The Watercooler for 07/03/08 9:00 PM

...the new world er blog order is dead last.

Phil wrote:

this disaster of an idea has just days to live or BFA is history

********************

I assume everyone at HQ is taking a 3 day weekend...

This thread was not on the 'rec' list but mine on "I want my blog back" was and it has now dropped into oblivion -- you want us to write front threads but you censor them -- why should we bother??

Because of Howard Dean's passion, his honesty, his ability to articulate directly what so many of us were appalled by in this administration, we came together on this blog.  For five years, we've argued, talked, nattered, shared poetry, personal experiences, information about candidates, supported causes, etc. 

I guess someone who had not been here would think we were a group of insiders, and in truth we have been.  That's what happens in communities. 

But, if DFA has a larger purpose of training activists, supporting progressive candidates, and supporting this blog along with other activities, maybe the old format doesn't fit anymore, is an impediment to the goals of the organization.

Maybe the purpose of the "water cooler-trash bin" is to break up the old order.  Those who adapt will stay, the rest of us will meander off to different blogs, different communities, though with vibrant memories.

I'm sad to see it go, but I suspect it is going, that Puddle and Sitka are right, and we don't have the power (sorry Howard) to change it.

If this was the effort of careful planning and brainstorming, I understand the kinds of work that goes into change, Charles, but the loss of this blog is a huge loss for many of us.

I hope then that the work of training activists goes on and is successful.  I just wish that we didn't have to destroy community in the process.  It feels like blog urban renewal.  Or, the wonderful old neighborhoods called Hutongs in Beijing that have all been torn down for high rises and the coming Olympics.

Night folks.

Hey! Speaking of BUSES, let's call the Watercooler "THE BACK OF THE BUS" since we're being segregated :~)

Did you take a vote of all the members of DFA?  Or was this a vote of the members of headquarters?  I think you are equivocating, saying that this is the way it's going to be, the majority have chosen, and you'll like it.  Yet, I see no evidence of that majority voting.

Can you tell us really why all posts on main threads have to be linear and on topic?  What is the reeason for it?  Surely you do have reasons for it.

Your statements feel like the school principal's who has just announced that students will not be able to loiter outside the building in small conversational groups, but have to stay in the lunch room, and the teachers will give them the topic of conversation they may talk about.

What's really giong on, Charles?

The idea is to allow members to provide feedback, thoughts, and ideas on the topic of the post.

Joke, right Charles?  Which of us is against murder? Torture?  Gov't spying?  Which of us is for endless war? Trillion dollar debt? John McCain?

I haven't seen a genuine new idea that hasn't been covered by a bigger better blog on DFA for an age or two.

What you have at BFA is a community, which is an active, activist community.  THAT is what you are destroying.

And that is what you'll PAY for destroying.

EVER read the blog.  That's been true from the beginning.  In fact, Howard might be President right now if they had.  They've never had any idear of what the blog could do, or has done. 

When blog members were producing better ads than the paid agency, for instance.  They kept on with the Howard/barn/cow meme. . .     After the scream, it took the blog about 30 minutes to realize what trubble he was in, and offer live video from the audience.  HQ ignored the offer.  When Howard was stranded overnight after missing a plane, an appeal to the blog would have hooked him up with maybe a dozen peeps in town where he an aids could have been put up.  They never asked, just informed us that he was stranded. 

The amount of time, energy, IQ, and willpower represented by this blog has NEVER ever been appreciated, except by Howard, one or two times. 

I have to give credit to Obama: he doesn't seem to be making the same mistake about his campaign, his supporters. . . .

So I'm thinking a bat and a watercooler might have fundraising potential at DemocracyFest :-)

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11529402

I see where a link to a scientific article about the genetic component of a need to move around might not be clear to a post on the state of public transit, but of course it was dead on appropriate to Danny's main post and yet it ended up here in the circular file. and since it was a reply to Monica's comment and now just stands here alone makes no sense whatsoever.

sorry if I actually tried to make a valuable contribution to your thinking Danny so you could broaden your vantage point about what transportation is about

too bad we have to dumb down our comments to the level of the moderator

...it made me take a ADHD test and I came out 'moderate' - maybe that's what's wrong with the blog - we are all ADHD but HQ is not :~). Maybe also it's why when I'm home I dream of traveling; when I'm traveling I wish I were home.

