place that will be able to handle disruptive posts in the group.
With that in mind, there may be some Groups where it might make sense to leave the position of Host vacant:
* If your group is dedicated to a non-controversial topic, then there is probably no harm in assigning someone as a Host. You are unlikely to need someone to lock threads or block people out of the group, but it might be useful to have someone who can take ownership of the group.
* If your group is a "Safe Haven" where only one viewpoint is welcome, then you should probably assign a Host to help run the group. It is likely that you will need a Host to lock off-topic threads and block out people who disagree with the purpose of the group.
* If your group plays host to open debate on a particular topic, and welcomes a wide range of viewpoints, then the choice might not be so simple. If you select a Host, it needs to be someone who is trusted to be fair by people holding a wide range of viewpoints. You may decide that it is better not to assign anyone as the Host of your group, to avoid the risk that that person might use their power to benefit a particular viewpoint.
If you decide that you do wish to have someone assigned as the Host of your group, the next step is to pick someone. The first person selected as Host holds the most power in the Group. The first can add and remove other Hosts, but no other Hosts can remove the first Host. In short: Choose someone you trust."
= new reply since forum marked as read
I recall some spirited debates, but few that got really nasty, and I don't recall many disruptive intrusions either. However, I'm not opposed to having a host either, and I would trust you to be fair as a host. 
I would just prefer if we do that to do it with discussion and make it a conscious choice.
I appreciate the support. I guess the question is do we even need a host? So far, so good as far as I can tell.
Stuff a host is good for is pinning threads to the top of the forum. This might of been good when were were doing so much election research back as we did in 2004-5. It might of been good for the daily election reform news back when we did that. At the moment, I am not seeing a need for pinned threads.
We also don't show up on the Greatest Page out of this forum. Considering getting the news out about what was happening votewise was one of our better purposes, I'm a little personally baffled by this challenge to our function as a group. 
just because we don't need them today.
And considering how careful this forum is about sourcing and so on, it also makes no sense to me to exclude our threads from the Greatest Page.
And will our discussions appear in search engine results? They used to.
It's not surprising that there is going to be less exposure by design now: when this group was a forum, it was seen by DU management as conspiracy theorizing. This does not apply to all posts by all members, but management probably felt that election fraud was too difficult to prove with certainty. With current voting tech and election laws, I tend to agree. Even states with paper ballots don't count them by hand to any great extent; a number of different courts have said not to -- not just SCOTUS (Bush v. Gore).
I wouldn't try to censor discussion but given the difficulty of proving vote-counting fraud, some of the discussion can get a bit old. For example, there was no consensus that poll results proved vote switching occurred on a large scale, but this debate dragged on and on until someone got banned (not sure why that happened exactly, but it did have the effect of freeing up the forum for other discussions).
If we had a host, would this make a difference? Could a host appeal to management and ask for the group to become a forum, or otherwise become less obscure?
We face huge difficulties in achieving vote-count integrity given current technology. It may get worse before it gets WORSE if Internet voting takes off. But the bait and switch that paper ballots (counted mostly by computers) have become should also be exposed. There is a huge amount of misunderstanding about this, even among participants on the ER forum, when it was a forum.
I don't think a host is essential and if the forum is doomed to obscurity by design anyway -- host or no host -- it won't matter.
FWIW, I've seen you try to moderate discussions fairly in the past, Melissa G. So I'd have no problem with you hosting this group.
As far as coming up in google searches, some posts do and some don't.
Greatest Page seems to be able to be set for political and non political settings. I'm not sure if we come up on political. (I'm supposed to be working
... and have not had time to check.)
If we decide we want to think about a host, we can have a thread about what we would like said host to explore.
I'm all for a 'step by step' approach.
This whole group thing is new to me. I have the ability to post at DK but only go there when one of my buddies here requests that I do so, or posts a must see link.
And you'd make a great one. That's why I rec'd the thread last week.
Last edited Wed Jan 4, 2012, 09:08 AM - Edit history (1)
I appreciate the only rec to the thread.
So far, we have one maybe, one wait and see for a while and 3 yes let's try a host.
So far, the only hat in the ring for host is me.
I'm inclined to wait another day for any more input and then start a thread for what we might want a host to do if the input does not vary from the current history.
I agree that ease of operation and payoff for effort on the new site are currently more challenging.
I'm hoping time and effort will alleviate some of these problems.
You don't sound like you are whining to me -just expressing your experience.
