We probably should have created this function long ago, but somehow we never got around to it. We now have a Donor Status function, where you can keep track of your donations to Democratic Underground, and find out when your donor status expires.

To check your donor status, click the "Options" icon at the top of any page. It looks like this:

 
Options

Then click the link that says "Donor status".

Or you can just click here.

IMPORTANT: We try hard to keep our records as accurate as possible, but we expect there will likely be some errors. If you think any of the information on your donor status page is incorrect, please send an email to skinner@democraticunderground.com (that's me). Please include as much information as possible so we can remedy the problem. (Note that the "Donation History" section of the page only shows donations made since January 1, 2008.)

Donors don't see most ads on DU. I mentioned earlier this year that we have been experimenting with some new, more prominent ad placements. One of the benefits of donating is that you don't have to look at the ads. So if you are a donor, we want to be sure that your donor status is up to date before we start running the new ads.

If you sent us a donation in the mail in the last few weeks, it probably will not appear on your donation history. I apologize, I have a stack of unopened mail here on my desk. I am going to try to get to it later today so you can get credit for your donations. You should get an automated private message to let you know it has been received.

And, of course, if you would like to donate, just click this link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/donat...

Thank you to all of our donors. Your support is vital to keeping this site online.

David Allen ("Skinner")
DU Administrator

Even before this fund drive started, we knew there was a good chance that it would be our worst ever. This presidential primary is among the longest ever, and it's certainly the most divisive in recent memory. Sure enough, we were right. As I write this, the number of donations we have received appears to be the lowest since February 2004, in the heat of the last presidential primary. Of course, that primary was over by early March, so only one fund drive was affected by it. This year, there's a chance that this primary might even last through our third quarter fund drive in August.

So, rather than wallow in self-pity, the three DU Admins decided, What the heck, if this is going to be our worst fund drive ever, we might as well enjoy it! And so, the theme of Worst Fund Drive Ever was born. Don't like DU? We'll even let you punch the Admins! (Virtually.) As a fund-raising scheme, this approach does not seem to be particularly successful. But as an face-saving scheme, it is turning out to be a huge success. When the fund drive fails to reach its goal, or when we limp across the finish line at 11:55PM Sunday night, we can nurse our bruised egos by telling ourselves that we knew all along that we wouldn't make it. If we're feeling particularly delusional, we can tell ourselves that the fund drive failed because we are beloved so by our members that nobody wanted to donate and punch us in our virtual faces.

Interestingly, this time we're getting a lot fewer emails than usual from people telling us they refuse to donate this fund drive because we're doing such a crappy job. I think some disgruntled members might be a little bit confused about how to react to the the fund drive: Do I donate so I can punch the Admins in the face? Or do I not donate so they won't get my money? Similarly, we're receiving more emails than usual from people who want to donate, but are reluctant to do so because they don't want to punch us in the face.

Here, let me help.

For those of you who are angry at the Admins and want to punish us, read this: You should donate to DU, because then you get to punch the admins in the face. We will be deeply humiliated by this public face-punching, and we will be very sad if this fund drive reaches its goal of 1000 donations.

For those of you who are not angry at the Admins, but are reluctant to donate because you don't want to punch us, read this: The "punch the DU Admins" promotion is just a little bit of self-deprecating humor, and should not be considered to be equivalent to really punching the Administrators of Democratic Underground. We won't feel bad if you donate, and we don't really think you want to punch us in the face. In fact, we would greatly appreciate it if you did donate.

If you still can't bring yourself to donate, cut out this image and tape it to the top of your computer monitor, where the DU Administrators' faces appear:



See how much better that looks?

But all kidding aside... As you know, Democratic Underground is a completely independent website, and we depend on voluntary donations from our members to help cover our costs. We know this Democratic primary season has been long and difficult here on DU. But still we need your help. Please take a moment to donate right now:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/donat...

Thank you for your support.

David Allen ("Skinner")
Democratic Underground Administrator

Since we learned the results of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, I feel like I am fielding more and more requests that I step in and somehow declare this primary over. While I am flattered that some here think I possess the ability to unilaterally declare the end to a primary for President of the United States, I suspect that the two remaining candidates in the race do not hold such an over-inflated view of my power and influence in the Democratic party.

Just in case there is any confusion, here's the deal: We are sticking with the original plan. As long as there are still two Democrats in this race, then we've still got a primary. And as long as we've still got a primary, then we've got a primary here on Democratic Underground.

