dKosopedia talk:Community Portal/Archive 1
From dKosopedia
< dKosopedia talk:Community Portal
The Community Portal is the central place to find out what's happening on dKosopedia. One way to keep involved in the growing attempt to formulate a cogent response to the authoritarianism and plutocratism of anti-progressive groups in our environment would be to come here first to see what's happening. What tasks do you have that you think need to be done? What groups are you involved with (within the dKosopedia community) that other people may want to join? What are the brush fires that need to be put out immediately? Post your concerns or your responses to those questions here.
European view of extraordinary renditions, etc.
|Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member states Draft report – Part II (Explanatory memorandum); Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights (PDF; 650KB)
The Job List
- Something ought to be done with Blogging_Taskforce.
- Check articles for factual accuracy. There is no percentage in attacking Donald Duck for cannibalism if it turns out that he is in fact a strict vegetarian. If you make charges you want to be able to make them stick.
Categorization
Please see and comment about the use and organization of Categories here. Some thoughtful help needed. --SarahLee 00:03, 1 June 2006 (PDT) See Also: The dKosopedia Category Project - the page I created should be deleted. --SarahLee 12:40, 1 June 2006 (PDT)
Watchlist the dictionary
The term:list needs you! Any questionable rhetorical terms you've heard used, belong on this list to be dissected, exploded, exposed and reframed (see reframe:terrorism for an example).
Post the good things people have done
- Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine is now out in print. It is an excellent book both because it gives a very clear idea of the real difficulties involved in guarding us against future 9/11 style attacks, and also the reasoning (?) behind the Bush regime decision to act without requiring proof.
- Old-guard foreign policy establishment, types such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft and their allies, are stepping up to retake foreign policy leadership. See http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/print/Geopolitical%20Nightmare.htm
- Paul Rieckhoff has been interviewed on NPR (and probably other places too). He was very convincing on the air, and so is his book, Chasing Ghosts -- a 1st Lieutenant's report on all the ways that things have been being mishandled in Bush's Iraq exploit.
Information on the efforts of Rieckhoff and hia compatriots is kept current at:
Recruit a dkotroll today!
Wikipedia, sourcewatch.org, wikocracy.org and other forums have politically interested people, some of whom are great researchers and editors. Also there are many blogs out there full of people wasting their scholarly and rhetorical abilities in response to some post no one will read. By contrast, dKosopedia:itself compiles all the information useful to prevent the spread of Republican mental health challenges, and may eventually have a candidate portal suitable to keep even the Dimmest of Dims up to date on the issues. In other words, rather than troll the Republicans on their own forums, or general ones, it might be better to come back to this trollsnest here and reframe everything you know (see also FrameShop) for maximum impact on the morons.
Then, at the right, moment, an Octrollber Surprise can be unleashed on the bad guys!
So find the trolliest progressives you can, and bring 'em back here to train in ethical trolling techniques: no lies, no spin, just the plain unvarnished truth to take 'em out!
Where is Lazlo?
Some years ago there was a guy with a (made-up?) name something like Lazlo Toth who would write letters purportedly from one of the dimmer lights among the asteroid cloud surrounding some politician. Then after he had collected a few years of stuff he would publish his letter followed by the response received from the politician. Sometimes the politician was wise to him and sent an even funnier letter in reply. Sometimes the politician appeared dimmer than his constituent. Where are you now, Lazlo, when we need you so much?
- That was Don Novello, aka "Father Guido Sarducci", in case it matters. --Ray Radlein 02:46, 11 June 2006 (PDT)
Need some help with this please
I found Dkosopedia today. I have been spending days editing right wing rants on Wikipedia, on everything from 'tort reform' to 'asbestos and the law'. I totally revamped the 'asbestos and the law' into an actual article, instead of a forum to bash lawyers. I transferred the article over here, but am having a few formatting problems, here, though. I also welcome substantive edits.I suspect it would be good if we had 'mirror' articles to some of those on Wikipedia... like the 'tort reform' both on Wikipedia and here. I love the article here. The article on Wikipedia still needs drastic help. I edited quite a bit, but it is overwhelming, there was so much garbage. It was a long tirade, and now it is part tirade and part not, but a jumbled messLeo54 17:15, 16 June 2006 (PDT).
