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Archive for the 'Comment Sections' Category

Sometimes They Come Back… Again

Published by William Beutler on December 7, 2006 in Academic Blogging, Atrios, Blog Fights, Comment Sections, Metapost and Oregon. 13 Comments

Let’s get meta for a moment: When I arrived at work this morning, Blog P.I. hadn’t been updated for 36 hours. In my e-mail inbox, I see a WordPress trackback notification — and then another. And a comment. On a post from August? The things you can learn from trackbacks:

Because she missed a court date in Denver yesterday, there now is a warrant out for the arrest of Deb Frisch in Colorado.

I think I know what state she won’t be visiting anytime soon. And I may be late to the party, but it seems the party came to me:

Deb Frisch Traffic Spike at Blog P.I.

Frisch’s disturbing story has already been told, and I have nothing further to add, except to reaffirm the irony of the fact that Frisch’s academic focus is judgment and decision-making.

It’s plainly bad news for her — but it’s good news for Teh Squeaky Wheel — formerly known as Don’t Hire Deb — a smaller, right-wingier Eschaton created to obsess over closely follow every minor development since Frisch was first charged in Oregon. Frankly, they deserve each other. But I’ll give them a little credit for coining the word “Frischmas” — it lacks the originality of Fitzmas, but this ad hoc holiday actually arrived.

P.S. Mark my words — at some point I’ll get around to name-checking the final movie (one hopes) in this Stephen King adaptation train wreck.

P.P.S. Numbers are proprietary at least until I start tracking regularly on Alexa.

Kossacks Love Obama, Kossacks Love Obama Not…

Published by William Beutler on December 4, 2006 in Barack Obama, Blogging Officials, Comment Sections, Daily Kos and White House '08. 0 Comments

Sen. Barack Obama is profiled in the latest New York [Update: See the next post]. Andrew Sullivan calls one passage a “nice little swipe” at a not-so-little political blog:

Obama’s first year in office, he voted for cloture on the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court (though not for the nomination itself), earning dozens of angry posts on Daily Kos, a hugely well-trafficked liberal blog. Obama responded with a polite but stern four-page note. “One good test as to whether folks are doing interesting work is, Can they surprise me?” he tells me. “And increasingly, when I read Daily Kos, it doesn’t surprise me. It’s all just exactly what I would expect.”

That lengthy post was “Tone, Truth and the Democratic Party” and with not a few exceptions, the 843 comments were largely positive. He followed up a few days later with the much (much) shorter “Thanks for the feedback,” in which he promised readers that he had indeed written the first post — suggesting he might even read the comments, too. And in the comments there, star Kossack Maryscott O’Connor dreamt of a Gore-Obama ‘08 ticket.

Flash forward fourteen months, and Obama is as controversial at Daily Kos as ever, and in more or less the same ways. Here is a sampling of the wildly polarized headlines from the site’s user diaries over just the past weekend:

And though the sentiments lean toward the negative, a vocal contingent still pines for that Gore/Obama ticket.

Yea, Though I Walk Through The Valleywag of the Shadow of Death…

Published by William Beutler on November 14, 2006 in Blog Fights, Comment Sections, Gawker Media, Instapundit, Journalist Bloggers, Relaunches, Tech Blogosphere, Tough Crowd and Website Design. 2 Comments

Readers of Blog P.I. probably don’t venture very far into the tech blogosphere (a.k.a. the first blogosphere) but one of its higher profile, more controversial sites, is Valleywag. It’s another title owned by Nick Denton’s Gawker Media, where since February of this year, editor Nick Douglas (formerly of publicity stunt-turned-blog Blogebrity) has chronicled the embarrassing hygienic deficiencies of Google’s top brass, suspicious promotional practices of Google’s founders, and… some other stuff about Google, as I recall. But I kid. It’s a fun blog — Wonkette for the IT department. Or, it was until today.

Sometime over the weekend, Denton dismissed Douglas from the site, implemented a new layout, new typesetting, and apparently a new focus (more money, less sex). Here’s what it looked like yesterday:

Old Valleywag Layout

And what it looks like today:

New Valleywag Layout

Moreover, Denton has installed as interim blogger none other than himself. Which could work — he was a tech journalist prior to being an entrepreneur, and was an early, uh, blogebrity himself (if you remember Glenn Reynolds linking favorably to Denton’s hawkish post-9/11 proclamations, pat yourself on the back).