Unlike other bloggers, I've never really had much interest in picking sides or driving away fellow Democrats. Call me old-fashioned, but I think discussions are more interesting when more than one point of view is expressed. Our party -- and this community -- are strong enough to get through this, and unite behind the eventual nominee. We are a coalition, and we need all of our members. There are lots of great people on both sides of the current partisan divide. I, for one, am not going to do anything that might drive any of those people away.

I do not wish to pick sides or talk down either candidate -- I still like and respect them both very much. But like all of you I follow the news, and I think it has become apparent that one candidate now has a significantly better chance of becoming the Democratic nominee than the other. Senator Obama holds a fairly sizable lead, and it is now highly unlikely that Senator Clinton will overtake him. With this in mind, we have a few words of advice the supporters of both candidates.

For people who have supported Senator Obama: There is a very good chance that your candidate is going to be our nominee. Congratulations for that. Now is not the time to gloat. Your candidate is not gloating -- you should follow his example. If you are smart, you'll start being nice to Senator Clinton and her supporters. If Senator Obama is our nominee, we will need the support of all Democrats in the fall campaign -- including (and especially) those Democrats who supported Senator Clinton during the primary. There is no need to continue being antagonistic. Be better than that. Set a positive example for everyone.

For people who have supported Senator Clinton: I want you to know that I admire your tenacity, your fighting spirit, and your loyalty to Senator Clinton. You all fight as hard as she does. I also want to personally thank you for your loyalty to Democratic Underground. It is fairly obvious that Senator Obama has more supporters here on Democratic Underground (and throughout the liberal blogosphere) than Senator Clinton has. I understand that this has been a tough place for Clinton supporters. I am glad that you all chose to stick around. Unfortunately for many of you, if Senator Obama is the nominee the transition to the general election might be difficult. Until/unless he is the presumptive nominee, we are not going to ask you to get in line. But as a fellow Democrat, I am asking you to please start preparing yourself for the possibility of an Obama candidacy. You might not be a fan right now, but I assure you he is infinitely better than Senator McCain.

I am starting to feel pretty fatigued by the primaries. I'm a big-time political junkie and this was fun for the first four months. But now that we're into month five, I find myself longing for an end to it all so we'll know who the nominee is and we can start going after McCain. I'm also looking forward to the time when this community can start to heal the divisions from the primary.

By now, I suspect that most of you have heard the humorous little anecdote posted on the Huffington Post yesterday:


It's a minor gaffe, probably good for perhaps a day or two of "this is kinda funny" press coverage and nothing more. Some people were pushing the plagiarism angle, which is technically true, but I suspect that in the minds of the press corps plagiarizing Rachel Ray doesn't rise to the level of allegedly plagiarizing, oh, Neil Kinnock or Deval Patrick. Plus, it's the candidate's wife, not the actual candidate. To be honest, I don't think it would be a bad thing to learn that if/when Cindy McCain does cook she sometimes uses Food Network recipes -- as long as she were to give them credit, rather than pass them off as "McCain Family Recipes." I use Food Network recipes, too. I sure as heck don't ever make up my *own* recipes -- most people don't. Why on earth we would expect the wives of our presidential candidates to make up their own recipes is beyond me.

I think there is a case to be made that this cuts to the heart of the "elitism" issue. The whole point of putting "McCain Family Recipes" on the website is to make Cindy McCain -- and by association, John McCain -- look more like a middle-American homemaker rather than an heiress whose wealth may may exceed $100 million. And who may not have ever cooked anything in her life. It's amazing that politicians are still able to get away with pretending to be something that they are not. You'd think the voters would have wised up to this kind of political theater by now. Instead of voting based on who bakes the best cookies, vote based on who'll give you the best health care. But apparently, they haven't.

So, there's that. But I don't think that is the worst part of this whole thing.

It just so happens that when I first heard about this story, I was having a conference call with my two fellow DU Admins, EarlG and Elad. I swear to you -- ask EarlG and Elad -- this is what I said:

"I'll tell you what happened here. This was not Cindy McCain's screw up. What happened is the McCain campaign wanted to put some recipes on their website, so some low-level McCain staffer asked an intern with nothing to do to get on Google and find some recipes to put on the website."

Lo and behold, if we are to believe the McCain campaign response, I was right:


You read that right -- they blamed a volunteer.

