Post-election DU upgrades and news

[EarlG]

This is a long announcement. Please read on for news about DU and social media, discussions about the future of the Democratic Party on DU, and an update to DU's post footer buttons.

Hello everyone,

Well, it's been about a month since the election, and like everyone else here, the results hit me pretty hard, personally. I must admit that it's taken me some time to process things. I was not as shocked as I was after the 2016 election -- when we all felt that there was no way America could elect someone like Trump -- but given everything that's happened since he was elected the first time, it's clear that a second Trump presidency is going to be significantly worse than the first one (which was already appalling).

But if DU wasn't created for times like this, then I don't know what it was created for. When we launched the site in 2001, the media landscape was absolutely dominated by right-wing news talk radio, and we wanted to use the then-new technology of the Internet to push back, and provide a space for those on the left to talk free and clear of right-wing interruptions. DU is no longer new technology, but its purpose remains the same.

So with that said, here's some news about where we go from here. The three important things I want to talk about in this post are social media on DU (and DU on social media), the future of the Democratic Party, and some post-election DU software upgrades.


Social media

X/Twitter and Bluesky

Post-election, it has become clear that social media is more important than ever in our political landscape. As such, we are making some changes in this area on DU.

First, we plan to remove X/Twitter embeds from DU. Since liberal Twitter seems to be moving over to Bluesky, we plan to replace X/Twitter embeds and X/Twitter sharing with Bluesky. This does not mean that X/Twitter is banned from DU. It just means that -- if everything goes according to plan -- links to tweets will no longer embed as tweets on DU, they will simply show up as links. Meanwhile Bluesky links will show up as embedded posts.

In addition, we are removing X/Twitter from the Share options on DU OPs. That button will be replaced with a Share to Bluesky button.

Unfortunately, embedding Bluesky posts is not as straightforward as we had hoped, and we're not sure yet if we can get it to work. If we can, we will announce the switch from X/Twitter to Bluesky embeds when it happens. If we can't, we'll decide whether to continue with X/Twitter embeds or not (we are leaning towards removing them).

In the meantime, the Share to Bluesky button will be available when we release our new software patch tomorrow (see below for details).

DU on social media

DU has had Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts for years. However, the only thing I ever used them for was posting my Pic Of The Moment, which I have not produced in a while, and which I'm still figuring out how (or whether) to continue. We have not used our Twitter account since Elon Musk bought Twitter, and I consider that account effectively irrelevant.

DU does have an unused Mastodon account, and I recently created a Bluesky account, which is also as yet unused.

The simple fact is this: I suck at social media. I don't have personal social media accounts. I don't care about social media in the slightest. But I don't think that should stop DU from having active, effective social media accounts. I know that there are lots of people on DU who are essentially experts at social media, who could actually turn our social media accounts into a force for good.

So I'm just going to put this on the table and leave it for further discussion: I'm considering asking for volunteers to help manage DU's social media accounts. If you're the kind of person who likes social media, is good at it, and has an idea for what DU could do with its current social media accounts, I could use your help. If you're interested in exploring this idea further, please reply to let me know.


The future of the Democratic Party

We have entered a new political era. While Donald Trump trashes our societal norms and government institutions, our old leaders are aging out, and a new crop of younger Democrats will soon rise to the top. Donald Trump will be a lame duck as soon as he takes office, and it surely won't be long before talk turns to the subject of who will run for president in 2028.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that we need a forum to discuss the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries. That is a long, long way off. However, I'm suggesting that we might need a dedicated space to talk about the future of the party, and where we go from here. DU was recently operating under General Election rules, meaning that DUers must support our presidential nominee, and in the age of Trump my observation has been that DUers have been less tolerant of criticism of Democratic politicians -- understandably so.

However, I think that it would not be unhealthy to provide a space for discussion of where the Party should go next. These conversations may not be easy, but I do not think we should be afraid to have them, and I think they can be done in a civil manner. If you have an opinion on whether we should consider a new forum for these discussions, please let me know in reply to this thread. I'll see what the response looks like, and if it's something that seems wanted or needed, I'll open a new thread to discuss it separately.


Post-election DU software upgrades

Tomorrow, we are releasing a new software patch which makes some changes to the footer buttons on posts. (We were hoping to make these changes prior to the election, but ran out of time.) These are not significant changes, but they do streamline the buttons somewhat, and also add some additional functionality which people have been asking for.

Please note that the examples below are shown in DU's default mode, but if you use Night Mode or Skinner Mode, the buttons will also be updated appropriately.

New OP footer buttons -- when looking at someone else's OP

One purpose of this upgrade is to improve the visibility of the Share button. There's obviously a ton of great info on DU, and we think it should get shared more widely on social media. So we've given the Share button a more prominent placement.



But what about the Edit button, and how do you self-delete, or add/remove Journal entries? Well...

New OP footer buttons -- when looking at your own OP

When you are looking at one of your own posts, the new Options button will appear. This is essentially a re-branding of the "Powers" button. (The "Powers" button was a holdover from DU3, because it's what we called that button when it was used by Hosts and MIRT, but we think Options is more intuitive.)



This button will not be available unless you are looking at one of your own posts. When you are looking at one of your own posts and the Options button is available, clicking on it will allow you to edit, self-delete, or add/remove the post as a Journal entry.

(Note for Forum Hosts and MIRT members: The Options button replaces the Powers button, so you will find all your current abilities by clicking the Options button. When you see the Options button on someone else's post, it will appear as a normal grey button. On your own posts, it will be green as in the screenshots above.)

New reply footer buttons

Everything mentioned above about the Options button also applies to replies. (In the examples below, you won't see the Options button, but if you're looking at your own post, you will.) In addition, we have improved the Rec function on replies by separating the rec count from the rec button. This change will allow you to click through and see who has recommended a reply, just as you can do with an OP.

When a reply has not been recommended



When you have recommended a reply



Clicking the Rec button will add a rec (or remove it if you already rec'd and changed your mind). Clicking the rec count will take you to the post in single-post mode, which will display the list of who rec'd it.

We plan to update the buttons on Tuesday afternoon, December 10, 2024, at around 4pm ET. This will hopefully be fairly seamless, with only a brief moment of downtime. I'll make an additional announcement tomorrow right before we do it. Please note that when we launch this patch, as with every change we make to the software, there's a strong chance that it will require some bugfixes and cleanup.

I think that's all for now! Thanks for reading.

EarlG, on behalf of Elad -- the DU Administrators