I wonder why it was that all the blog sights ended up, more or less, taking sides?

[LisaM]

Obviously this place went pretty much Obamaunderground - same thing happened at KOS, HuffPost, and a few others. Some went to being Hillary sites - talkleft, in particular, comes to mind - but why did this happen when the race itself was such a statistical tie?

It's curious to me. DU became hard to visit sometimes, but I didn't want to go to feminista or talkleft just to hear an echo chamber, either.

What is most disturbing to me today is that there seem to be people looking forward, gleefully, to people being tombstoned tomorrow (this seems to mostly come from the Obama side, though I could be wrong). Why? I understand that the primary season is over and obviously liberal sites such as this cannot be a place to come just to vent and complain about the candidate. And presumably the Hillary-bashing will be cracked down on too. But I'm getting the idea that legitimate criticism won't be okay either - we'll have an army of people alerting anything they construe as not being completely admiring of Senator Obama.

What will tomorrow really bring, I wonder? Echo chamber? The place for real discussion that DU used to be?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

1. Positive feedback amplifies bias

If a site has slightly more supporters of the Blues charioteering team than the Greens, and I post supporting the Blues, I will get a mostly positive response; if I post supporting the Greens I will get a mostly negative one.

So Blues supporters are more likely to stay around and post again, and the slight bias gets further amplified.

[sniffa]

2. Depends on who gets TSed

There's only a few left now that will bring said glee, but once here, glee there will be.

[slinkerwink]

3. Because some of the people posting are trolls, and I know they're trolls

they're not Clinton supporters. Because if they were, they'd listen to Clinton when she says it would be a GRAVE ERROR not to vote for Obama.

[guruoo]

21. There were trolls fueling both sides, in some cases using

multiple profiles to respond to themselves in opposition for the purpose of accelerating
divisons in the Party.

[cbayer]

4. I am curious as well.

I would think the mods look forward to the opportunity to clamp down on some from both "camps", and I anticipate some departures.

I doubt that there will be intolerance for any criticism. That's just some people's fantasy.

[Levgreee]

5. "alerting anything they construe as not being completely admiring of Senator Obama"never wasthe case

never will be. No offense, but your perspective on the situation seems very inaccurate. The people who have been TSed, and continue to be, have not been tomb stoned because they criticize Obama. They have been TSed because they have said things that all reasonable Democrats should find offensive or at least inappropriate, and they are always in violation of the terms of service of this site.

[LisaM]

8. Hyperbole

I use hyperbole all the time, and then end up having to explain it! I didn't mean that as a serious example.

[LisaM]

6. Well, that wasn't EXACTLY my point

my point was, this site is supposedly a home to all - not like a newspaper site for sports talk or something. I mean all the sites are supposedly like that. But for whatever reason, each site quickly developed a slant, which was quite surprising.

Of course there are trolls. There have been trolls here since the beginning. But I'm really trying to examaine a deeper phenomenon. DUers seemed to actively start disliking each other, on a large scale, which was new. I remember getting a post yanked in 2004 for using the term "Deaniac" (that's the only thing I remember about the post, except that it had something to do with Kerry's organization in Iowa). This year, using a term like that wouldn't even raise an eyelash and I felt that there were demands that people walk in lockstep.

[stubtoe]

7. Seems like, to avoid the discussion of actual issues that might separate the candidates.

I view presidential campaigns as job interviews. But on the blogs it was more like a heated sports match (with the "soccer hooligans" pounding on each other). Not helpful.

Fortunately, amazingly, we ended up with a solid candidate, despite the rancor on the web.

[LisaM]

9. Luckily we had a slew of solid candidates this year

Really, when you think about the field as a whole, there really weren't any stinkers. A couple of longshots, but that's par for the course.

[stubtoe]

10. Indeed we did, LisaM.

:)

[mudesi]

11. The race was over in MARCH

There was no "tie" after Wisconsin. It became mathematically certain that Barack Obama won the nomination back then.

It really is that simple.

[LisaM]

12. Sigh.

They generally had equal numbers of supporters (not talking about caucus or delegate math). Yet that was not reflected on any of the blogs, which mostly became slanted one way or the other. I'd have thought that the blogs would have had more of a 50/50 split.

[roseBudd]

14. Her supporters are lower income, less educated and older. Of course they are less represented

My mom isn't on any forums.

[mudesi]

15. I generally agree with you on that

They did have a roughly equal number of supporters, but when it became apparent that one candidate had lost and another had won, that's when the blogs started to back Obama. Because he was the presumptive nominee for all intents and purposes, and Hillary Clinton's campaign tactics didn't exactly leave a lot to be desired.

[roseBudd]

13. Probably because Obama's supporters were more likely to have attended college, many undereducated

people do not have the type of written communication skills that lead to typewritten discourse.

This is Demoocratic Underground. I personally would not hang at Obama or Hillary Underground. The 200-300 people who participate in the forums on Clinton's official site or hillaryis44 appear to be less educated based on their brief posts, simple sentences and lask of substantive discussion.

[LisaM]

16. But there are other sites such as talkleft

Which, BTW, is run by lawyers, so your gratuituous insults on Hillary voters don't work there, that have developed a Hillary slant. I think that the first response actually answered my question. I'm not surprised, though, that there are a few Obama people determined to insult and try and turn this into a Hillary-voters-are-stupid echo chamber.

[roseBudd]

18. It is not a slam but a fact that Obama has attracted the more educated pool of progressive voters...

Just being computer literate is manadatory, good written communuication skills are also important. This isn't Talk Radio.

[beachmom]

17. Nobody will be tombstoned unless they say things really anti-Obama

AFTER tomorrow noon. As to blogs taking sides, some A Listers stayed fairly neutral like Atrios and Digby, while Think Progress was 100% neutral.

[sufrommich]

19. If your predictions come true...this site will be

boring as hell. There is nothing more mundane than a never ending hallelujah chorus.

[phrigndumass]

20. Honestly, it was emotion vs. logic, imho

or spin vs. facts ... and which site had the most posters of spin or posters of facts. Emotion wins on some boards with large swaths of posters ignoring facts, and logic wins on other boards where the spin can't stand up to it.

However, emotion can lead to irrationality, and logic can lead to bias. The side that keeps their cool, or stays rational or logical, usually wins out.

(btw, the primary race ceased being a statistical tie shortly after Super Tuesday)