Not only that, but the volunteer was "swiftly dealt with." No, they didn't discipline the overpriced Internet strategist who decided to put "McCain family recipes" on the campaign website. No, they didn't discipline the mid-level McCain staffer who gave this all-important job to a volunteer. They didn't even admit that it was fucked-up to have a section of their website for Cindy McCain to post her family recipes -- without actually asking Cindy McCain to provide the damn recipes herself.

No. They they blamed the intern. The unpaid volunteer who works their ass off for their hero John McCain for *NOTHING* has been thrown under the bus.

This, my friends, is why "Recipe-gate" matters. This is about values. It's about how you treat the little guy. It's about being grateful for the thousands of unpaid, unknown nobodies who support your campaign.

I have run this website for seven years, and we could not do it without our staff of unpaid volunteer moderators. I admit that I do not always treat them as well as they deserve. They do a great job, and this website would be IMPOSSIBLE without their help. Sometimes they make mistakes -- they are human, after all. But when that happens the responsibility is my own. Even on those rare occasions when I have to overturn their decisions, I try not to appear to be throwing a moderator under the bus in public. This is why we don't let you trash the moderators. Because they give their hearts-and-souls for this place, and they get nothing in return, except the satisfaction of knowing they are helping.

I watched about half of it. I caught the latter part of Senator Clinton's appearance, and the beginning part of Senator Obama's. From what I saw, they both seemed to do fine. (If I missed some career-ending gaffe from either of them, I hope someone will fill me in.)

I'm not a religious person. At least not anymore. (I was a very devout Christian at one time.) But I understand the need for candidates to talk about their faith. That's cool. The Republicans have been clobbering us for years as somehow anti-Christian, and I'm glad to see that our candidates aren't going to let them get away with it. Obviously, religion is an important part of many Americans' lives, and they understandably want to know that their president doesn't look down on religious people. So, I have no problem with candidates talking about their faith, and I give both Democratic candidates credit for doing it.

I think what irks me is to see CNN (or any media outlet) hosting an event specifically to discuss religion. I can't shake the feeling that this event served a political purpose for CNN as well as for the candidates. Ever since 2004, I get the sense that they've been actively trying to play up their religious bona-fides, and it seems somewhat desperate and transparent. I expect my politicians to pander. But it's not really something I look for in a cable news network.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject, I'm irked by the name they chose for the event. "The Compassion Forum"? No. That's not correct. Calling it "the compassion forum" implies that religion and compassion are synonymous, which they are not. Obviously, they do go hand-in-hand sometimes, as both of our Democratic Candidates showed tonight. But after 8 years of Bush I'm sure I don't have to convince anyone here that sometimes religion and compassion do not go together. In fact, quite often compassion occurs without any religion or religious motivation. They should have called it the "Faith and Politics Forum" or something like that.

Barack Obama is an elitist who looks down on small-town America.

Let me be as clear as I can: The controversy surrounding Barack Obama's statement about small-town America is bullshit. But that might not matter. I think this thing might have legs, and it has the potential to do serious damage to his campaign.

I posted in another thread that this situation reminds me of the old quote from Michael Kinsley: "A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth." I think that any fair reader of Senator Obama's quote would understand exactly what he is trying to say, and would not have much basis to disagree with the truthfulness of it:


But this is politics, and whether a statement is true is quite often beside the point. It has become apparent that Senator Obama's statement, while arguably true, was clearly a misstep. And he might pay dearly for it.

To those of you here on DU who don't understand why this is controversial, let me try to explain. The big problem comes in the last sentence: "And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Much of the attention has been focused on the beginning part of the sentence, "it's not surprising then they get bitter." But I think if he had stopped there, he probably would not be taking nearly as much heat as he is taking. It is obvious that some people in small town America are bitter because of difficult economic times. Perhaps he could have said "some people" instead of "they" because then it would be less likely that his quote could be twisted to make it sound like he is talking about everyone in small-town America. But IMHO, the part about people being bitter really isn't that bad.

What makes the quote a gaffe is the latter part, "they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." This is not good. The first problem is the use of the word "cling" which implies a sort-of irrational and desperate latching-on. When you use the word "cling" you are implying that the things to which one is clinging are bad. Which leads us to the second problem in the quote, the things that are being clung: Guns. Religion. Antipathy to people who aren't like them. Anti-immigrant sentiment. Anti-trade sentiment.