However, here at Blog P.I. we make no bones about getting a kick out of comment sections that turn on the site’s bloggers, and the reaction to Denton’s first post is truly something to behold. Some of the better responses:

Come on. Valleywag can spill the beans on every other “change in employment,” but you try to pass this crap off when Nick Douglas leaves? What gives. You say, “letting him go” which typically means fired. You can do better than that.
Funny, the design was one of the few in the Gawker empire that I liked. Now I’m not sure which of your generic, overlapping sites I’m on. I guess I’ll just have to deal.
How many photoshop filters had to throw up before you got that logo treatment? It may be the single most ugly thing I have ever seen in my life, and I just saw the “Naked Jen” flickr set from Dave Winer.
Oh, and IBM just called from 1955, they want their Courier font back.
The new site design sucks balls. As for Nick leaving, it COULD be a breath of fresh air (I grew tired of reading The Michael Arrington and Jason Calcanis Show), but you’re already on thin ice due to the less than forthcoming nature of the announcement.
well, it was a nice ride. ass design + letting go of your most valuable asset + renewed focus on crap people care even less about = removal from my daily web surfing routine. best of luck to both of you Nicks!
Before Spiers stopped talking to me, she once offered advice about the prospect of working for Denton or Calacanis: (I’m paraphrasing here) “It’s the old lesser of two evils thing, but at least with Jason you’re gonna get someone who is completely honest and won’t stab you in the back.”
I think this post needs more context. Who is this Nick Denton person and why should we care?

And elsewhere, tech bloggers are none too pleased, either. Here’s Zooomr evangelist Thomas Hawk:

Denton refuses to spill the beans. Was Douglas fired? Did he quit? Douglas is a pretty young guy so I doubt the old “he’s taking time off to spend more time with his family,” line works. Denton should know better than to offer us a weak, “Nick Douglas, the kid we plucked from college to launch Valleywag, will be a great journalist. And we will look stupid for letting him go.” … So you are saying he was fired? Or was he not fired? Very, very weak for a gossip blog Denton.

Ethernet inventor Richard Bennett looks at it from a different angle:

It’s probably a step closer to relevance, but still has a long way to go. … The editor was some pimply-faced teenager from Pennsylvania who had no clue about Silicon Valley life (and still doesn’t), the mix of stories is too sophomoric and Google-centric, the comment policy is bizarre, and the design was too hard to read. The new design is even worse, using a faint monospaced font, the comment policy remains the same, Denton is the temporary editor, and the story mix remains to be demonstrated.

And he’s not alone — Matthew Ingram updated a critical post to praise Denton’s later report on mega-sites Fark and Digg ditching John Battelle’s Federated Media for a new ad network run by Maxim (yes, that Maxim). It’s a new direction, for sure. Whereas Gawker, Defamer and Deadspin reign as the definitive gossip sites for NYC media, Hollywood and professional sports respectively, Valleywag wouldn’t be considered a rival to, say, frequent Douglas target Michael Arrington of the hugely popular TechCrunch. It looks like Denton wishes to compete with Arrington, rather than merely antagonize him. And Denton certainly has the connections to make that work. But Douglas’ Valleywag was something different. Denton’s Valleywag, not so much.

Meanwhile, lit fic crit Edward Champion keeps things short and sour:

Nick Douglas has apparently been shitcanned from Valleywag and all I got was this crummy T-shirt (and one of the worst blog designs I think I’ve ever seen).

As I always say about this time: Tough crowd. But that’s the blogosphere for you, and if anyone’s developed an epidermal layer strong enough to withstand this onslaught, it’s Denton. And if there’s anything serious to be said here, it’s that the blogosphere expects accountability and openness from its counterparts in cyberspace as well as its subjects/targets in meatspace. That’s one thing you would think Nick Denton would have figured out by now.

P.S. For what it’s worth (and I realize it may not be much) I was among the first to notice Blogebrity when the site launched as a preview of an alleged blog equivalent of People Magazine speculate about what it was way back when it launched in May 2005. I would also add that I was among the first to report the truth — it was an entrant in the first Contagious Media contest — although I believe I was the only political blogger to pay it any attention at all. History repeats itself.

Update: Via 10 Zen Monkeys, I learn that I didn’t read far down enough to find the actual best comments to Denton’s first post:

JasonCalacanis: Someone tell little Nicky that I have a job for him running NickDenton.net: all Denton all the time. NickDouglas: Jason, calling me “little Nicky” is an AWESOME way to make me consider a professional relationship with you.

If there’s an Adam Sandler joke to be made here, I don’t know what it is.

Second Update: Wisely, Valleywag has dropped the use of Courier in the regular copy.