- I agree; while dKP is not Wikipedia, I think it makes a lot of sense to grab certain articles from Wikipedia, if for no other reason than to protect the good info in them from the constant incursions of wingnutcruft. --Ray Radlein 18:23, 16 June 2006 (PDT)
- Thanks! I guess here one does not need a <p> for a paragraph? Yet
still codes? Is there a list of formatting codes?
- Thanks! I guess here one does not need a <p> for a paragraph? Yet
- I have a fairly long history with Wikipedia, with roughly a thousand edits going back just under three years, now; but I have done very little there in the last year or so: I had taken a "vacation" from Wikipedia for a few months, and discovered, upon my return, that someone had taken a bunch of my articles in a fairly obscure corner of the infospace and run them through the VfD chipper while I was gone. Despite the fact that the articles had all been carefully vetted against a set of Wikiproject guidelines established by their community at the time, this other party stepped in, trashed the guidelines, and took a hatchet to the Wikiproject. Since it was, after all, a fairly obscure corner of the infospace, there were never enough people around keeping an eye on the pages at any given time to stop them from being VfD'ed.
- The results, of course, were horrifying. It's one thing to come back after a vacation and find that someone has been editing your articles: That's expected, and your old versions are still there for comparison purposes. But for someone to eliminate your articles is, well, completely disheartening. Or at least it was for me. As a result, I have very little desire to throw myself back into Wikipedia these days, although I never did GBCW Wikipedia (because I knew that I couldn't ever stay completely away from it). --Ray Radlein 01:35, 17 June 2006 (PDT)
- Well, we can't let the wingnuts take over. We just can't. I can imgaine how infuriating it is to have article eliminated. Did you lodge a complaint? I would have. .Leo54 10:27, 17 June 2006 (PDT)
My 2 cents
The observations of what's happened to wikipedia are on target. My own perception is that are are cabals of right wingers working in tandem to circumvent the 3 revert rule, exhausting anyone who edits with some sense. There is also the practice of artful deletion, where anyting potentially negative to the Republican cause is deleted, vs. changed to reflect a pov: this is the passive form of NPOV.
My own feeling is that The Wikipedia Foundation will eventually get sued for libel and the whole thing will go briefly dark, only to be picked up by someone like Google or Ask or MSN (and probably, all three). This of course would impact us here, but our status as a politically motivated venue owned and operated by another political venue probably gives us more protection that Wikipedia. Ultimately, Wikipedia will probably get split into several distinct but not mutually exclusive entities, each with different posting rules.
In the meantime, there remain a huge number of worthy articles on Wikipedia which do not interest the Republicans, and dKosopedia should not attempt to duplicate these. Similarly, as I have noted elsewhere, dKosopedia is not a competitor of Wiki, but rather a supplement, giving the Democratic point of view. Wikipedia is inclusive; dKosopedia is exclusive, limiting itself to articles about Democrats, electing Democrats, and on Democratic policy.
Wikipedia, with its huge critical mass of editors, can keep up on current events; for the moment, we cannot, and historically, never have. The trouble with current events is that they have to be updated, and as things progress, put into a larger context. I've been deleting articles dating from the 2004 election which were never updated and were never put into historical context: one is left wondering what the point is, and to be blunt, such articles are a waste of the reader's time.
There are some good policy articles, but to be quite frank, they are difficult to find, sometimes because of poorly chosen name-space, other times because the topic is rather obscure. One wonders how many of these articles are actually read. Admittedly, Wikipedia also suffers from the same problem.