Among the items being clung, for the purpose of this deconstruction, there are two broad categories. The first category is Things that many small-town Americans embrace as part of their values, but which Senator Obama is painting as bad: Guns, Religion, Frustration with illegal immigration, Skepticism toward free-trade. The inclusion of Religion alone on that list is enough to make the quote controversial. Add guns, frustration with illegal immigration, and skepticism toward free trade, and you are expressing a negative view toward many of their cultural and political values.

The second category is Unflattering stereotypes that elites hold toward people in middle America: Antipathy to people who aren't like them. And, of course, a propensity to cling to guns, religion, anti-immigrant sentiment, and anti-trade sentiment.

If you are still having difficulty understanding why this would be controversial, imagine if he had said something like this, while commenting on frustration among the urban liberal elite:


Do you see it now? Calling liberals selfish, arrogant, and unhappy. Saying that you "cling" to things like lattes or Priuses or reproductive choice or equal rights. Hey, not every liberal drinks lattes and drives a Prius or does all those things! Of course, some do, but even if they do those aren't bad things!

So, Senator Obama has a problem on his hands. What should he do now?

His options are to try to backtrack, or to go on the offensive. Personally, I don't think backtracking is a good idea in this case. What he said is already out there, and apologizing or trying to explain or saying he misspoke is not going to make it go away. Instead, I think he has to go on the offensive. He has to send a clear message to Senator Clinton and Senator McCain that if they try to hammer away at this quote, they will pay a cost as well.

That means fighting fire with fire. Spinning their words the way they spun his. Senator Obama needs to avoid reminding voters about the latter part of the quote, where he made it look as if religion, guns, etc. were bad things. Instead, he needs to focus on the part of the quote where he said people were bitter, and paint his opponents as the ones who are out of touch. Make them appear that they are the ones who have gutted America's small towns, while Obama is the guy who is going to fight for the middle class. He should say something like this:

The Democratic presidential primary is now well into its fourth month (or its 16th month, depending on your point of view), and it looks like it might continue for another four months. By now, primary fatigue has long-since set in, and you are starting to wonder if you can possibly make it through to the end without losing your mind.

Fret not! In our continuing efforts to... well... at least make you pause for a moment before you go off half-cocked and call your fellow DUer a "traitorous, kool-ade-drinking, party-wrecking, McCain-enabling, Clintobamabot," we present to you The DU Presidential Primary Guide to Good Citizenship and Survival...


DEALING WITH DISRUPTORS AND RULE-VIOLATIONS

If you see a rule violation, click alert.

If you see a suspicious member who you think is a troll, click alert.

If you do not alert on a rule violation, the moderators probably will not see it. Don't complain if it doesn't get deleted.


DEALING WITH THE MODERATORS AND/OR ADMINISTRATORS

Insulting the moderators -- either publicly, by private message, or in an alert -- is not a successful strategy for getting what you want.

If you send an email to admin claiming that your obvious rule violation was deleted because the moderators are biased against your favored candidate, your message will be ignored.

In fact, if you claim moderator bias for any reason, your message will likely be ignored.

I know you think I oppose your candidate. You're wrong.


COPING WITH STUPID CONTENT

People who say they won't vote for the Democratic presidential nominee in the general election are not to be taken seriously.

Remember that most people here don't actually believe the ridiculous spin they are posting.

Slicing someone's idiotic argument into tiny little ribbons without losing your cool or breaking the rules takes skill -- but it is incredibly satisfying if you can pull it off. Part of the fun is that dumb people (and dumb bystanders who are reading the exchange) won't realize that they lost the argument. But smart people -- no matter which candidate they support -- will know that you won.

Trolls like attention. They especially like being flamed. If you flame a troll, you lose. If you can expose their stupidity with a quick surgical strike -- without losing your cool or breaking the rules -- by all means go for it. But don't flame and don't let yourself get dragged into an extended back-and-forth, because then you lose.

If you think the problems in the GDP forum are caused primarily by the supporters of one candidate, or if you believe that the supporters of one candidate are better behaved or less disruptive or smarter or more patriotic than the supporters of another candidate, you haven't been paying very close attention.

People who claim they would vote for John McCain over either of the two remaining Democratic candidates are either not progressive or not thinking straight. If you post this, you are basically daring the mods to give you a tombstone.


TAKING CONTROL OF YOUR DU EXPERIENCE

If you want to get away from the infighting about the primaries, we have given you the tools to do so. Read this thread for instructions on hiding the General Discussion: Primaries forum.

