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Republicans' new Web site not exactly what they hoped it would be
- lukev 16y agoThis is hilarious. I seriously had to check the address bar to see if I was reading the Onion.
- superdude 16y agoI 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.'"
- px 16y agoOf course. Besides up-votes, how else could you determine the location of so many craters?
- lukev 16y agoUpvotes to whoever writes "The Ballad of McCarthy" commemorating this epic quest.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- SkyMarshal 16y agoLol, I was trying put into words how silly the man is for thinking that travelling to Washington is in any way talking-point worthy. You nailed it. Epic quest, lol.
- hubb 16y agowe like to joke that our company builds the typical corporate all-encompassing software, but shit, we should just take a pilgrimage to washington and get that stuff. a program that has the breadth to do moon-mapping and web sites pretty much has the full spectrum of computation
- jokermatt999 16y agoHonestly, they could have just used the Reddit software for something like this. It's open source, and it has basically all the same functionality as this site does. The only thing I can really see that would have to be change would be the user registration, the rest is just changing how things are rendered. Also, their servers were really straining last night. It just absolutely would not load for me.
- aohtsab 16y agoI can't either! Does this mean they took apart the software and remolded it to their own purposes (proprietary & doubtful besides), or ar they really using a GIS to show upvotes?
- jcl 16y agoFWIW, he's probably referring to .NET, which appears to be powering the Republican web site as well as NASA World Wind, which can be used to view lunar data sets. http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/download.html http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/download.html
- killdashnine 16y ago"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
- jmtulloss 16y agoSounds like they're almost certainly making fun of many republican's views on evolution.
- superdude 16y agoTo be fair, I'm sure most of the suggestions on that site were made by trolls. But the quotes from the some of the representatives themselves are almost as crazy.
- hugh3 16y agoIf you believed that was a real comment then You Have Been Trolled. And here was I thinking "Man, these trolls are way too obvious, they should have gone with something more subtle".
- ajslater 16y agohttp://www.mobydickthewhale.com/moby-dick/moby-dick-chapter-32.htm 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.
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- gyardley 16y agoNot a bad idea, but not the best execution. A shame. Interesting - I looked at their WHOIS records to see who actually built the site, and while that wasn't obvious, I did find the site's domain server on sale at Sedo for $300. I wonder how long that goes unpurchased.
- emehrkay 16y agoThey'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.
- hugh3 16y agoAlso, 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.
- emehrkay 16y agoIf the site hasnt changed policies after it is used in its intended manor, the re-tolling would be that much better.
- hugh3 16y agoThey seem to have underestimated the speed at which trolls can ruin everything. This, of course, is why we can't have nice things.
- pavs 16y agoAfter 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 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Poes+Law
- endtime 16y agoThis 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.
- xenophanes 16y agoYou'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?
- jbooth 16y agoHe 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.
- jokermatt999 16y ago"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.
- RyanMcGreal 16y agoI have a sneaking suspicion that Poe's Law is in full effect here.
- asolove 16y ago"Winsome" is not an adjective I have ever heard applied to the design of a website. I need to use that more often.
- zephjc 16y agoIt would seem this site is more in a losesome state
- SkyMarshal 16y agoYeah, noticed that too. The Palinization of the GoP continues...
- michael_nielsen 16y agoThe 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.
- asolove 16y agoUhm, did you visit the site? I browsed two pages and saw only one suggestion that had both punctuation and was not obviously a troll.
- moultano 16y agoSort by interest and you get ones that are at least more literate. http://www.americaspeakingout.com/browse/questions/in/job-creation?sortkey=interest http://www.americaspeakingout.com/browse/questions/in/job-cr...
- amalcon 16y agoEven many of these seem a little naive. Take this one: PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION: Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. So, people really think that it will help to protect the Constitution to write "Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3" on every bill? The court has historically interpreted the commerce clause in such a way that everything is justified by it. The hard part is getting the court to stop doing that, not making Congresspeople write some extra stuff on the bill.