And again via 10 Zen Monkeys, the truth comes out: Douglas was indeed fired, apparently for trying to lure News Corp. (!) into suing Nick Denton. Can’t say that sounds unreasonable.

But as I added to the comments at the end of the linked post, I recall when Denton launched Defamer in early 2004, Mickey Kaus quipped:

Why not go all the way and call it Defendant!

Can’t say that doesn’t sound like Denton’s ethos caught up with him.

The Trouble With Harry

Published by William Beutler on November 7, 2006 in Blogging Officials, Comment Sections, Harry Reid, Lamont v. Lieberman and Netroots. 8 Comments

Don’t look now — wait, actually you really should — but Harry Reid’s visit to Daily Kos is going anything but swimmingly, even if it does happen to be raining in the District today. Reid’s posting, at the time of this writing the site’s top-ranked diary, all begins innocuously enough, with the Senate Majority Leader kissing the blogosphere’s ring:

YearlyKos seems so long ago doesn’t it?

Yet it was only five months ago when I asked you for three things:

1.    Call Republicans and their friends in the media on their crass and hypocritical political games
2.    Make it clear where Democrats stand
3.    Never give up

Thank you for doing all of this and more. Because of you, no attack went unanswered. Because of you no lie avoided the truth. Because of you no distortion became a distraction to Democrats.

If the sheer obsequiousness of the post doesn’t make you ill, consider this YouTube video, shot exclusively for the diary:

If there’s anything noteworthy about the content of Reid’s post, it’s that Daily Kos diarists are not allowed to post YouTube videos, and Kos has in the past made a point of not giving politicians special treatment, yet here Reid has somehow obtained permission to post this video in his first-ever diary at Daily Kos. Hmm.

But the fun doesn’t really start until you get into the comments. You don’t have to get very far, either, before you see:

Harry Reid challenged over his non-support of Ned Lamont at Daily Kos

Tough crowd. To be fair, a good number of Kossacks — perhaps even a majority — responded favorably, many even cheered him on (perhaps opening themselves to accusations of obsequiescence) or defended Reid against his detractors. And boy, does he have detractors:

The cult of personality around Harry “Keeping the Powder Dry in Perpetuity” Reid is truly mystifying. No one has betrayed Democratic principles more, yet Kossacks act like he’s Paul Fucking Wellstone.

Not to mention:

And what, Harry, did you do for Dems in CT?

Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.

Remember that the next time to put your hand out for anything from CT Dems.

Hope you and Joe and Bill and Hill and Chuck and Barack and Harold enjoy each other’s company.  Yuck!

And:

we could have unified around a REAL Democrat…NED LAMONT but i think you and others in DC didnt have enough faith is us to deliver the majority

for me THAT is one of the real shames of this election…..that we worked so damn hard to take back control of congress and the people who will benefit from our hard work didnt trust us enough to back our choices for candidates…or our belief in Howard Deans 50 state strategy.

And:

If Reid had done what he had to do he would have brought the full weight of the DC Dem establishment to support the rightful Dem nominee.  Not supporting Lamont is a failed strategy. I don’t give a rats ass about maintaining a relationship with Lieberman because even if nominally he sticks with the Dems, he is still going to stick it TO the Dems when it comes to his positions and votes.

Bullshit that supporting Lamont would not have made a huge impact on Lamont’s chances for today.

That said, Lamont WILL win today.

This, from the “reality-based community”? Credit goes to certain Kossacks, like Big Tent Democrat and cedubose, for trying to keep the peace. And the best line goes to lotlizard:

Ladies, please! Don’t squeeze the Chairman.

But by then, the thread had already been wrecked. And here’s the thing: Joe Lieberman is going to win today, and he’s going to be more powerful than ever before. Lamont will be gone, but Reid will still be the Democrats’ leader. And if this is how his ostensible allies will receive him, why bother?

This isn’t politics. In fact, you could say it’s the opposite: It’s impolitic, and it disregards the fact that, when they’re not out making nice to their various constituencies, politicians tend to hold grudges — more so than most people, even. At this rate, watching the netroots come to terms with the reality of their team handling the responsibilities of political power promises to provide a great deal of inexpensive entertainment.

Separated At Mirth

Published by William Beutler on November 2, 2006 in Blogs vs. MSM, Campaigns, Comment Sections, DCCC, DNC, Daily Kos, Democrats and Netroots. 0 Comments

I have just been sent a YouTube video purporting to show my former boss, Hotline editor-in-chief Chuck Todd, on “The Price is Right”:

If you ask me, it only really looks like him for a split second — but if I’m wrong, congrats on winning the five grand. I hereby nominate this for the Friday “Separated at Birth” section of Last Call.