If someone sends you an unwanted message to your DU inbox, click the link that says "Block correspondence from {username}."

The ignore function is almost (but not quite) as good as a tombstone. It makes the annoying people disappear.


TAKING SOME RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN BEHAVIOR

Look in the mirror. If your behavior makes you part of the problem, stop complaining! Or better yet, knock it off!

If you keep participating in the infighting about the primaries, then perhaps you are getting some utility from it.

"Everybody else does it" is not an excuse.

If your post gets deleted or your thread gets locked, suck it up.


BEING A GOOD DU CITIZEN

Remember that simply because something is not forbidden by the DU rules does not mean it is constructive, civil, or appropriate. If you are serious about improving the tone in the GDP forum, you should start by becoming the type of DU citizen you expect others to be. Here are a few ideas:

Read the DU rules and follow them.

Call the candidates by their appropriate names: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, or Senator Clinton and Senator Obama.

Do not refer to candidate supporters using derogatory names. Say "Clinton supporters" and "Obama supporters."

Do not make broad-brush statements about supporters of either candidate.

Remember that supporters of both candidates are good people who want what's best for this country, and for the world.

Don't just stick up for your own candidate. Defend BOTH candidates against unfair, misleading, bigoted, or otherwise inappropriate attacks.

Don't believe something simply because it is favorable to your candidate, or because it is unfavorable to the other.

Be extra sensitive when discussing issues related to race and gender.

Don't act like a jerk.

Don't be a hypocrite.

Use your brain.


MANAGING YOUR EXPECTATIONS

Out in the real world, this primary has become very ugly, with campaigns and their surrogates saying very ugly and divisive things. I appreciate the fact that you wish DU members would be better behaved than the campaigns they support. I do, too. But don't get your hopes up.

As a general rule, the administrators believe it is better to let the members of DU sort out your differences, rather than have us step in and resolve them for you.

I do not have the power to make you happy. Only you can make you happy.

If you feel you are getting upset, do yourself (and everyone else) a favor and step away from the computer.

Remember: It's just a message board.


AND FINALLY

If your reaction to reading this thread is something along the lines of, "All right! I am going to freak out and act like a complete jerk whenever I think someone has failed to live up to the standard set in Skinner's post," then you have completely missed the point.

Feel free to add your own items to this list...

There is a good chance that Tuesday, March 4, will be our busiest day of this primary season. If so, it is likely that we will have to turn off some website features in order to make sure that our site can handle the large spike in traffic. We are committed to doing whatever we can to avoid slow performance or overly long response times, while making the site available to as many visitors as possible.

If the spike in traffic is much larger than we expect, it is possible (but unlikely) that we may have to take drastic measures to keep our site online. As a very last resort, we may be forced to block access so unregistered visitors cannot read Democratic Underground. If you are registered and logged in to Democratic Underground, you will still be able to read and post.

To guarantee that you will be able to access DU on Tuesday, please make sure you know your username and password. And to make sure you always have access to your account, remember to keep your user information up-to-date.


IF YOU ARE UNREGISTERED

If you do not have a DU account, you can register here.


IF YOU ARE A REGISTERED MEMBER

Remember your USERNAME.
Remember how your username is spelled. Does your username have any spaces, hyphens, underscores, or periods?

Make sure your EMAIL ADDRESS is up-to-date.
If your email address has changed, please update it here.

Remember your PASSWORD.
If you do not know your DU Password, please change it here.

And if you think you might not remember your username or password, please write them down somewhere so you won't forget. And if you ever need to change your user information, just click the "Options" icon at the top of any page.

Thank you!

Skinner
DU Admin

Please kick and recommend this thread so more DUers can see it. Thanks!

This has been a long, intense primary season both here on DU and elsewhere. I get the feeling that a lot of people are feeling a bit fatigued by it all. Nerves are frayed, tempers are short, and some of us occasionally post things on DU that we know we should not (and end up regretting later).

At this point we don't know how much longer this primary season is going to last. It's been going on for quite a while now, and the DU admins feel that the time has come for us to post a few reminders. None of this is new. Some of you will know it already, but some of you will not.


THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW NOW, WHILE THE PRIMARY IS STILL BEING CONTESTED.

I think the most important thing you need to know is that (contrary to what some may say), this website still has rules and the moderators work very hard to enforce them. But you need to understand how those rules are enforced. Rule enforcement here on DU depends to a large extent on the active participation of the community. If you see a rule violation, you need to click the Alert link on that post. The alert link appears in the bottom left corner of every post when you are logged in to DU. This website gets tens of thousands of new messages posted every day, and we do not pre-screen or systematically post-screen any of them. If nobody clicks the Alert link, the offending post will almost certainly remain on the website.

