Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

EarlG

(22,551 posts)
11. My answer may not be very helpful I'm afraid :)
Wed Mar 6, 2024, 04:28 PM
Mar 2024

I can't really give you specifics because the Jury system is not set up to enforce bright, clear lines. The Jury system does an excellent job quickly removing objectionable material that everyone can agree is objectionable, but it also works very well to handle situations which fall within the "grey area," by allowing a ton of flexibility.

What this means in practice is that if someone said today that Biden should step down in favor of a younger candidate, then depending on how it's worded, Jurors might look at it and think, "Meh, I'll allow it for now." And a lot of people might be pissed about that, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. On the other hand, if it's much later in the year and someone argues that Biden should step down in favor of a younger candidate, they will likely find a Jury to be far less tolerant. In this way, the Jury system broadly reflects the views of the community at large.

As an example, when Joe Biden first became president, Juries were much more likely to enforce the "Don't bash" or "Support Democrats" rules again Joe Manchin. At that time, Manchin was a crucial deciding vote in the Senate and he did stand up for Democrats on some important votes, so while there were still plenty of comments bashing him, Juries were less tolerant of those attacks, and tended to remove more of them. But as Biden's term went on, Manchin became more and more of a thorn in the side of Democrats, until eventually he started publicly toying with the idea of a third party run. By then, Juries were much more tolerant of posts bashing him, and more were allowed to stay. So the rule didn't change, but the context did, and the community's perception of Manchin did, and so they enforced the rule accordingly.

Overall, this is how I prefer things to run. While Juries may occasionally misfire -- which is why we have an appeals process -- rarely do we find that Juries systematically and consistently get things wrong. The last time we did a rule update was to provide additional information about how we define transphobia, because we felt that too many people did not have enough of awareness of that issue, and it was leading to poor outcomes in Jury results. But that was the first time we'd updated the rules since 2016.

The bottom line is that every individual on DU, whether alerting or serving on a Jury, is empowered to use their own best judgment to make a call. If you see something which you think violates a rule, you are absolutely welcome to alert on it. You will not be wasting anybody's time -- the system is there for you to use as you see fit (within reason of course -- we do keep an eye out for potential abuse). So as long as you are acting in good faith, there is not really any such thing as an "unnecessary alert."

I know that doesn't exactly answer the question, but I hope it gives you some more insight into our thinking on this.

Latest Discussions»Help & Search»Announcements»The Super Tuesday results...»Reply #11