P.S. Speaking of Chuck, his assertion that the netroots could support a Rahm Emanuel challenge for House Speaker is roiling the lefty blogosphere today. Markos Moulitsas says the opposite:

I’m pretty confident in predicting that bloggers 1) wouldn’t launch a grassroots effort to promote a Rahm Speakership, and 2) would actively and energetically oppose it.

Jonathan Singer has taken a poll which confirms the sentiment:

MyDD poll about potential Speaker Rahm Emanuel

And I concur: At best Rahm will have their grudging respect, should Democrats win by a comfortable margin. Many don’t trust his courting of Wall Street money managers, and they don’t like his criticism of Howard Dean’s “50 state strategy” — even though as DCCC chair he is institutionally obliged to focus only on key races.

In today’s Blogometer, Chuck has issued a statement:

Regarding the blowback my ‘Speaker Rahm’ speculation is receiving with the liberal blogs, I just didn’t realize how bad his rep was with some. Frankly, I should have been more aware of how the Rahm-Dean strategy feud damaged things. So, here’s a question for the left; if not Pelosi and if not Rahm, then who could you support as Speaker?

It’s a good question, though it should be added to the end of his column. Otherwise, he’s liable to get more responses like this one from DuckmanGR at MyDD (please excuse his language):

Chuck Todd is … a Beltway 500 tool. Let me further add, fuck Chuck Todd, may he soon rot on assignment covering the rapidly shrinking Greenland Ice Cap that reporters like him helped enable, and tell us how the shilling that he has been doing for the GOP and the DLC earned him this important post. … progressives need to stop listening to or relying on self serving low life scum like Todd and Halpern [sic] and Charlie Cook (oh I know, he’s so fucking smart, right?) and the rest of their revolting ilk. 18 seat gain is an abject failure by Rahm, that control will be entirely in spite of him, not thanks to him. What a crock, Crock Todd, Fucktard.

Well, now. If that isn’t a compelling argument, I don’t know what is.

In all seriousness, Chuck knows more about politics than almost anyone, even if he is, like everyone, wrong from time to time. I do think this one was an obvious mistake, but even for avid readers, the political blogosphere is a harder nut to crack than even political meatspace.

Who “runs” the netroots? Kos? The Townhouse group? Both are influential, but neither have the message control of the Democratic party, which obviously isn’t saying much. And who leads the Republicans? Is it non-Republican Glenn Reynolds? Comparatively low-traffic RedState?

Believe me, it’s not just the Beltway establishment that doesn’t know what to make of the bloggers; the bloggers don’t know what to make of themselves, either.

Stabbing Eastward: Lamont, the Netroots and Barack Obama

Published by William Beutler on October 30, 2006 in Barack Obama, Blogs vs. MSM, Comment Sections, DNC, Democrats, Elections, Internecine Battles, Lamont v. Lieberman, National Politics, Netroots and White House '08. 23 Comments

Shortly after Ned Lamont upended Holy Joe Lieberman in the CT SEN primary this summer, I noted a report by TNR’s Ryan Lizza arguing that Washington Democrats would steer clear of the race from there on, letting the blue-on-blue rhetorical violence work itself out. Two and a half months later, that looks eerily prescient. Lamont has fallen behind in the polls, and there’s little question that a victorious Lieberman would retain his committee assignments even if the newspapers called him (I-CT).

Also not looking too bad: My question at the time, about what the Lamont primary victory — then hailed by some as the first breakthrough win for a netroots candidate — about what this would mean:

Could it be that what seemed less than 100 hours ago like the first major gate-crashing will actually end up building more barriers between Beltway Democrats and the party’s online activists?