What I'm saying is that we need to develop a clear vision of just what dKospedia, what it is not, and how we are to keep things from turning into the free-for-all Wikipedia proper has turned into. --Allamakee Democrat 10:56, 17 June 2006 (PDT)
- From my (very) brief look at dKospedia, it looks like it could do with many more editors, to help keep it current. I agree that someday Wikipedia surely should get sued for libel. I was astonished at some of the trash pieces. I also have seen that there are 'puff' pieces (biographies) on various editor's favorites. It has been an education. IT does seem appropriate for something like dKospedia to include articles that are politically charged, like Asbestos and the Law. I completely rewrote that article (jgwlaw on Wikipedia) from what had been a tort reform rant. That was particularly of interest to me, since my father died of mesothelioma. The "Junkmen" are trying to convince the public now that asbesos dangers are 'overblown' etc. and their catch phrase is "the campaign to ban asbestos'. These kinds of issues - esp as related to "tort reform" - need to be addressed, imho. We know that Grover Norquist thinks putting trial lawyers out of business will also put out the Democrats.Leo54 11:19, 17 June 2006 (PDT)
Voting Rights
The problem is that cyber-organizations are virtually immune from libel claims. What prompted me to finally give it up completely is the realization that editing articles there and working to get attack articles deleted ultimately makes no difference - they are recreated and revandalized regularly. <p>
I would like to talk to the person who wanted help with 'voting rights'. I am going to be gone for a week and a half, but want to help with that in earnest. If anyone knows who this is (i can't find his email now), please post here, or email me.Leo54 20:22, 2 August 2006 (PDT)
Non-Authoritarians
One of the problems that the Democrats (and other non-authoritarian factions) have is that the authoritarians (including the religious fundamentalists from the church down the block to Osama bin-Laden) appeal to that portion of the population that wants simplistic solutions and directions from above on how to lead their own lives. Frequently such people want the permission of an authority to hate others. And it is hard to argue with somebody like Rush Limbaugh even if you're not the kind of person who says, "Just tell me what to believe."
Somewhere in the middle between those true believer types and people who are open to examining complexities are the people whose responses can be influenced by arguments from both sides. They may be the ones who were initially eager for war with Iraq but who fairly rapidly became disenchanted as the facile promises failed to be kept. Those are the people we need to be able to talk to.
To sway the people who are not firmly wedded to authoritarian belief and to the opinions of government authority figures, we have to have our arguments clearly formulated, and we have to be able to mobilize our knowledge in a way that actually communicates to the people we need to convince. Merely being in the right is not sufficient -- especially when in competition with masters of propaganda, character assassination, etc. Governor Dukakis could not say, "Ladies and Gentlemen, observe the manipulation that my opponent is trying to use on you." Senator Kerry was not much more able in the last election campaign. Part of the problem may be a certain lack of cutthroat spirit, but having a clearly formulated position can help one prevail against bad opponents. Kennedy did not need to be a cutthroat to nail down point after point rapidly, clearly, and forcefully in his debates with Nixon. He did not arrive at that position simply by having good character. He did his homework in depth.
One of the things that we must do is to see to the overarching considerations that give meaning to the lesser issues. For instance, President Bush, has been promising a "hydrogen economy". He is making it seem that all we have to do is to create vehicles that can burn hydrogen, and filling stations that can provide hydrogen to the new cars. What he ignores is that there are no hydrogen wells on his planet. The only way we can get hydrogen is to use electrical energy to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen, or through some similar process that uses hydrocarbons (which will release more carbon into the atmosphere). All of these things cost energy to produce. Hydrogen is potentially a handy way for turning electrical power into something that can be stored in a fuel tank. The only sources for the needed electrical power that don't involve fossil fuels are hydroelectricity, solar power, wind power, and nuclear power. We don't have surpluses of any of those power sources. So having a "hydrogen economy" is like having a discharged battery in your car.
Hydrogen power falls under power sources, immigration falls under population pressure and population pressure falls under reproductive pressures and degradation of the environment. To speak to the uncommitted middle we need to be able to say and to back up the truth: Bush can't get hydrogen from the tooth fairy. Illegal immigration will always be an issue in proportion to how bad the economies of other parts of the world are in comparison to the U.S. economy and the resources and opportunities available here.
