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Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

They seem to have underestimated the speed at which trolls can ruin everything.

This, of course, is why we can't have nice things.

I'd have more sympathy, except that attempting to establish policy by soliciting on a public, unmoderated website is a ludicrous idea to begin with.

It's got about the same validity as Fox News running a radiobutton poll on their website on "Is Obama really a citizen?"

Are you saying politicians shouldn't listen to the people when developing policy ideas?

If people actually used such a website in good faith then it could potentially produce some useful ideas and allow them to percolate upwards to party policymakers. They shouldn't blindly pick whatever ideas turn out to be popular on their website, but it might bring up some things they hadn't thought of before.

>If people actually used such a website in good faith

But they don't, which is the point of his comment.

The sad part is they feel a website like this is necessary. They're professional politicians in a democratic country. They should already be in touch with their constituency. They should have a chain of advisement and direction built all the way from local caucuses at the precinct level.

And if they were serious about making the project more efficient by taking it online, they should have a registration-based website with registration tied to actual party membership and heavily moderated to allow only articulate arguments.

> they should have a registration-based website with registration tied to actual party membership

So if I'm in an area that is represented by a member of another party, then my voice deserves less weight than the voice of someone that is a member of that party?

You can be a Republican in a district represented by a Democrat.

Where is joining a particular political party (even 'independent' parties) a requirement for participation in the political process?

If it's the political process of that party, they may very well require joining them.

If this was a government or public institution website you'd be correct.

But it's a website specifically for the GOP to garner ideas.

Yes, but in the example we're talking about elected officials. It's their duty to represent everyone in their constituency, not just the ones that are members of their political party.

I was of the understanding that this thread had branched to discuss communication at the ground level with your elected representative, not a forum to discuss the direction of an entire political party as a whole. The discussion was just framed around each political party providing their elected officials with a way of communication with their constituents.

[I could be way off here, though.]

It's their duty to represent everyone in their constituency, not just the ones that are members of their political party.

I'm not sure that's true. In that case, there would be a moral argument against voting for third parties, since they definitely don't represent the views of a majority of people. And there'd be a moral argument against voting Republican in Manhattan, or Democrat in Utah.

I would not trust any politician who says “I have no idea what policies I should be proposing once I get elected, so I want to hear your ideas.” Such a politician is either an idiot or a liar.

A politician with intelligence and integrity would say something like “If I’m elected, I will try to get the government to do X, Y, and Z. If you have any particular ideas about how to accomplish these goals, or if you want to try and convince me I’m wrong, I welcome your feedback.”

Indeed. Perhaps the site will provide good data for potential leaders to decide whether to run in Republican primaries?

i'm pretty sure the site is just the republican congresspeople's attempt at looking like they have any policy-making clout whatsoever

You seem to be under the impression that they give a shit about the results. I think it's just a publicity stunt. (They do, of course, care about getting votes but there are more effective methods for finding out what voters want them to say.)

After reading some of the comments on their website I have hard time distinguishing trolls from republican talking points.

Also Poe's Law: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Poes+Law

This is what they get for pandering to the lowest common denominator. I was probably going to vote McCain...until I met Sarah Palin. Now, instead of having me wanting to participate in this (and I hope I don't flatter myself by thinking I could make better suggestions than those in the article), they've got, well, Palin fans, and you can't tell the signal from the noise.

You've made a troll quality insult against Republicans ("Republicans sound like trolls" without any argument, details, quote, etc). Hmm. Trolling about trolling. Meta irony, I hope?

He said that they've become so extreme and fundamentalist that Poe's law applied -- that their own honest statements have reached the point where they look like self-parody.

You can agree or disagree, but he definitely made an argument with the Poe's law citation.

"We should not allow Muslims to enter the country."

Is this statement a troll, or what someone actually believes? There's enough wrong with it that I could believe it's a troll, and yet I've honestly met people who would be completely sincere in saying it. Browse around a little more, and you'll find many other statements like it. Part of me hopes it's just idiotic trolls ruining what could have been constructive dialogue, but unfortunately I know that some of these posts are completely sincere.

Heh, nice quote, I can't tell!

Edit: Yes, I took it to be a real quote.

Actually, that's actually a real example I found in the National Defense section. So far, that seems to be the worst minefield for "troll vs true".

We need to stop Muslin from getting into this country! That damn loosely-woven cotton fabric keeps getting in here.

Yeah, what is sad is it is way too easy to troll in a place like that and come off as sincere as many actual arguments there are just as insane.

Should Persia, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Spain, the Balkans, etc, etc, have allowed Muslims to enter their respective countries?

Heh.

Don't beat around the bush, man. Spell it out for us. What're you saying here?

>After reading some of the comments on their website I have hard time distinguishing trolls from republican talking points.

