Davis Square Area Presidential Poll

[cemeterygates.livejournal.com]

The moderator has approved this poll. Please confine discussion of the primary to the comments of this post, and note that individual votes are private unless you chose to comment openly. Thank you!

[Poll #1118346]

Comments

[ron_newman]

I'm Ron Newman, one of the moderators, and I approve this message ;-)

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

:::files for information from the Federal Election Commission:::

[cutieperson]

i'm not, and i don't. i missed the part in the community rules where it said off-topic posts were okay if a moderator was personally interested and Declared It So.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Community discussion? I share your concern with off-topic posts but I don't think this is egregious and it IS something everybody in the locality cares about.

[cutieperson]

we probably don't share the same concern about off-topic posts. i would care less about them if the enforcement wasn't arbitrary.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Actually we do, you might notice I bitch about OT posts a lot over on davis_meta. I just think in this particular case this isn't unreasonable.

[cutieperson]

it's not that i think this is unreasonable. it's that because a moderator is interested in it and thinks lots of the community members are interested in it he deemed it okay. i'm sure lots of the community members are interested in breakfast foods, but if i posted a poll asking if they were going to opt for bacon, eggs, oatmeal, or yogurt for breakfast it would be deleted in a second.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Yeah, because that belongs in your personal journal and doesn't have any material effect on the Square. It's trivia. Who gets into the White House isn't.

[wildflowersoul.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with this comment.

[komos.livejournal.com]

At least it isn't an "I'm voting for..." post from a campaign worker. Those are my favorites. :\

Still, because of recent enforcement decisions, it appears that the comm rules are best viewed as suggestions. Ron has noted (http://community.livejournal.com/davis_meta/8954.html?thread=63482#t63482) that his mod decisions around whether posts are topical are at least partly based on a) whether a post generates discussion and b) whether the level of complaint/snark exceeds the value of that discussion.

[cutieperson]

i'm just doing my part to complain about those decisions! er, generate discussion.

[ron_newman]

Any campaign spam here will be ruthlessly deleted. Some Obama supporter spammed a bunch of unrelated New England LJ communities (not this one) and got the negative reaction you might expect.

[komos.livejournal.com]

At the very least, I will say that I appreciate that.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

When off-topic political posts are nearly inevitable, it's easier to control if they're limited to one or two places. Think of it as a quarantined area for election talk. :-)

[ron_newman]

One reason I approved this is that it is the best way to corral all discussion of the topic into a single place. The moderators can now freely delete any other posts about the primary until Election Day, and redirect the discussion here.

[cutieperson]

but that's just it, you don't have to approve discussion beyond where the polling places are and other nuances like that specific to Davis Square or Somerville if you want to be more general.

[ron_newman]

This seemed to me like the best compromise between suppressing local discussion of a topic lots of people are interested in, and letting the inevitable series of political posts occur freely over the next month.

[ellf.livejournal.com]

Well, as a community member who doesn't really care about DS' political leanings, I'm fine with it being confined to one post, and glad that the mods are working to keep it limited to this single location.

[wildflowersoul.livejournal.com]

I am so amused by this comment in light of your view yesterday (http://community.livejournal.com/davis_meta/9802.html?thread=86602#t86602) stating "what harm is there in a few extra posts?"

This post is exactly why I think a separate comm for off-topic discussion would be useful and would probably generate a ton of interesting* discussions on a variety of topics.

*Your level of interest may vary

[ellf.livejournal.com]

There's a significant difference between arguing that people's posts should be deleted if they don't meet the criteria of a minority of the users, and appreciating that the mods have flagged a particular thread for discussion of voting in the primaries.

[komos.livejournal.com]

Just to clarify - This "criteria" you've referenced is the first rule of the community. The "minority" is questioning the application of this rule, at least in part, according to the whims of mob rule (i.e. whether a post generates discussion and whether the complaints about the post outweigh the value of that discussion). Consistent application of the rule would lead to a whole lot less of the "we're louder so we win" sentiment, but it's been implied that more snark results in more action, and the "majority" seems content with the noise:info ratio. It's unfortunate, but there you go.

Ron's advocated deleting a "few extra posts" concerning the primaries that crop up here in the future. What are your feelings about that?

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

My recommendation to you if you have some suggestions on how better the community might be managed is to join davis_meta, get active, ask questions and make suggestions.

I would point out that not every post in the community is going to be of interest to every single person on every given day.

[cutieperson]

i'll point out that i think you are missing my point. it's not about whether or not i personally am interested in it, and i don't think it should be. it's about whether or not it's specific to Davis Square and how convenient it is that it doesn't matter because a mod is interested in it.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

I think you're missing mine as well. `

[cutieperson]

alright then. here's how to manage the community - delete off topic posts. or change the community rules to broaden the definition of what's on-topic.

"it's inevitable so let's just put it in one place!" still doesn't address the issue of this being something that can be easily covered globally as opposed to locally, and it's not going to save the mods any work in the end because not everyone reads every post. there are bound to be people who post something political because they didn't see the post where they were asked to keep it to one post, and there are bound to be others who post a new post despite having seen the request because "OMGBBQ it's important and WOE, i will die if it gets buried in the long comment thread!??!"