Similarly, we need to clarify how policy choices are grounded in more fundamental values. Imprisonment of "enemy combatants" who are "picked up on the battlefield" may sound perfectly reasonable to people who do not inquire how it is proven that the people picked up were actually combatants and were actually on the battlefield. Those questions can be put in goose and gander terms: How would you like it if you ended up being seized while on a Bible trip in Palestine, declared a terrorist, and imprisoned in some unnamed place "until the end of the war on terror"? How would you like it if you were told, "You must be guilty of something because you are in prison."
Every time somebody comes up with a caveman's response to public policy we need to be able to say, and to show, that the barbarism is at odds with fundamental principles. p0m 21:06, 17 June 2006 (PDT)
We can do this job here and have a real impact. p0m 21:06, 17 June 2006 (PDT)
What does dKosopedia stand for?
Is the US democrat party just one element or the main focus? How broardly do you interpret "left"? You don't mention green is that an oversight or do you regard them as rivals? What is your equivalent to Wikipedia's NPOV? If the answer is this is yet to emerge it still would be helpful to know what is in the process of emerging.
- Daily Kos, the blog, I presume. Others will have to answer the remaining questions.Leo54 09:18, 19 June 2006 (PDT)
If you mean I should judge the wiki by the blog then it is very hard for me as a European to make much sense of it. It does suggest that the emphasis is on US politics but is that merely a reflection of current users or a policy?Dejvid 12:19, 19 June 2006 (PDT)
(Edit Conflict -- I wrote the following at the same time as the above continuation of the questions from Dejvid)
- I don't think that the Democratic Party should be the nucleus. A political party can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what its fundamental goals are,and whether it uses productive or counter-productive means to achieve its goals. If the Democrats were to discover an ideally appealing candidate, somebody with the attractiveness of Jacqueline Kennedy, the combined abilities of Clinton, Reagan, and Roosevelt to communicate, but with all the moral deficits of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, then the party might win but the nation would lose -- and all human beings would lose.
- The problems that face the world (and the U.S. as a part of it) are very real. It may make people who oppose Bush and Cheney happy to see them fall in the polls, but the reason they fall is not their poor marksmanship or ability to giggle in the middle of words of serious import. The reason they are growing in unpopularity is that their policies are making a bad situation worse.
- The fundamental objective of serious, moral people is to solve problems, resolve conflicts, and bring a better future to all people in a world that is already showing signs of leaking at the seams. People are dying of hunger because of a combination of bad management, worsening environmental conditions, normal fluctuations in the climate that might pass without disaster were the areas involved already at the margin of survival. People are dying of diseases that have successful treatments but nobody to pay for them at a time when a new disease in New Zealand can show up in Nova Scotia the next day.
- In order to act effectively we need to maintain a "neutral point of view" (NPOV) in regard to empirical matters. To be objective in regard to, e.g., whether Bill Clinton met with ETs in the Rose Garden or whether George Bush spent his military service period in Shangrila, is different from having a value judgment about real policies and real effects. One can maintain a clinical view of VD without maintaining a neutral attitude toward the desirability of providing medical care for prevention and treatment.
- If we get the right take on the problems and enunciate what has to be done to cure or ameliorate them, then we will be better able to direct public debate on these issues -- or combat bad policies that may be advocated. p0m 13:47, 19 June 2006 (PDT)
- My understanding is that the blog is an attempt for people concerned with recent counter-productive Republican policies to comment on the U.S. political situation, try to work out responses, etc. The wiki is hopefully functioning as a way to consolidate and systematize some of the things that come out of the blogs, but also to serve as a source of information.
- Since we share the world, Europe may experience many of the same problems. One of the problems with public policy understanding here in the U.S. is that not many people understand the world outside their own regions or their own country. That fact can create problems both for the U.S. and for the rest of the world. p0m
That was just the kind of answer I was looking for, thanks.Dejvid 14:03, 19 June 2006 (PDT)
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