As I come to this site so often, you can't imagine how bizarre it is to find myself the subject of a Jerome frontpager. Now I know what they mean by echo chamber.

I never thought I would say this, but kudos to you Jerome for reading the flamewars piece, promoting it, and responding to some of the points it made. As you know, I've often been critical about the way things were run round here.  But you've taken your time out to explain how revenues fund other writers and your struggles with the moderation system. That's pretty transparent and accountable.

One teeny misunderstanding. I actually joined MYDD four years ago, and it's good to be back in my old identity here without having to use my samizdhat self of duende (I think you might have clipped its wings earlier this week).  

But come to think of it - haven't you just outed me Jerome? Haven't you just revealed my true real life identity, and thereby broken the site guidelines?

Shouldn't I now be removing your rec and ratings powers?

Oh the injustice of it all.

meh, i totally joined mydd with the intent to troll clinton supporters, and i did in fact troll clinton supporters, and i was permabanned for said trolling.

and it was fun.
 but then again, i am a internet troll first, obama supporter second.

bottom line was i didn't like clinton because she insulted me ny trying to censor gta 3 for stupid, transparently political reasons, and i just don't like that at all.
politically motivated censorship goes heavily against my social libertarian ideology

As droll an account as that was what good is served by reopening the wounds of that painful period?  Are we so far down the road that this schism among supporters is now resolved and the vicious enmity of that time truly healed?  I wonder.  I have tried to honour the spirit of chivalry and collective Democratic aspirations, and enthusiastically welcomed any number of former Hillary supporters to our common cause, but just reading of it raises my hackles again in spite of a conscious commitment to unity and collegial good-will.

There are still plenty of bad memories lingering just under the surface, speaking for myself, and blogging here was a continuous test of patience and forbearance for months on end.  I take brit's point about the lessons in polemics and argument but sometimes these long-standing, oppressive experiences breed a resolve which can live in hollow darkness for a long time.  Revenge, as they say in NY, is a dish best served cold but is nonetheless a long anticipated feast.

Jerome, can you please restore priviledges to RisingTide? That's my first account here, and I'd luv to have it back.

Props.

The moderation of Internet blogs is an interesting conundrum, and one that imo needs to be resolved to take the value of these forums to the next - and crucial - level. Being an Internet Security Geek and sociology junky, this has been on my mind for decades and I think we can begin to see the Promised Land dimly in the distance.

"How do online forums become the place where society communicates amongst itself, develops solutions and creates public policy?"

First USENET flourished and was effectively destroyed by emergent SPAM.  Then the blogs came along and provided a richer matrix of discussion, but even now the flaws in that diamond are demonstrating their weaknesses.

even though we pulled the best of the best from all blogs, we couldn't figure out a way to incorporate ratings, even though I believe that sort of community moderation is vital for the place to be less of a hierarchy and more of a community

I have my own thoughts on how this might be accomplished and will do my part to try them out as it is possible to implement them.  However it is done it will be interesting to see how all of this plays out, because if we are to realize the necessary maturation of the public forum as touched on in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game.

As you know, some of us have launched down the path trod by many before us by founding yet another MyDD-descended progressive blog (Motley Moose), which however it turns out will play yet another part in searching for that ultimate moment when not only the technical and political junkies argue but politics itself occurs.  As Sean Tevis and many others have noted, the communication of our elected (and hired) officials must be visible to the entire population, and the ultimate expression of that will become real when these conversations are not just copied into the public medium but actually occur here.

I commend you for addressing Peter's article head-on and providing credit and commentary where you feel it is due.  Also for doing all you have done, for better or worse, to nurse the tottering tyke of Public Discourse forward.  Moreover, I commend you for doing so in your own name and taking the hits that come with that, I hope more of the commenters in these public forums take a hint from that.  We may not always (or even often ;~) agree with each other, but that isn't a requirement of discourse: engagement is.

And thank you, Peter, for providing another paving stone in the pathway leading to evolved and interactive Democracy.  There are still only Zero of us out here, and educating the Unwashed is more  productive than preaching to our Choirs.

-chris

Same here, I was member of mydd since 2004, though I was an infrequent user, as the site was pretty small (basically, the size openleft is right now, but with even less frontpage diaries).  However, I starting participating more actively here with the primaries, mainly because of the sheer filth against Obama being promoted without punishment here.  This was before Wright, before Ohio and Texas, before "bitter-gate".  Back in February, when Obama came out of Super Tuesday with more delegates than Clinton, people like Larry Johnson were already going crazy.  He wrote a particularly nasty piece on dailykos which mocked Obama on a racial level and he was banned from the site as a result.  On mydd, the very same diary stayed at the top of the rec list.

Sometimes, the diaries were so spectacularly awful (one with a video of 9/11 footage mixed with Reverend Wright comes to mind) that the only thing we could do was spam the comment section with cat pics and mess with the tags.

