Can DUers have a clean fight over the nomination this time?

[Bucky]

I sorta went off message three and a half years ago. I tried to keep my comments connected to the substance of the debates over issues and over who would be our best nominee in 2004. But more than a few times I found my comments deleted by moderators. Sometimes I deserved to have my caustic comments deleted, sometimes I appealed them and won validation, sometimes I just let it slide.

The more I think about what all we went thru from November 2003 till March 2004, the worse I feel for the poor moderators at DU. They busted their humps trying to keep us civil. It got so bad poor ol Skinner had to post rules like forbidding the use of epithets (including the self-embraced nicknames like "Deaniacs" and "Clarkies" and even "Edwards people"). I can only imagine the headaches they went thru with all the appeals and all the snarkiness and lord knows how many private emails over petty and grandiose issues.

We've not all been well behaved over all since the elections. I don't know why Democrats have such a hard time accepting victory. There sure did seem to be better cohesion on the board before the sane people retook control of Congress. As the race for the '08 nomination ramps up, I fear for where all this bickering could lead. Hurt feelings, wasted time, perhaps even a drop off of some long time DUers who tire of hearing their candidates castigated, or tire just of hearing the stridency day after day.

I expect some feelings to get hurt. As we lack few areas of fundamental difference on issues, our candidates will driven by campaign advisors work to steer away from specific policy proposals and focus the campaign on warm fuzzy "character" issues ("Bring honesty to the White House" and "Clean up Washington" and "promote the dignity of working families" and other such blah-blah-blahs). With few issues to debate, we'll debate mostly over how electable and likeable or how authentic vs how sold-out the different candidates are. This will be a personal debate, a debate about a stranger's character, argued against a person who has intellectually invested herself or himself into believing that character is exactly who should be president.

This is a formula for social discord at DU. I don't want to see this take place.

I'd like to propose that rough out some ideas in this thread over what words we can use to compose a "clean fight" pledge. I'm suggesting a sign-on list, where signatories take a personal vow to:

(1) never insult the intentions or sincerity of a fellow DU poster,

(2) balance their critiques of Democratic candidates with positive recognition of where we share values (ending the war, balancing the budget, protecting the environment),

(3) offer a friendly and respectiful reminder to fellow DUers of common courtesies when they feel comments about candidates have gotten unfair or inflammatory, and

(4) never accuse any Democratic candidate of being unpatriotic or part of a Republican conspiracy.

These are only a few suggestions. Maybe they need to be changed or added onto. This is just a rough idea of what I'm thinking of for a clean argument here. What I see is that if someone is a bit insulting in a thread instead of posting a line like:

"No, my candidate isn't evil, but let me tell you why YOUR candidate IS the real antichrist"
One could instead write a simple:
"Hey, let's fight clean"
and then attach no further comment until the unclean fighter posts a constructive argument.

Is this just pie in the sky? Or do you think it's possible for us to develop a pledge like this? Not every DUer would sign onto it, of course, but if we added the "clean fight" pledge to our sig lines, it might build a sort of peer pressure for better behavior and give the mods a break this coming year.

[illinoisprogressive]

1. do you feel some of the arguing may be due to winter? It's been months and cooped up.

We may just be looking for excitement subconsciencely to liven it up due to the physical and emotional and mental boredom that come with this time of the year.

[mike_c]

2. nice post-- one thing my years on DU have taught me...

...is that there is absolutely no point in getting stressed about anything that happens here. Anger is just a waste of energy.

It's dumb too-- when people argue in person they push all kinds of unconscious buttons with their body language and tone, buttons that rapidly escalate anger and undermine any chance of communicating. That doesn't need to happen online-- most of those buttons only get pushed if we push them ourselves.

[Crunchy Frog]

3. No.

It's a nice idea, but realistically, I don't think it's going to happen.

[madrchsod]

4. i doubt it...we are democrats

we are lock stepped republicans

[quinnox]

5. doubt it

It would be a change for sure but probably not many would sign up because they want to push their candidate and attack other candidates. The ones who are always posting bottom of the barrel hit pieces on candidates are easy to spot eventually, and a pattern emerges. That is one really good feature of Du, it's customization, so for me I will just put on ignore all the attack dogs who do nothing but post these kind of threads against candidates.

[JNelson6563]

6. You're too late Bucky

but I greatly appreciate (and share) your sentiments. The nastiness has begun and is in full swing, at least for a few. I think our only hope is to partition off the ugliness again and then start whacking the worst offenders. I'm also hopeful we will see less of these guys this time around:



I think I've sighted a few of this species already. ;-)

Julie

[welshTerrier2]

7. "we lack few areas of fundamental difference on issues"

oh t'were it so ...

[snowbear]

8. We can sure try Bucky...

...but the problem is how quickly these pleas are forgotten..

I'm still stinging from a slam the other day when I used the term "throw a bone" regarding my favorite (potential) candidate and his participation (or lack of) in an upcoming debate.

So in my case-- it may not be what I've said on here -- -- rather, how inarticulate I was in trying to say it..

It's not much fun to inadvertantly tick off our DU brethern and not understand why..

As far as NEVER "intentionally" dissing a DU'er or their candidate.. sign me up!!

I was accused of being "Rovian" a few days ago by someone when I explained that Hillary wasn't my first choice..

So yeah, I'd love it if we could try a little more respect towards one another during this primary season.

I mean... ROVE !?!?! --just shoot me now!

[LWolf]

9. I predict: NO.

Attacking the opposition seems to be an ingrained part of the process. I can say I'll stick to expressing disagreement. I promise not to call anyone's candidate names, focus on irrelevancies like physical stature current propaganda and talking points, and stick to record on the issues. I can promise to tell the truth, and to make sure that I don't present opinion as fact. I can't say that many will do the same.