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Republicans' new Web site not exactly what they hoped it would be

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Republicans' new Web site not exactly what they hoped it would be

#31

Post by hugh3 »

emehrkay wrote: post #9

They're trolling for troll-attention. They know the more trolls that come and make funny posting the more attention it will garnish. ..at least I hope that is their plan. Anyway, this site doesnt need software that maps moons, I'm sure it could be done as a weekend project with [your favorite set of frameworks] and some red bull.

Also, the trolls will get bored after a few days and move on, but the site will still be there long after 4chan has forgotten about it. It's possible that a genuine community will show up to use the site in the way they intended.

Re: Republicans' new Web site not exactly what they hoped it would be

#32

Post by eli »

asolove wrote: post #21
michael_nielsen wrote: post #16

The article is amusing but unfair - it's mostly just selected quotes from contributors to the new site. One could write a similarly far out (and amusing) story about HN or any other social site, by judiciously selecting from amongst the troll comments.

Uhm, did you visit the site? I browsed two pages and saw only one suggestion that had both punctuation and was not obviously a troll.

Not all trolls are obvious.

I saw the site early yesterday and most of the submitted comments were sad and depressing (or complaining about having had a previous post deleted), not ridiculously stupid as the ones highlighted in this article. After Wonkette linked to it, I'm sure plenty of left-leaning people went and had some fun.

Re: Republicans' new Web site not exactly what they hoped it would be

#33

Post by DrSprout »

hugh3 wrote: post #25
lukev wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Republicans' new Web site not exactly what they hoped it would be

#34

Post by sethg »

michael_nielsen wrote: post #16

The article is amusing but unfair - it's mostly just selected quotes from contributors to the new site. One could write a similarly far out (and amusing) story about HN or any other social site, by judiciously selecting from amongst the troll comments.

The humor is not that a social site attracted trolls; the humor is that a major US political party used a social site to solicit help developing its political agenda. The trolls are just helping us see the violence^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hfoolishness inherent in the system.

Re: Republicans' new Web site not exactly what they hoped it would be

#35

Post by jbooth »

xenophanes wrote: post #27
pavs wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Re: Republicans' new Web site not exactly what they hoped it would be

#37

Post by yummyfajitas »

michael_nielsen wrote: post #16

The article is amusing but unfair - it's mostly just selected quotes from contributors to the new site. One could write a similarly far out (and amusing) story about HN or any other social site, by judiciously selecting from amongst the troll comments.

Democrat's new website not exactly what he hoped it would be:

"Today presently in our world you can notice a lot of instability in our Earth’s physic’s. Like now we are having a lot of Earthquakes, Tsunamis, we also have El nino on the equator and now something new like Iceland’s new erupting Volcano and this hasn’t happened since the 18 hundreds. I would also like to talk about how I thing we can possibly repair some of these major problems in a fairly simple way. In my Books Moon People 3, I developed something called the Ecliptic Satellite Tint Shield [...] Now the connection that I am getting at between the "Ecliptic Satellite Tint Shield" and the Earth’s current instability is you can use this satellite on Earth. We could park one right over the volcano in Iceland to where we could adjust the tint shield over the Volcano to eclipse it to cool it off."

"The entire Earth gets 70% of all of our Oxygen all over the world from Plankton. Could you imagine what it would be like on our Earth without our normal 70% oxygen in our atmosphere, if all of a sudden all of the plankton in the ocean died. It wouldn’t be pretty, this is prophisized in our Bible."

"I respectfully ask The clerics of Iran and the President of Iran to let NATO redo elections for the good of your country[...] I would just like to say one more thing before I go. MELCHIZEDEK'S name means "The KING of RIGHTEOUSNESS and JUSTICE" and the Heart of JUSTICE is FAIRNESS and MELCHILEDEK rules over a "KINGDOM called SALEM" which means PEACE!!!! "MELCHIZELDEK is The MESSIAH and is The CHRIST" and The CHRIST is the son of the Living GOD and his name is JESUS!!!Those who follow him will have ETERNAL LIFE!!!!! "

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

(This is from the author of the "Moon People Trilogy", http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=49... . Amusing side note: this guy is a "45 year old Single man who works at the local High school as a science teacher and astrology in the 12'th grade level." Our children are doomed. )

Re: Republicans' new Web site not exactly what they hoped it would be

#38

Post by ajslater »

killdashnine wrote: post #4

"A 'teacher' told my child in class that dolphins were mammals and not fish!" a third complains. "And the same thing about whales! We need TRADITIONAL VALUES in all areas of education. If it swims in the water, it is a FISH. Period! End of Story." wow

http://www.mobydickthewhale.com/moby-dick/moby-dick-chapter-...

Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me. This fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what internal respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above, Linnaeus has given you those items. But in brief they are these: lungs and warm blood; whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded.

Re: Republicans' new Web site not exactly what they hoped it would be

#39

Post by [deleted] »

lukev wrote: post #19
superdude wrote: post #3

I can't tell if this is real or a satirical article. "Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who created the program, said that to get software for the site, 'I personally traveled to Washington state and discovered a Microsoft program that helped NASA map the moon.'"

Upvotes to whoever writes "The Ballad of McCarthy" commemorating this epic quest.

[deleted]

Re: Republicans' new Web site not exactly what they hoped it would be

#40

Post by hugh3 »

kljensen wrote: post #36
hugh3 wrote: post #11

They seem to have underestimated the speed at which trolls can ruin everything. This, of course, is why we can't have nice things.

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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