Say hello to our new MIR Team! (Plus a couple of other quick updates)

[EarlG]

Hello everyone,

I'm here to announce the new MIR Team, and to thank the outgoing team for their hard work keeping DU running smoothly. I also have another couple of pieces of information you might be interested in, which I'll put here at the top:

1) Next week we will be running our pop-up Tip Jar Fund Drive. This new low-pressure fund drive was a big success last year, and since we need to keep the lights on and the hamster wheels turning, we're going to do it again this year. From Monday-Friday next week there will be a small banner at the top of the page, and Grovelbot will appear at the bottom of each thread, asking you to kick in a few bucks, if you are willing. Thank you in advance for your support!

2) Bluesky embeds are finally coming to DU next week. Bluesky doesn't exactly make it easy to deploy embeds, so it's taken us a while to get this working, but we've been testing them for a couple of weeks now and we think they're ready to go. Embedding will work the same way as other social media embeds -- just paste the link to the Bluesky post into a DU post, and it should embed for you.

We have decided to keep X.com embedding for now, but we are going to change the rendering of X.com posts so that they now look like they come from X instead of Twitter. This means that as of next week, DU members will be able to automatically embed content from Bluesky, X.com, Threads, and Mastodon (as well as YouTube). Soon, we hope to make some changes to Account Settings so that DUers can personalize which social media sources they want to see automatically embedded, and which sources should just display as a link.

And now, on to the main order of business... say hello to our new MIR Team!

The job of the Malicious Intruder Removal Team is to ban people who join DU with the intent to disrupt. MIR Team members are volunteers, they serve for a three-month term, and they must take a break after serving two consecutive terms.

If you are a member of the MIR Team, you should now have access to the access-restricted Malicious Intruder Removal Forum. It should appear as a red folder in your sidebar navigation, on the Forums page in the Special Forums section, and also on the Help & Search category page.

We have some new MIRTers joining us this term, as well as many experienced veterans. A huge thank you to all who took part over the past several terms, and also to our new and returning MIR Team members, who were selected on a first-come-first-served basis.

The MIR Team, May 2025 - August 2025

NEW THIS TERM

Alice Kramden
Behind the Aegis
Brother Buzz
BumRushDaShow
Cheezoholic
Delphinus
Demsrule86
Docreed2003
Fla Dem
greatauntoftriplets
GP6971
hunter
JMCKUSICK
KelleyKramer
Kingofalldems
LauraInLA
littlemissmartypants
marble falls
mgardener
ProfessorGAC
Rhiannon12866
yankee87

RETURNING FOR A SECOND TERM

Cha
DinahMoeHum
ismnotwasm
LeftishBrit
MarineCombatEngineer
meow2u3
Patton French
proud patriot

Retiring members

._.
B.See
berniesandersmittens
carpetbagger
Groundhawg
KS Toronado
Lulu KC
mcar
Mersky
morillon
Ponietz
radical noodle
RainCaster
ShazzieB
sheshe2
William769