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First let me preface this by opining that putting up a diary with comments turned off is disrespectful to both the readership and the spirit of a participatory site like MyFDL.
The primary fault with the rejections of the third party and primary options is that they assume success can only be the winning a particular election. In reality success can also be establishing the Left as a force to be dealt with. The third party option is much abused, often for the wrong reasons, but the killing argument against it is that the black community is thoroughly committed to the Democratic Party as well as Obama. That leaves us with a primary challenge. Can a serious candidate run in the primary without challenging Obama? Why not combine the announcement of a positive issue-oriented campaign with an endorsement of Obama? It hasn’t been done before but seems like it would make our candidate safe to vote for and thus maybe move Obama back our way. Unusual circumstances and tumultuous times call for daring solutions. Can a serious candidate run in the primary without challenging Obama? Why not combine the announcement of a positive issue-oriented campaign with an endorsement of Obama?
How about combining the announcement of a “positive issue-oriented campaign” with an endorsement of Romney? Because it makes about equal sense insofar as he is essentially equally as likely to ‘move our way’ as Obama.
I welcome feedback.
Editor’s Note: MyFDL comments turn off automatically on old posts after 48 hours. This is a spam prevention technique. -MyFDL Editor
I know that comments are sunsetted after two days, Kit and if you’d read the comments you’d know that I do. I clicked on the original diary ( http://my.firedoglake.com/grogers/2011/04/07/what-to-do/ ) from the MyFDL list of most recommended topics that appears in the right column of every MyFDL page. My question is, why are moribund non-current diaries over one year old seemingly randomly appearing on that list of most recommended topics?
19 Comments
I haven’t read Ube’s, but I just read the link you allude to.
I was confused by your diary, and the long quote, thot it WAS from Ube . . . but it’s not.
Having said that, I Flagged This Post By GSROGERS, for the reason you posted your diary.
I fully concur Mr. Sperry, it’s a disgrace to the FDL sites, not to enable comments, I hope mods or editors delete it.
I flagged it.
I find it difficult to consider, it was a mistake in any manner, by a newbie, but if it turns out that’s what it was, well . . . lesson learned!
*G*
While putting up a post with disabled comments is not respectful to the readers, that statement is clearly, axiomatically wrong. What you are seeing is all of your disappointment in Obama getting in the way of your judgment. I’m not saying Obama is in any way a good President, just that he clearly sucks less than Rmoney. That also should not be interpreted to mean that I think “we suck less” is in any way acceptable but if you are one of those who deluded yourself into believing he was any kind of progressive, then you have reason to be disappointed. But claiming he’s the same as Willard is as delusional a it was in 2008 to believe Obama was anything but a product of the DLC.
Flag the user as inappropriate, flag the posting too. I read the posting in it’s disgraceful entirety. If that person wants to bloviate without letting their readers respond there are plenty of free blog providers.
mfi
Comments are rarely deliberately turned off. I’m not saying it never happens, but a technical glitch sometimes shows “comments off” when actually there simply have been no comments. If you reload the page or click on the post title, often you will see “no comments” rather than “comments off.”
I really do wish people who post here wouldn’t ascribe bad motives to other posters when they don’t completely understand the environment. We seem to be too ready to jump to conclusions.
Also, comments are closed on posts after (I think) 24 hours. That helps prevent spam on posts that the mods are no longer watching closely.
I am not saying this poster didn’t keep comments closed in this particular instance, only that there may be other explanations.
Once in awhile, don’t you see recently published posts on the front page announcing ‘comments off’, but when you click open the post, there is a comment box? The rogers one was posted in April of 2011; maybe no one commented, thus the message didn’t turn off?
To dovetail on msmolly’s points, I’ve had posts where the comments were disabled for some reason. I tried to turn them on, but could not. myFDL is very buggy.
Also, yes, there appears to be a time limit for comments. If you look at the date of the post in question, that cut off would have been last year….
I wouldn’t assume any bad motives on the part of a blogger if comments are turned off. When I was brand new to FDL and posted my first blog, I was surprised to see comments off. I contacted the FDL staff to see how to get comments turned on, and tried doing what they suggested, but it didn’t work. In the meantime, enough time had lapsed since my posting that my blog was no longer in the recent diaries section. I assumed it was some type of technical glitch and went on to write my next posting.
The GW Rogers post is dated April 7, 2011. Was this a re-blog? At any rate, maybe the post is dated. I know the site disabled comments after a certain time.
Edit: “disabled” should read “disables.” Sorry about that. Anyway, on an older post, readers can still resurrect the post to the recommends, and this does happen on occasion.
It looks like an apology to the poster of the diary is in order. I failed to note the date the diary was published and this is instead a case of site software gone buggy.
For some reason I occasionally see old (and I mean old) diaries appear randomly in the ‘MyFDL Rocommended Diaries’ list at the right of the screen. It isn’t an infrequent occurrence either. I’m not a fan of sunsetting the comments on diaries after two days, it seems to me to force the needless repetition of topics into artificially separate pages and destroys any continuity of the community discussion. I suppose they are trying to force a churn of featured diarists and keep threads from interminably rambling on in the comments. I’d rather the members decided when a thread had run its course rather than a witless algorithm.
I’d prefer to see the ‘comments off’ function disabled entirely really. I have no interest in reading diaries I cannot comment upon, and the site seems at times to push such diaries on us for no discernable reason. Perhaps we could at least have an option of being able to ignore all diaries with comments turned off if it is deemed necessary to have them at all.
Yes, I agree, because sometimes older posts do become timely again, and in that instance, it is good for readers to be able to continue the discussion. You are not alone in observing this. I have seen it also.
Keeping comments enabled indefinitely would seem to be unfair to the diarist, who wouldn’t necessarily be availabe to respond.
As far as the site seeming to “pitch” diaries with comments disabled, I don’t recall seeing that or seeing others mention it, unless you are talking about the “Comments off” situation explained by msmolly @ 4, which is kind of misleading, but will probably get fixed eventually.
I totally missed the date.
Comments LONG ago turned off.
Glitches . . . I’ve seen old comments reappear many times, suddenly and unexpectedly.
Ghosts in the machine, often occur just AFTER a diary is posted for selling or marketing products . . . = spam and bugs in the codes.
On we type . . .
This diary should be taken down by the author, it’s based on a totally flawed premise. Keeping it up on MyFDL is insulting to the hard work people put in on this site keeping it alive and working for those of us who post here.
I hope the author will seriously consider moving this diary back into draft status; nothing is accomplished by these conspiratorial assumptions being promulgated contra the facts.
I’ve seen personal blogs (not at FDL) get their comments threads filled up with spam when the owner is no longer actively paying attention.
I second Teddy above. Take down this diary. I am flagging it.
I’d understand your opinion a little more if Kurt had been dissing the site, not what he’d understood the diarist as having done.
But he opened with: “putting up a diary with comments turned off is disrespectful to both the readership and the spirit of a participatory site like MyFDL.
He’s apologized for his mistake, and seriously, if he and the mod allow it to stand, it might serve well as information to other denizens who’ve been confused by the issue, imo.
For instance, we now know via the mod that comments close after 48 hours, not the 24 some folks had thought. Knowing is almost always better than not knowing.
And Kurt: cool of you to offer an apology to the diarist.
I understand your point, Wendy, but I still think the diary should either be taken down or updated right at the top in the diary itself (it can be edited).
He apologized for his mistake way down in comment #11, and many people won’t read the comments, or only the first few.
“Comments off” is a non-issue, both because of the technical glitches and because of the age of the original post. Why not take this diary down and be done with it?
Ghosts! LOL, yes!