Keep that in mind as you read excerpts from yesterday’s Matt Stoller classic, “Senate Democrats and Bill Clinton Stab Us In The Front”:

Why did Lamont let Joe get away? Well there are a number of reasons, but among the most prominent is the total abandonment of Lamont by the party establishment. And let’s be very clear - this is not Lamont that they are abandoning, it’s the party primary voters that they are abandoning. …

Make no mistake, these DC Democrats are only our temporary allies. They have total contempt for the rules of the party, and they cheered Joe after he faced us in the primary. It is no longer reasonable for them to call for party unity, because they no longer have any legitimate claim to call themselves leaders of the party. They may be leaders for the next few decades simply due to inertia, but it’s very clear that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are liars who think nothing of insulting Democratic primary voters who play by the rules. …

The American people know this. They know that Democratic Senators aremoral lepers, weaklings, and that is the only reason we aren’t furtherahead when the Republicans screw everything up. The Democratic Senateleaders will sell us out at every opportunity, be it torture, Iraq, Alito, Lieberman, the Bankruptcy Bill, or stopping war with Iran. They aren’t poll-driven, they aren’t fear-driven, and they aren’t driven by strategic differences. They are simply driven to beat us down, their voters, by any means necessary. …

We can win this fight, as the polls are tightening. But it would be a whole lot easier without that knife in our back.

Leaving aside the obvious question of which side the Stollerites are supposed to be bleeding from, there’s enough hyperbole here to last until the first big straw poll.

As I’ve demonstrated previously, Stoller’s over-reliance on self-righteous anger and quick imputations of bad faith to his political opponents (even those ostensibly on his side of the fence) makes him seem less a sharp-tongued political street brawler and more like a circus clown exaggerating his act.

And as usual, the response in the MyDD comments is mixed. A contingent protests that Stoller is being unreasonable, but his sentiments are shared by a larger set. Meanwhile, Stoller’s hyperventilation obscures what is actually a pretty interesting question to pick apart: How did Lamont lose his momentum, and what explains Senate Democrats’ reluctance to join the netroots in the War on Lieberman? I recommend this thread, which includes MyDDer Chris G gamely trying to explain to the wounded ‘roots that it’s not all about them:

Dem leaders are not trashing Lamont, and they’ve expressed their support. but by “cutting loose” Liberman [sic], and trashing Liberman, as you suggest, they run the risk of the following: Liberman winning nonetheless, and organizing with the GOP.

Quite. Senate Democrats are too worried about being stabbed by Joementum in a 50-49 split to carry out any personal vendetta against the netroots. It’s not personal. It’s politics.

Still, as for MyDD, it’s a marked improvement from last week’s poll-frustrated Conn. voter-bashing thread:

A bunch of idiots do live in CT. What a fucking embarassment.

Now that’s what I call people power.

·      ·      ·

Another interesting thing about the philosophical and political differences between the Beltway establishment and Democratic-aligned bloggers is the split opinions about Barack Obama. If you don’t know that Obama ‘08 is in its ascendancy at the moment, then you must be in a persistent vegetative state. With Republican newspaper columnists Charles Krauthammer and David Brooks offering genuine praise of the freshman Democrat, it becomes all the more clear that his surge is a media-driven sensation. Though hyped excessively by celebrity-obsessed reporters, Barack Obama has demonstrated, potentially, a very broad appeal. Yet there is one group seemingly impervious to his charms: the netroots, of course.

First, note Stoller’s derogation of Obama above. It’s not the first time; Stoller has a long history of badmouthing Obama going back to the 2004 convention in Boston, where he was disinvited by Terry McAuliffe’s DNC from continuing on as a coordinator after writing that Obama hadn’t said “anything really interesting or useful.”

But also note the comments from others in the threads below the post. Here’s one, from a former Hillary Clinton supporter (somewhat rare among liberal bloggers in good standing) no less:

I do know one thing: I do not support Obama for any office. He has ZERO spine. He didn’t even want to filibuster Alito when even Hillary was among the first to advocate filibuster for BOTH Alito and the Alito-with-pretty-blue-eyes, Roberts.
And this one:

I wouldn’t go so far as to call Obama a liar, but he HAS been a major disappointment. He’s got one of the safest Senate seats around, having romped to a landslide victory in what was a dreadful year for Democrats nationwide, and he’s done next to nothing to advance Democratic values, choosing instead to scold Democrats for, among other things, not being religious enough.

Well, Barack, let’s talk religion, since it’s one of your favorite subjects. When the torture bill came out, where the hell were you? … Mr. Obama, I still have some hope for you, but your silence on the torture bill means that you have abdicated any credibility in lecturing ANYBODY on “moral values”. You’re not a whole lot better than Republicans in that regard.

Maybe Krauthammer and Brooks know something the MyDD crowd doesn’t? In any case, Obama is not without his defenders:

In fact, I would like to see in print where Obama promised to come to CT and campaign for Lamont. He has publicly supported Lamont, but just because he supports Lamont publicly does not mean he has to bad mouth Lieberman. … But please if you can provide written proof on where Obama has lied about CT, I would love to see. Until then, I have to chalk it up to your irrational dislike of the man.