The same goes for alleged trolls. If you think someone is a troll, you need to click the Alert link on one of their posts to let the moderators know. The moderators have access to a great deal of information about each person who posts here. Chances are, if you think someone is a troll, then that person is probably already on the moderators' collective radar screen. But alerts often provide useful information, so you are encouraged to send them. Keep in mind that the moderators may not ban a person as quickly as you might like -- in fact, they might not ban someone at all. It is their job to be fair to everyone, to weigh all the evidence, and to come to a consensus before taking action.

Many rule violations (like personal attacks against other members of this website) are obvious, but some are very subjective. During primary season, the moderators' most difficult job is deciding which attacks against Democratic candidates or their supporters should be shut down. After much trial-and-error, the DU administrators have come to the conclusion that during primary season we should give our members a fair amount of leeway to discuss the primary candidates, their supporters, and their positions -- whether those discussions be positive or negative. Obviously, this approach is not perfect, but for a number of reasons we believe it is the least bad of many imperfect options. You would be wise not to take this as a green light to post a bunch of inflammatory crap. Be advised that we do have minimum standards, as many former members learned only after it was too late.

Having done this job for more than seven years -- including one previous presidential primary season -- the DU administrators are realistic about our ability to unilaterally make things "better" here on DU. (We can't.) So if you are waiting for the administrators and moderators to swoop in and ban all the perceived "trolls" (who curiously all seem to support the candidate that you do not), you will be sorely disappointed. My advice is that you try to skip past the first four stages of presidential primary grief (denial, anger, bargaining, and depression), and jump straight to acceptance: During primary season intra-party squabbling is both inevitable and perfectly normal. Democratic Underground -- and the Democratic party as a whole -- will be fine.


WHAT WILL HAPPEN HERE ON DU WHEN WE HAVE A PRESUMPTIVE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE.

Let me be clear: We expect our members to support the Democratic nominee for president. This expectation has been written into our rules since as far back as 2002, and we aggressively enforced this rule in 2004 after it became clear that John Kerry was the presumptive nominee. In other words, this is not a secret. If you are at all shocked or surprised by this, then you have not been paying very close attention. Don't even bother trying to convince us otherwise. This was decided long ago, we've already heard all the opposing arguments over and over a thousand times, and we're not going to change our policy. Here is how this will work:

At some point between now and the Democratic convention in August, one of the two remaining Democratic front-runners will drop out of the race, and the remaining candidate will become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. When we have a presumptive nominee, the time for fighting on DU will come to an end. The squabbling will not drag on until the "official" nomination at the convention in August. The transition to general election mode begins when we have a presumptive nominee. And we have no doubt that the vast majority of our members -- regardless of which candidate you support in the primaries -- will be glad to move forward and support the nominee.

We understand that not everyone will be prepared to immediately put the primaries behind us. There will be some jerks on the winning side who insist on gloating. And there will be some sore losers on the other side who will want to keep attacking the nominee. Once we have a presumptive nominee, those people will have one week to get it out of their systems. We believe that a one-week transitional period is more than fair for those of you who cannot switch gears easily or quickly. After this week-long adjustment period, we're done.

At that point, the moderators and admins will step in and shut down the primary infighting. The vast majority of people on this site will be glad to be done with the primaries. Sadly, a very small number of bitter partisans will not be able to let it go, and will likely be removed from this community. Few people will miss them when they are gone.

As usual, we will continue to permit constructive criticism of the Democratic nominee and of other Democratic candidates and officeholders. We will also continue to permit sincere, non-disruptive expressions of ambivalence toward the nominee. But we will not permit politically motivated attacks designed to tear down the Democratic presidential nominee.


Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope it addresses many of the questions that you have about the presidential election. If you have any questions, please feel free to post them in this thread and we will do our best to respond.

Thank you for your understanding, and thank you for being a part of our community.

David Allen ("Skinner")
Democratic Underground Administrator

This is a re-post of a thread which has been pinned to the top of this forum and locked. If you have any questions, please post them in this thread.