- byrneseyeview 16y agoIt reveals dependencies. People might be concerned if, e.g., 90% of government spending was valid if and only if the commerce clause had a particular interpretation. Companies disclose if a single customer represents even 10% of their revenues, because it's a risk factor.
- asolove 16y agoAlthough the troll comments are funny, the seriously-meant ones are even funnier: "both dems and repubs need to gain the trust of the american people both sides have lied to us robbed us and i think both sides are about the money not freedom most of them dont know or care what is in the constitution im not saying all of them but most of the politicians" Especially the attempts at rhetoric: "my grandfather told me if you could lie and steal you could be a politician they were write"
- avgarrison 16y agoI spent only a few minutes on the site, and after trying to sort "Ideas" by Total Votes, I got this lovely, classic ASP.NET error page: Server Error in '/' Application.
- ImFatYoureFat 16y agoI would love to know what element of this website is used in mapping the moon.
- 0nly1ife 16y agoCut them some slack. Managing user generated content is a difficult task. I hope they resolve these issues and bring us one step closer to using the internet to improve democracy.
- metamemetics 16y agoI hope they DON'T resolve these issues and bring us one step closer to using the internet to improve democracy. Moderating comments to handpick what are 'acceptable' views is not democracy. The popular masses trolling a joke of a party to its disintegration, is.
- mgkimsal 16y agoApparently it's not quite battled-tested yet: http://gyazo.com/b206847fc013a9985f43cdaa7d066f9b.png http://gyazo.com/b206847fc013a9985f43cdaa7d066f9b.png
- justinph 16y agoThey had to go to Microsoft to get this? Reddit is open source. But I'm guessing they see open source as anti-american.
- bartl 16y agoDon't you get it? Reddit is pro-Obama, so obviously they couldn't use this communist rubbish. True patriotic capitalists use proper respectable Microsoft software for everything. (note for the humor-impaired: I'm poking fun at both the typical Tea Partyer, and the the pointy-haired types (see Dilbert) that get to decide what software to use.)
- eru 16y agoI guess you have to try harder to get your humour across.
- codejoust 16y agoWell, considering most of the government uses a Microsoft stack I'm not surprised. Besides, their categorization is pretty well-done. Reddit and sites such as this one are harder to use for people who don't write software or regularly browse the internet. (And, considering Stackoverflow is based on a Microsoft stack very similar to this site, it's slightly silly. Pick the right tools for the task and a dev stack you enjoy).
- QNguyen 16y agoDid they choose not to use open source software because it was socialist?
- mcav 16y agoWhen I visit the site, I get this: Unavailable A very high volume of Americans are speaking out right now. Please wait a moment and try again.
- NathanKP 16y agoThat just means everyone from 4chan is on there trolling away.
- codejoust 16y agoWell, their publicity is working. Try refreshing it once or twice and it should come up. Probably got an influx of people from this site and others visiting it which overwhelmed it.
- Flemlord 16y agoOf all the comments on the site and in this thread, this is the one that made me laugh.
- lurkinggrue 16y agoYesterday all you got was .net error pages.
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- jbarciauskas 16y agoI could have skimmed the article myself in the time it took the webnotes to load... and that was in Chrome
- jokermatt999 16y agoHonestly, this kind of depresses me. I'd love to see an honest dialogue between government and citizens with well thought out ideas and respect from both sides. However, that's just not happening here. Between the massive influx of immature trolls and the Poe's Law style comments, it seems doomed from the start. The server creaking under the massive weight of traffic certainly isn't helping either. I think a system like this could work with some better moderation, and perhaps a better start to it, but this one doesn't appear to have a future, unfortunately. Edit: I'd also like to add that this article is terrible. The seem to be taking glee in the fact that trolls deliberately poisoned the site, rather than thinking about how this could have been useful. I put the blame as much (if not moreso) on the people trolling the site as I do the nutjobs adding sincere comments.
- username3 16y agoAre there any startups working on a dialog or debate system using FluidDB?
- NathanKP 16y agoThe site was doomed from the moment 4chan heard about it. When are people going to learn that you can't expect online polls and discussions to escape the trolls? There isn't much that can be done about it either or else people would complain about "censorship".