A lot of people would rather not talk about the primary any more.  I for one actually look back on it as a tremendous learning experience.  When the next contested Democratic nomination comes, I think all of us who made it through these trying months will be able to approach it with far more rationality and reason than the newly registered masses.  And maybe, just maybe we won't flip out and go crazy over the small things...

Are we going to get T-Shirts?

"I survived the 2008 primary flamewars"

That was awesome.  Thanks for posting it.

Jerome,

With all due respect;

Even it this retrospective you display serious bias.  

You say Obama did himself a injustice by not "taking on" the displayed ugliness yet absolve Clinton (by contrast)from the same responsibilities.  

Obama is/was no more responsible for his over zealous supporters than Sen. Clinton is for Texas Darlin & Alegre, Flowbee or the true racist who supported her candidacy, some of these people she actually new and had contact with.  

Until you can find a way to discuss these topics with a more even handed way it's difficult to appreciate your post as anything other than a attempt to re-write history.

oops....

knew....

I always thought "Great Orange Satan" was coined by Atrios or someone like that in reference to the blogroll spat.  Is it really an artifact of this primary?  Because, to be honest, it doesn't sound like a term that actual critics of Daily Kos would come up with, it sounds like a term someone would come up with to mock those critics.

Well done Jerome on being big enough to feature this article. While you begin to explain your attitude towards the primary and the flame wars here, I hope that when this is all over you will sit down and write a diary that explains in more detail your position on the primary and why supported Hillary Clinton so strongly.

I came here from the Penny Arcade primary politics thread because my company's firewall descended to cover "video game" sites, blogs, and webforums (though to say that Penny Arcade is just a video game or webforum site is doing it a disservice: video gamers can be some of the smartest and best informed people online), but still let me go to political news sites, which is how MyDD and Kos are catagorized, despite their open-source blogging forum-like nature.

I came here instead of Kos for a similar reason to brit; this is where the real action was.  This is where the debate was.  This is where the misconceptions and flat-out lies (on both... or should I say 'all three' sides, if we're counting the wingnut trolls and their sockpuppets, which probably rivaled the number of authentic posters at one time) were, the things that needed to be debunked with a quickness, because it became increasingly obvious to me that the television media illuminati couldn't tie their shoes without checking the blogs first; if we were reporting lies without contest, of course the TV was going to spout those same lies.  

The sieves of information through which the networks distributed information to the masses had become small cups that scooped information out of the vast sea of the internet; not only was there concern over what they scooped out, but also how much (more appropriately: how little).  

So we here, and the other websites with simliar missions, have carved out an important piece of history.  If Obama wins, we will be able to claim a significant amount of credit... and also blame if Obama does not.  Regardless, our importance to future politics cannot and will not be denied.

Kudos to Brit, and Jerome for reporting on the piece.

So they say -
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a ride
you'll find its no surprise
they're giving none away

-=-

The article correctly documents that Jerome Armstrong banned diarists who were writing, essentially factually correct articles , simply
because he was trying to lower the signal to noise
ratio of hillary vs. obama supporters.

The article states, without disagreement from
Jerome  here, that this was a decision motivated
by commercial considerations.

Funny thing. The article cites wikipedia as an example of a successful model where bloggers and writers contribute, but he failed to mention the fact that no reader would ever take seriously an encyclopedia entry where the moderator of the site deleted opposing points of view and ensured only a certain class of encyclopedia entry was published, to accomplish an advertising agenda.

Writing as a former front page myDD'er who was posting in favor of Obama, then subsequently banned from the front page.

But in the end. The specific post that got me banned from the front page, was a very telling one. Hillary wanted to meet John McCain on economic grounds - giving people a tax rebate for gas.  Obama opposed it. He said it wouldn't work. And now is not the time for half measures.

And so, the same is true for the blogosphere.
Did you know you can write blog posts on your own blog, about products - and the advertisers will pay you for them? Lamest articles you've ever seen.

The yardstick I use here at myDD is the quality of writing, which has improved marginally since the end of the Clinton campaign. A true sign that moderation of any blog - is a delicate art that requires objectivity over commercial gain.

"Even at the height of Clintonista support on this blog, there were still more Obama supporters that were welcome, and represented on the frontpage."

Whaaat? Singer was Obama, you were hard not-Obama, Beeton was soft Clinton. Everyone else was an irregular front-pager.

Let's all gather around for the MyDD circle-jerk!

Interesting read. I pretty much stopped coming by during the months long period between when Hillary lost and when she finally conceded. Hopefully Obama will win and we will never have to go through another Clinton primary (except settling scores in the Virginia gubernatorial primary).

I see some folks still can't let some things go. I wish you folks good luck and much valium on November 4th.