In an effort to limit the number of redundant, inflammatory and/or pointless topics posted in the General Discussion: Primaries (GDP) forum, we have instituted a limit on the number of discussion threads that any individual may post in this forum in a 24 hour period. Until the Democrats have a presumptive presidential nominee -- and perhaps longer -- no member may post more than three threads in this forum in any 24 hour period.

This change was proposed by the DU Administrators, and was supported by the vast majority of DU members when it was put to a vote.

This is a hard limit which is enforced automatically by our software. If at any point you reach the three-thread limit and then try to post a fourth thread, you will be presented with a page explaining that you are unable to post at that time. That page will provide you with links to your three previous threads, and will tell you the exact time when you will be able to start a new discussion thread.

This limit is for new discussion threads only. There is no restriction on the number of replies a member may post in this forum.

If you believe any individual may be attempting to bypass this restriction, please click the alert link on offending thread so the moderators may look into it.

Thank you for your understanding.

David Allen ("Skinner")
DU Administrator

Please kick and recommend this thread, as needed, so more DUers can see it. Thanks.

As you may be aware, we have been experiencing some occasional network problems since early morning Monday.

We are going to be making some tweaks to our servers this afternoon, which will likely cause isolated periods of downtime, each of which we expect to last about ten minutes.

We apologize for the inconvenience. And we thank you for your patience as we work to get this all sorted out.

David Allen (Skinner)
DU Administrator

Please kick and/or recommend this thread, as necessary, so more DUers will see it. Thanks.

ON EDIT: We think we might have fixed it. We'll keep a close eye to see how we're doing. Thanks, everyone for your patience.

And check out my snazzy new avatar image.

Turnout seemed light in my Northwest DC precinct -- only two or three other voters were there, so I didn't have to wait in line to vote. I always enjoy voting -- the volunteers working the polls are always very friendly. Brought my 13-month-old son with me, and everyone was making a big fuss over him. One of the election officials asked who he was voting for, and I said he refused to tell me.

I made my selection and turned in my ballot. My son and I both got "I voted" stickers to stick on ourselves.

Out front of the polling place there were two Obama signs and no signs for any other candidates. A young woman was handing out lit for Obama. I asked if she was cold -- she said she was, but she was going inside in a moment to get warm. She said she's gonna be there all by herself until 3, and then after a couple hours off she was coming back in the late afternoon to stand there some more.

No, I'm not going to tell you all who I voted for. But I will say that I would have gladly voted for both of the frontrunners if I could. I like them both a lot, and I find most of the arguments against them here on DU to be thoroughly unpersuasive.

Feels good to vote in a contested primary. I'm enjoying the primary season a lot. As I've said before: It's finally fun to be a liberal political junkie again!

In an effort to cut down on some of the, um, excesses here in the General Discussion: Primaries forum, the admins are considering instituting a limit on the number of threads that any participant may post in this forum in any 24 hour period.

We believe that this approach would be both fair and easy to enforce. It is our belief that the vast majority of members do not actually start that many threads. And in particular, members who tend to be productive and non-inflammatory participants on our website likely start the fewest threads, because such threads require the most thought and effort to produce. Posting two dozen threads of thoughtful analysis is a lot harder than posting two dozen threads of inflammatory one-liners.

So, here is your poll question:

What is maximum number of threads that a person should be permitted to post in the General Discussion: Primaries forum in a single 24-hour period?

Put another way:

What is the maximum number of threads that a productive, non-inflammatory participant in the General Discussion: Primaries forum would want or need to post in the General Discussion: Primaries forum in a single day?

To be clear: The maximum would be for new discussion threads only -- replies would continue to be unlimited.

Choose the answer that is closest to your opinion. If you oppose this idea entirely, then you should vote for the last option "Unlimited threads."

Note: We will judge the results of the poll based on the distribution of responses. In other words, the answer which has 50% of respondents below and 50% of respondents above will be considered to be the consensus choice. We are not going to simply choose the single option that gets the most votes. For the record, this is a non-binding poll of DU member opinion, and the DU admins are not committing ourselves to the result.

Please kick and recommend this thread so more DUers can see it. This poll will remain open until midday tomorrow, Sunday, February 10.

If you are a lurker or someone who reads DU without logging in to an account, you undoubtedly noticed that there are a few more ads on the site today. In fact, you should be seeing one in this very thread, on the right side of your screen. For reasons entirely out of our control, our advertising revenue has dropped significantly in the last three months, and we reluctantly decided that we need to make some changes in order to make up some of the shortfall. So we are testing some new ad placements to see how they perform. Allow me to explain.