- metamemetics 16y ago>I put the blame as much (if not moreso) on the people trolling the site as I do the nutjobs adding sincere comments. So you'd have more sympathy for someone who is sincerely racist and xenophobic than someone who isn't just because of their sincerity? Why not "put the blame" on the Republican party for being a complete joke.
- j_baker 16y agoI have a feeling the thought process behind this site was something like this: 1. Have an idea for one of those newfangled web 2.0 things. 2. Hire someone to write it. 3. ??? 4. Profit! As it turns out, there's more to it to create a successful social media site...
- grellas 16y agoGreat political ideas come, not from committees or from random samplings of the uninformed or semi-informed masses, but from intelligent and forceful leaders who can think them through thoughtfully, who can articulate them in a way that resonates with people, and who can set out an agenda to carry them into effective action. None of this is easy to do and it takes exceptional people even to make a credible stab at it. There is no need to bring in modern politics to illustrate this. Any glance through the Federalist Papers will quickly show to any informed reader that one can take very difficult and highly contentious topics (how to form a country, how to divide its power among different groups, how to limit its power decisively in furtherance of broader principles such as natural law) and make well-reasoned and even brilliant arguments about them in ways that compel people to action. The people who made those arguments were steeped in a lifetime of ideas and imbued with a strong philosophy about the principles of right government, and it showed in what they wrote - even when those writings essentially took the form of propaganda pieces (which is really what the Federalist Papers were). You won't get this from a website such as the one featured in this piece. You won't get it from Democratic Underground either. Leaders are leaders and hacks are hacks. The world offers the latter in abundance but good leaders are a precious few. This is not to say that normal, day-to-day people can't have good ideas or be intelligent in a political sense. It is to say that the intelligent articulation of such views won't come out in a mass setting and that is why political parties are ultimately driven by insiders (who are, one would hope, effective leaders) and not by soliciting random views from the street.
- michael_nielsen 16y agoAn almost exactly analogous argument could be used to "prove" that Wikipedia would entirely fail [1]. Replace "Great political ideas" by "High-quality encyclopedia articles" etcetera. I don't personally think much of Republican policies, but I'm glad they're at least giving things like this a go. I could wish, however, that they'd spoken with more people who have real insight into how social websites work. They could have started with the founders of Reddit, and a bunch of other YC folk. [1] Yes, I'm well aware some people claim that Wikipedia has failed. But arguing with people who use "failure" to describe a site with Wikipedia's impact isn't worth the time.
- djb_hackernews 16y agoHeadline should have been: New website can also help NASA map the moon.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- sriram_sun 16y agoSomebody take screen shots of all these comments for posterity!
- celticjames 16y agoNew GOP site looks good to me: http://hammerandsteele.com/?u=http://xkcd.com/personal/gop/ http://hammerandsteele.com/?u=http://xkcd.com/personal/gop/
- noonespecial 16y agoThey should have just started a thread on 4chan. It would be faster I think.
- myaccount 16y agoPlease vote my idea up on the site: http://www.americaspeakingout.com/questions/3795/america-s-number-one-problem-lobbyists-they-corrupt-the-political-system-more-than-anything-else-solution-make-all-p http://www.americaspeakingout.com/questions/3795/america-s-n... America's number one problem: Lobbyists. They corrupt the political system more than anything else. Solution: Make ALL politicians wear a "Nascar jersey" to work. Every politician should wear clothing with corporate logo decals. The bigger the payoff amount, the bigger the decal.
- fondue 16y agoRepublicans make website, get trolled hard, news at 11.
- metamemetics 16y agoSome of the current top posts for each section: Job creation: "We should invent and patent more colors. Like fuchsia, but not that because it's already been invented." Fiscal responsibility: "Nationalize production of "Arrested Development" and reap the profits of the show owning." American Values: "Did Glenn Beck assault a young girl in 1990?" National Security: "Americans die in hurricanes and tornadoes. It's time to declare a War on Weather." Speak Out:Start Your own Debate: "1500 characters maximum is hardly enough to explain the extent of failure that this website has enabled."