That's indeed the most interesting aspect of the whole story.

"After reading some of the comments on their website I have hard time distinguishing trolls from republican talking points."

Look, can't we come together under the banner of mutual brotherhood and fraternity and agree that Internet trolls can't be held against any political view? Can't we all come together and agree that whatever our differences, at least we can look down our noses at that lot?

Do you really think it would be that different if the Democrats had put up the same site? Or Libertarians, or Labour?

The stupidity of raw internet conversation transcends political boundaries.

Is Conservapedia a giant troll wiki or is it legit? I'm almost convinced it has to be satire.

Bookmarked sections in this (http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism) article include:

"Commonly Cited Arguments Against Atheism and For Theism", "Atheism and Mass Murder", "Atheism and Immoral Views"

The abortion article even cites Hitler as being a proponent of abortion. It's even funnier than the atheism one. http://www.conservapedia.com/Abortion

If anyone doubts it would be different if the Dems made such a site:

"We must not stop until the American people win the war on Health-Care [...] Our leaders today are nothing short of Angels. “Gods Elect” put in power by God for his people and his world."

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/dalecourtney?p...

I think the point that was trying to be made is that it seems like the majority of Republicans (or at least the majority of the vocal ones) hold views that border on self-satire to the point where you almost can't be sure if someone is trolling or serious.

I think that you were be hard-pressed to find someone that believes that the majority Democrats believe that God put their leaders into power. Especially since (at least in my opinion) a majority of America views the Democrats as being associated with Atheism/science (e.g. Creationism vs Evolution).

Sorry, I totally feel that way about, say, the economic theories favored by Democrats, or the things that boil down to conspiracy theories in which Wall Street is 110% responsible for every bad thing that ever happened economically (and a good deal of non-economic things) while the pure-as-the-driven-snow government is blameless in all ways, which by the way is pretty much the official platform of the Democratic Party.

(Don't tar me as a Republican. Tar me as a libertarian.)

Of course you're hard-pressed to find a Democrat that believes an internet-troll-republican position. You need to be looking for one that holds an internet-troll-democrat position. If you need help finding them, I suggest the reddit politics board or the comments section on the Huffington Post. Or the comments section on any major newspaper that has comments.

Uh, pretty sure most democrats are much more nuanced than the description in your first graf there.

Also, unless you were outraged for the entire Bush term of office, and I mean really outraged to the point of voting for Kerry in 2004, you're not a libertarian, you're a Republican. Sorry.

I'm pretty sure most republicans are much more nuanced than the morons who post on americaspeaksout.com.

I know it's convenient to believe that your political enemies are all stupid and evil, while your allies are mostly pure, good and smart. Go ahead and feel that way if it makes you happier.

Sorry man, but I didn't piss in your oatmeal this morning and I certainly didn't say any of that stuff.

I complain about oversimplifications and demonization and you come back at me with even more of it?

> I think that you were be hard-pressed to find someone that believes that the majority Democrats believe that God put their leaders into power.

This is a perfectly well formed sentence, and I can see how it fits into the present discussion, but I have a bit of a poor reaction to it; it seems that I shouldn't have to discuss what I, or anyone else, believe that someone believes.

Some Republican politicans have said that God puts their leaders in power (and I wouldn't be surprised if Democratic ones have, too); why does it matter whether or not they believe it, if their constituents do?

You're linking to a blog post, not an official DNC site. Anyone can post any tripe they want on my.barackobama.com... Notice the "my" domain name?

Anyone can post any tripe they want on americaspeakingout.com. That's the point - any community generated political site will be full of crazy nonsense, regardless of the party behind it.

I think you misunderstood me. I abhor all politicians and all forms of fixed political ideology, whether its the liberal, the conservative the libertarians or what not. Any ideology that encourages you to blindly follow a self-imposed moral, with disregard to rationality and reason, or the needs of the present day, is not my cup of tea.

But even those ideologies have extremsist, and if you were to actually listen to everyday republican's around you, they sound exactly like most of the comments on that website. This has nothing to do with me not liking republicans but everything to do with what they have actually become.

These extreme views might not be the majority (I think they are, but hard to know for sure), but they are definitely the loudest and the ones dictating the platform for the republican party.

IMO YMMV

I abhor all politicians and all forms of fixed political ideology

Political ideologies are imperfect mental tools. Their relevance is highly contextual to a given time and place. Perhaps many politicians become corrupted by this notion, and they forget that there are actually fundamental principles at work in reality. (And perhaps this is why scientists are so bad at politics?)

Right. An intern doing a "sanity/troll" moderating would make it a respectable effort.

Well, I did see one comment that said it had been removed due to flagging by the community. So it's likely that they are getting on top of this problem, and that the author of this article just happened to drop by just after a massive troll influx thanks to 4chan or democraticunderground.

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