Why our advertising revenue has declined

We have run two types of advertisements on this website for the last two years: BlogAds (the vertical column of ads appearing on our homepage, the Latest Threads page, and selected other pages), and Google AdSense (the more traditional banner ads, squares, and skyscrapers that appear on most of our pages). As our site has grown and our traffic and bandwidth have increased, these advertisements have provided us with much-needed additional revenue so we can continue upgrading and improving the site -- without asking our members to pay more.

In the middle of November of last year, Google AdSense made an important change to their advertisements which has dramatically decreased the revenue we -- and other publishers -- receive from their ads. If our ad representative at Google is being truthful, this change has also decreased the revenue that Google receives from their ads. Here is what they did: They drastically decreased the clickable area on their text ads. This change only affected the text ads (the little blue links with black text and a little green web address), not the graphical ads. The reason for the change is a legitimate one: They want to make sure that everyone who clicks on these ads actually intends to do so. With the formerly large clickable area -- the entire area of the ad -- some of the clicks were likely unintentional. Now that these ads have a new smaller clickable area, consisting only of the little blue link and the little green web address below it, the number of clicks on the ads has decreased significantly. And fewer clicks means less revenue. Our monthly revenue from Google AdSense has decreased by more than 50%.

What we are doing

In order to make up some of the shortfall in advertising revenue, we need to make some changes to our Google AdSense ads to improve the number of clicks they receive. In practice, that means three things: 1) We need more prominent ad placements on our pages; 2) we need to improve their relevance to our site, and 3) we probably need to increase the total number of ads. Our goal is to make the ads more prominent and relevant, without cheapening the appearance of our website and/or annoying our visitors. We believe it is possible to find a middle ground which most of our visitors will find acceptable.

Admittedly, we are not experts at this, so finding the optimal placements for our advertisements is going to take some experimentation. We are going to try a number of different ad placements over the next month or so in order to track their performance and learn what works. During this time, we want to minimize the annoyance to our visitors as much as possible. While we are experimenting, these new experimental ad placements are not going to appear on the screen for those of you who are logged in to your DU accounts. But if you are logged out, you will see them.

When the experimentation process is complete and we have found the optimal ad placements, we will decide whether we need to serve these new ads to those of you who are logged in to your DU accounts. As always, if you are a DU donor, you will continue to have the option to turn off Google AdSense advertisements. (To do so, just click the "Options" icon at the top of any page, then click "Edit your preferences." Look for the words "Display Google ads?" Select "no," then click the "Update" button to save the changes.)


Thank you for your patience as we work to maintain and improve this community.

David Allen ("Skinner")
Dave Allsopp ("EarlG")
Brian Leitner ("Elad")
Democratic Underground Administrators

Please kick and recommend this thread, as needed, so more DUers can see it. Thank you.

Yesterday we posted a poll asking if members wanted us to limit discussion of the Democratic presidential primaries, and nearly 9 out of 10 respondents voted yes.

Starting now, discussions about the Democratic Presidential Primaries are no longer permitted in the General Discussion forum. Instead, such topics must be posted in the newly-renamed General Discussion: Primaries forum.

Posting threads in the correct forum is simple.

When you click "post" to start a thread in either of the two General Discussion forums, you will be presented with a page explaining that discussion of the Democratic presidential primaries is not permitted in the General Discussion forum, and instead must be posted in the General Discussion: Primaries forum. You will then be prompted to select the forum that is most appropriate for your topic. After you have selected the appropriate forum, post the thread as you normally do.

If you are not sure where to post your thread, then it probably belongs in the General Discussion: Primaries forum.

How to HIDE threads posted in the General Discussion: Primaries forum, so you will not see them on the Latest page.

If you wish to avoid seeing threads from the General Discussion: Primaries forum, you can set your preferences so that they will not appear on the Latest Page. Here's how:

Just click the "Options" icon at the top of any page, and then click "Edit your preferences" to go to the Preferences page. Scroll partway down the page until you see the words "Hide General Discussion: Primaries from the Latest page?" Select "yes," then click the "Update" button at the bottom of the page.

And, of course, if you want to avoid seeing threads about the Democratic presidential primaries, you should avoid entering the General Discussion: Primaries forum.

Thank you for your understanding.

The DU Administrators

A copy of this thread has been pinned to the top of both GD forums. And it has been crossed posted in the other GD forum. Please kick and recommend as necessary so more DUers can see it.