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[Skinner]

This discussion thread was locked by Skinner (a host of the Announcements group).

First of all, thank you to everyone for your patience and understanding as we worked this last week to deal with the hack and bring our website back online. The hack could not have come at a worse time for all of us, and the DU Admins feel terrible that we let you down on the most important day of the year. We blew it and we are sorry. As part of our efforts to be responsive and transparent, we have posted a detailed explanation of the hack in another announcement which we encourage everyone to read. A link is provided at the end of this message.

We have made extensive security upgrades to the site over the last week, and as part of those upgrades there are likely to be a few minor glitches that need to be fixed. For example, one issue that we are aware of is that quotation marks are automatically stripped out of post titles. If you encounter any bugs please report them in this thread.

Obviously the election -- from president on down the ticket -- did not go how we all hoped it would. In the wake of our defeat, Democrats across the country are taking part in a much-needed conversation about what went wrong in 2016 and what we need to do in the future. Democratic Underground intends to participate in this discussion, by providing a platform to our members who are capable of participating in a manner that is inclusive, civil, and constructive.

The old “General Discussion: 2016” forum has been re-named “2016 Postmortem” and will serve as the temporary location where this conversation can take place. Discussions about the 2016 elections will not be permitted in the General Discussion forum. Whenever a member tries to start a new thread in either the General Discussion forum or the 2016 Postmortem forum, they will be presented with an interrupt page directing them to post their topic in the appropriate place.

In addition, we are going to temporarily suspend the “Don’t rehash the last presidential primary” rule. While we do not look forward to re-opening that wound, we know that any discussion of the 2016 general election is likely to include discussion of the Democratic primaries. We trust that the vast majority of our members are capable of having this discussion in a civil and constructive manner. If everyone participates with the right attitude there is a good chance that it could be a worthwhile discussion. But if the discussion is just insults and rage then there’s no point in having it.

Those of you who do not wish to see any of the discussions from the 2016 Postmortem forum have the option to trash the forum, which will remove all of its topics from the Latest Page and the Greatest Page. Just visit the forum and click the button near the top of the page that says “Trash this forum.”

The 2016 Postmortem forum and the removal of the “don’t rehash the primaries” rule are temporary changes which we expect to last for a few weeks to a few months. While we believe this is an important discussion to have, we don’t think it is in our best interest to spend the next four years arguing amongst ourselves while Donald Trump is busy destroying the country.

Which brings me to my final point. I said previously that I regret letting Democratic Underground become a haven over the last eight years for people who were contemptuous of President Obama and their fellow DU members. With the election behind us, my opinion has not changed. I spent much of the last eight years deeply disappointed by some of the things that people posted here, and compared to that ugliness I thoroughly enjoyed the period of relative unity and respect that we experienced during this year’s general election season. Going forward, Democratic Underground is going to continue to be a place for friendly, liberal people who support Democrats. If that describes you, welcome home.

For detailed information about the hack, click here.

--The DU Administrators