Hiya. Glad to be here.

[True Blue Door]

I'm encouraged by what I've seen so far here, but I have a question that can best be answered by long-time participants.

While DU is a well-known and famous forum, is it generally a safe place for people to explore ideas and facts honestly and intelligently?

I'm coming from another well-known, famous liberal site that had gradually become an intolerant, dishonest, and anti-intellectual place with some painfully Kafka-esque internal politics, and it was really awful to see it turn so ugly and illiberal. The vast majority of people who contribute there are still great, but they're not in control anymore, and liberals are often bullied into silence whenever there's any sort of controversy. I can't even bear to lurk there anymore.

So would you say that DU is a place where people can talk about things, and not have to constantly second- and third-guess every single expressed thought out of fear? Where common sense is at least one accepted viewpoint, and people have the courage of their convictions? It's tempting to become cynical when you see a community you once knew become something hideous and corrupt, so I'm a little more cautious about where I invest my time and effort.

Also, would you say this is a good place for talking about a wide variety of topics? I really love discussing science, technology, history, and pop culture in addition to / in relation to politics, and I dislike the idea of having to maintain half a dozen different communities to talk about them all. Everything is connected in reality, and we can learn a lot by seeing each thing in the context of other things. Since science, technology, history, and pop culture sites usually don't want to talk politics, by default I've found the best places to combine everything are political sites, since it's actually true that politics (as a phenomenon, not in the exasperated "just politics" sense) encompasses everything.

Let me know what you think. Thanks.

[hrmjustin]

1. Welcome to DU and below is the link to the many groups and forums we have here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forums

[True Blue Door]

2. Thanks.

[moriah]

3. DU has an innovative community moderation system.

There is no one "in control" except your fellow DUers, and the Admins.

Here's the Terms of Service, gives you some guidelines about site rules: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=termsofservice

And here's a run-down of the community moderation system. http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=modsystem

[True Blue Door]

4. That's encouraging. Thanks.