I am in AZ CD1 and am shouting out how great a candidate we have here.  Howard Shanker rocks.  Compared to the rest of the candidates, he outshines the rest like a beacon of hope.  Please encourage all your friends, families, and fellow Progressives to vote, support and back Howard Shanker for AZ CD1.  His two main opponents are blue-dog conservatives or racist party hacks.  To find out more about Shanker, go to his website: http://www.howardshankerforcongress.com/.  If you want business as usual from a boring, racist, wimp of a candidate, then you will vote for ann kirkpatrick since she follows marching orders from the party, the DCCC and the huge money donors such as developers, real estate interests, and private prison supportors.  She make me sick when I watch her speak.  One  example is when whe is talking about border walls. Undocumented workers are 'terrorists walking across the desert to get in'.  Get the picture?  It is the same line every Repuglican candidate spouts.  Out with Kirkpatrick-Renzi lite, and in with Howard, Progressive for the future.

5'll get you 10 this blog never makes it to Monday when IT returns.

why nobody was complaining when we were told there would be changes and we weren't even asked before hand.    When you give up power somebody will be happy to take it up.   We give up the right to belly ache when we don't even fight.    We should be directing Hdqtrs as to what we expect of them.   Of course, when it was our blog, we didn't make it look like something we could invite somebody to join.     A lot of juvenile bickering, private conversations, hissy fits, not a pretty picture on some occasions, and not a showcase to attract new members.    The poetry, recipes, travel and humor added character, it was the immature stuff that was the turnoff.

Dancing was divine again tonight.  And now for some D&G

Carolyn Eisenberg | A Devil's Bargain
http://www.truthout.org/article/a-devils-bargain
For Truthout, Carolyn Eisenberg writes: "With the president's signature now affixed to the bill, the clever deal is done. In exchange for another 'blank check' for a year of war, the Democrats have wrested from their Republican colleagues and the White House a host of domestic benefits ... Depending on their source of news, few Americans may be aware that Congress has now allocated another $162 billion to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan until next summer. In many media outlets, the only coverage pertained to the new educational benefits for soldiers. But even when the war funding received nominal attention, one would be hard-pressed to find in the mainstream media, or for that matter in the halls of Congress, any critical discussion of this political deal."

After we get kicked off the watercooler we go to the waterboarding area.

Okay, there is an articulate constituency for a blog that has the comfortable, well worn, neighborhood ambience that has become traditional here.

Read some conversation last night between a newish front pager and Phil S. The front pager captured the sense any new blog poster picks up when looking for reaction and comment to their
offering - the thread suggests almost none of the participants even read the post.

And, should there be any 'check on things every few days'
DFA/BFA-ers who would like to make a comment on a days old blog post, it is possible to do so but the "herd of cats" who leap to
a new thread every couple of hours are long gone and the logical conclusion is no one is going to read and respond to the 'not every day participant' catching up on important, relevant topics.

The on topic / watercooler parallel universe is a good idea.
It doesn't necessarily throw out the free form blog threads but it does lay the foundation for a more deliberate and relevant conversation on the issues of our time. I look forward to the less rushed period of topical comment and to the growing audience that could participate in it.

It was great to read this blog entry [An Open letter to Jim Dean] about a citizen whose citizenship lay dormant until reawakened by the crucial campaign of 2004. Citizenship continues into perpetuity (or as close as humanity gets to it). I expect the excellent citizenship practiced by DFA/BFA-ers will continue past some adjustments in in an web log.

A reasonable archive period for the watercooler ought to be
implemented.
Bloggers know if they are on topic or not. SELF-DIRECTION
frees up staff for more appropriate and productive work and
makes the "censorship" problem a moot point.

Out of the parlor, into the chickencoop !!

Written by: puddle on Jun 11, 2008 10:13 PM

Linked to groups: Blog For America

DFA lays another egg!

This was a rough first draft.  I was crying when I wrote it.  After chilling, I wrote another.  But it's been suggested that this wasn't so bad, so here it is, warts and all.

Fascinating,

the endless attempts from the big wigs at BFA to let us know we are the little wigs.  I.e., Social engineering run amok. 

On my dating site, chatters are ruthlessly banned.  Now, you'd think on a *dating* site, chat would be encouraged. . . .  So many got so banned for so long, they started their *own* site.  Two years later, with less than two hundred members, it's spawned four matches, and several marriages.  A superbly better rate than the site they came from.  And the new site is just friendship, not even a DATING site.

