Just noticed DU is in Wikipedia.

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Underground

Very detailed entry with info. such as:

Through frequent contact in the forums (including special topic groups) and online private messages, members come to know one another. Discussions range beyond politics to include such diverse subjects as pets, pet peeves, and pop culture. Occasionally, members organize face-to-face get-togethers.

New members can be confused by DU vocabulary which includes references to pop culture ("this thread needs more cowbell"), spelling that parodies other websites (such as "HUGH!", "series", and "cazy,") and famous images ("moran"), and long-running threads that have worked their way into DU lore ("dupe," "the kudzu thread").

Some common terms:

Meets
Social or activist events held by members. Also called "meet-ups".

Tombstoned
To be banned from posting.

Repug
Short for 'Repugnican'. A pejorative neologism for Republican.

Freeper
A term specifically for a member of the Free Republic website. Sometimes turned into the pejorative "FreepTard".

Kick
To post to a thread to send it to the top of the forum.

Gungeon
The Guns Discussion board under Topic Forums. From "Gun Dungeon".

Dungeon
The September 11th forum where alternative theories of 911 and other conspiracy theories are discussed.

Milestone
The occasion when a members post total reaches a certain number. Milestones are celebrated in the Lounge. (See below)

[gateley]

1. We sound so nice! nt

[otohara]

2. Kudzu Thread

I've never seen that one in all my years @ DU.

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

3. Some of the info. on there cracks me up (re: the stuff I posted)

[Cleita]

9. Me either and I started posting after 9/11 under a different name. n/t

[Cleita]

10. Everything is on Wikipedia. I even found a page for

a relative of mine, full of inaccuracies about our family of course. When I tried to correct it, I was told I was banned? :shrug: I had never tried posting anything before.

[Control-Z]

18. 'I even found a page for a relative of mine'

As did I - an immediate relative. (I wasn't too thrilled about it either. Though probably just a control issue on my part, I'll admit.)

I wasn't banned, just given some "tips" on what I could legally contribute. :rofl:

[cali]

20. me too. my uncle

and other family members have wiki entries.

[stellanoir]

4. I wonder if LynneSin knows she's arrived at a place in the pantheon of

cyber immortality through her insatiable desire for more cowbell.

[rocktivity]

5. I had no idea that Free Republic was such a fun place

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Republic

...Postings deemed to support "Liberal" points of view may also be "moderated" per official policy..."we feel no compelling need to allow a platform to promote their repugnant and obnoxious propaganda from our forum." ...The owner reserves the right to revoke posting privileges and exclude any individual without recourse.

...In 1999, after FReepers heard that Julie Hiatt Steele, the woman charged with obstruction of justice by Kenneth Starr during President Clinton's impeachment trial, was taking credit-card donations to help pay her legal bills, they flooded her Web site with fake donations...Steele...had to pay her e-commerce service company...$4000...to process each one.

...In 2007, moderators effected what has been called the "April Purge" to remove members who supported the presidential campaign of current Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani...

:eyes:
rocknation

[TheDoorbellRang]

6. Some strange stuff in there

Evidently James Taranto has us all figured out:

James Taranto claimed an unscientific poll on the DU site found that, by a margin of 71%-29%, the results of the 2004 presidential election were more depressing than the 9/11 terrorist attacks.<15>

Via an unscientific poll -- no shit, Sherlock! I clicked on said Taranto to see just who this character is:

James Taranto (born 1966) is a Manhattan-based columnist for The Wall Street Journal and editor of its online editorial page, OpinionJournal.com. He is best known for his daily online column, entitled Best of the Web Today, in which he links to and comments on news stories and Web sites submitted by readers.

Most of Taranto's commentary is politically oriented and conservative/libertarian in perspective. He lambastes various public figures and organizations, from John Kerry, often described as "the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam," to Reuters, for which he uses headlines with excessive use of quotes in mockery of the service's overuse of scare quotes.

Taranto comments occasionally on topics of special interest to him such as the Roe effect (which proposes that parents who support abortion will have fewer children, causing support for abortion and politically liberal causes to decline among young people) in his column and also wrote an article<1> about it. Taranto occasionally propounds subtle deductions derived through detailed calculations based on published statistics.

Best of the Web Today features a number of recurrent in jokes and self-referential word plays that are not readily apparent to novice readers. One of Taranto's pet peeves is the metric system of measurements, "an outmoded collection of weights and measures based on pagan superstitions about the power of the number 10."

Yeah, love the part where he's against the metric system because it's based on pagan superstitions. And here I thought it was based on the decimal system to make calculations easier. My bad.

[EFerrari]

7. The stolen election of 2004 has killed and displaced millions of

people. September 11 was a tragedy but the Bush Administration has been a crime spree.

[TheDoorbellRang]

13. I cried after 9/11. I was sick to my stomach after 11/04 election

Neither event was happy, happy, joy, joy time. My point is who does this yahoo think he is, doing some bogus poll that supposedly determined our level of depression. And why do I feel that he used his "findings" to show that liberals hate America. (I don't have the interest to search out his piece on this, so I'm just going with a Colbert-like gut feeling on how he presented it.)

[EFerrari]

15. Of course, you're right. He's a spinning idiot.

They try so hard to forward their warped agenda, they can't have a rational thought.

[TheDoorbellRang]

16. My sole consolation is that this guy is obscure enough

that I don't recall ever seeing anything he's ever written before today. :D

[EFerrari]

17. True. And maybe we shouldn't be so invested in what other people

claim about us. That's the wingnut's only tool -- their noise. :)

[lonestarnot]

22. I thought their only tool was their stank...

:silly:

[immoderate]

11. ...and the decimal system was invented by...

Arabs! :scared:

http://www.geocities.com/rmlyra/Numbers.html

--IMM

[TheDoorbellRang]

14. OMG! Now it's all clear. The metric system is a terrorist plot!

:scared:




:rofl:

[Odin2005]

8. KUDZU!!!

:scared:













:rofl:

[zippy890]

12. thats just CAZY!

:rofl:

never seen that or kudzu

:crazy:

[Buns_of_Fire]

19. Today, Wikipedia. Tomorrow, Webster's!

And the day will come when people will be asking -- nay, begging -- for one of the original DU Secret Decoder Rings or one of the 5,000 chickens I am harboring for "Project X" (PLEASE, someone, ask for one of these 5,000 chickens!).

[hootinholler]

21. You still have those chickens?

They were supposed to be delivered right before the 2006 election! The no show damned near cost us the Senate majority!

I have about 3000 pots left that I haven't gotten into recycling yet, so I'll leave you with two words: Pot Pie.

-Hoot

[Buns_of_Fire]

23. Done. Watch your mailbox Tuesday morning.

Watch out with Floressa. She's already slapped me with a paternity suit. (Hey, we were both drunk, and I had Mel Torme on the Victrola, and, you know, one thing led to another, and...)

[Dr. Strange]

24. We're also in the Uncyclopedia:

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Democratic_underground