If anyone cared to go back and read the posts from the beginning until now, they would discover that this blog has NEVER, EVER, been on topic.  They would also discover that that is *exactly* and *profoundly* the strength of this blog, and the community it created. 

By taking that core  and heart and moving it to the status of chit-chat, you are deeply and profoundly insulting every blogger who ever blogged here.  With the possible exception of "Daniel Rooney" who never chits or chats.

If you want a hot-shot big time blog, like Kos or Atrios, or the Mahablog, fine create it.  But dammit, pay *some* attention to what you actually DO have.

Maha, btw, gets ten or fifteen comments to a thread, and she's a hellava lot better than this blog is ever likely to be.

Bad management of this blog has already created an alternative which has often had higher traffic than this one. 

Yup, he's going after the evangelical vote.  This is very distressing.

begin quote

"In an interview this week with "Relevant," a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain "a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother."

Obama then added: "Now, I don't think that 'mental distress' qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.""

*Obama made no such distinction last year:

"Last year, after the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on late-term abortions, Obama said he "strongly disagreed" with the ruling because it "dramatically departs form previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women.""


"The official position of NARAL Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group that endorsed Obama in May, states: "A health exception must also account for the mental health problems that may occur in pregnancy. Severe fetal anomalies, for example, can exact a tremendous emotional toll on a pregnant woman and her family.""

*A leading anti-choice group says Obama either is being disingenous or he's or ignorant. (Note they don't mention the third possibility which is that he's on their side):

"David N. O'Steen, the executive director of National Right to Life, said Obama's remarks to the magazine "are either quite disingenuous or they reflect that Obama does not know what he is talking about."

"You cannot believe that abortion should not be allowed for mental health reasons and support Roe v Wade," O'Steen said."

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/7/3/20917/25581

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Well, I'm sorry for the span.

If we can't even get our blog back, how are we going to take our country back?

Prolly everyone in congress has been eavesdropped upon, and are being blackmailed.

lost my mojo for D&G.

How do we know when there's a new waterboarding session?  I posted something about BO's new take on choice and would like to read what you all have to say

My post in response to Danny's first announcement of the watercooler:

I think the coming changes to the blog are all terrible ideas Danny.  Everyone hates change and I am no exception.  I don't like the 'water cooler' idea b/c it means some power that be is deciding what is relevant and what is not.  I don't like the idea of a layer of 'important' posters who write the diaries and then the rest of us - it's not egalitarian.  I do agree with everything that's been said above that has been rated up.  We've been through a lot on this blog, we share news of ourselves, we've put up with a practically non-functioning blog that got changed (with absolutely no warning) to another practically non-functioning blog for which we have been the beta testers for you.  The last time we had a Nanny was Tara and all she did was try to control the blog bully/troll -- she was so consumed with that she didn't do anything else.  If we wanted to be KOS, we'd all go over there -- actually I'm sure many of us read KOS every day but this place is like slippers and recliner and golden retriever - where we can be ourselves and everyone knows our name.  The new ideas are frankly sucky.

and quoting without permission from mprov at the same thread:

ah, blog reform:

sheep & kats 
take a turn, around the thread 
put up your bats 
for your elected 
tell me you're not going beta 4.0 
tell me you're not going to change this show 
once again 
once again

peeps & trolls 
hot arguments ensue 
pull out your articles 
SCREAM TILL YOU'RE BLUE 
tell me you're not going to try to rope us in 
tell me you're not going to try to quite the din 
once again 
once again

most been around here since 2003 
each one's got their special little thing 
living & dying & all in between 
marching to a drum beat 
man, that ain't the thing

sheep & kats 
take a turn, around the thread 
put up your bats 
for your elected 
tell me you're not going beta 4.0 
tell me you're not going to change this show 
once again 
once again...

and a link for both:

http://democracyforamerica.com/blog_posts/25560-changes-to-the-blog#comments

I didn't see your post.   It will take more than just a very few writing to staff.   We need to get our heads together and decide what WE want the blog to be, and how it can serve us and attract new people.    When we decide we need to get that message to Jim so he can direct the staff, or have a discussion about details.    It takes a lot of repetition to get everyone on the same page, but we could do it if we cared.    It's hard to get everyone's attention to initiate any action here.