In the meantime, you have to wonder: if Washington Democrats’ lukewarm support for Ned Lamont is tantamount to treason, what would the netroots say if Barack Obama actually got the nomination in 2008? Or Clinton/Obama?

P.S. It’s worth remembering that only a week ago, Stoller posted a comparatively thoughtful essay titled “Why Barack Obama Should Run for President.” Was he being disingenuous then or is he being exciteable now? It’s hard to tell, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the answer is both.

Evil Corporate Image Makeover/Lefty Blogosphere Co-Optation Nearing Completion?

Published by William Beutler on October 20, 2006 in Comment Sections, Daily Kos, Energy Policy, Lobbying and Netroots. 1 Comment

What will the Kossacks make of the Chevron ad rotating with an in-house ad for “Crashing the Gates” at the top of Daily Kos tonight?

Daily Kos Chevron advertisement

So far, I see no discontent. Is that an advancement or an abdication? Or an accident?

How arbitrary is it? That’s no casual “it’s just in the sidebar” BlogAd — that’s a fully integrated premium BlogAd for an international petrochemical conglomerate lording over the front page of the progressive blogosphere’s most-viewed URL.

And yet, I only found it earlier by typing dailykos.com alone into the address bar in Firefox for OS X, at say, 10:00 p.m. EDT. Otherwise, I’ve gotten this:

Kos, "Crashing the Gate"

Can anyone duplicate the page with the Chevron media buy? As I reload, and reload, and reload, I continue to see the “Crashing the Gate” spot in the same place, over and over. Did Markos change his mind at the last moment? Did Chevron Corp. withdraw? Is it slated for release and for some reason I’m missing this will be completely non-controversial?

I guess we’ll see. Either way: Interesting agreement on Chevron’s part, and on Kos’ part as well.

Update: Apparently yes, this has already appeared and apparently was not completely ignored — but still doesn’t seem to have meant the ad’s removal from the Daily Kos ad rotation — though perhaps efforts have been made to have it be less-seen. Presumably the ad buy is just running out by this point, and that’s that. I sure hope not.

Updated again: Competing arguments from the 10/16 comment section:

The bulk of this diary is bitching about a single adverstisement on the largest pro-democratic website in the world. Somehow, from that single ad (which isn’t fooling anyone around here, by the way), the diarist states that he is one of many who are “deeply concerned that this website has become a staging ground for big oil propaganda.” That is just stupid.
I agree as well…. …I am weening myself off this site. I am stunned that Marcos would accept advertising dollars from Chevron…especially since he lives in the SF Bay Area….and has to know that Chevron is a major polluter of the SF Bay and delta regions…I was shocked to see the ad and thought it was snark…oh, well…

It will be diaried another day.

Foer The Record, Siegel Reinstated [Updated: Or Maybe Not]

Published by William Beutler on September 6, 2006 in Blog Fights, Blogs vs. MSM, Comment Sections and Sock puppets. 1 Comment

[Note: Post updated below. And updated, and updated.]

As covered extensively in the last post, last week TNR joined the Washington Post in the ranks of prominent political paper-based periodicals to get burned by its comment section; writer Lee Siegel’s blog was pulled after the editors discovered he had been posting as his own biggest fan, the artlessly arftful “Sprezzatura.”

Earlier this afternoon, TNR’s Foer went up with an editor’s note/meditation on the future of TNR’s comment section. Unable to arrive at a conclusion, Foer instead settles on drastically overthinking it:

A few months back, The New Republic actually considered requiring Talkback bylines. Our logic went like this: We would never publish an anonymous letter to the editor in the print magazine; in fact, we never publish a letter to the editor without checking the missive’s facts and authenticity. So why should we hold reader opinion on the web to a different standard?

Absent other perfectly good reasons not occurring to me just now, I’ll point out that the two are just not the same, and never have been. Comment sections are moderated, letters pages are edited. Magazines must be forgiven for being choosy, as they have very little space to work with; assuming a comment is on-topic, non-abusive and somewhere in the ballpark of substantive or amusing, it should be allowed. And it goes on like this:

The proposal wasn’t meant to demean TNR’s Talkback section, which has a far higher quality than almost any other example of the genre. Yet, scattered among Talkbalk’s thoughtful posts, you could still find examples of ad hominem attacks and argument that degenerated into taunting. (Some of which, it turned out, were produced by one of our own.)

Unlike the Post at the time of the Deborah Howell controversy, TNR already has comment registration — so that fix is out. But if one apple is bad, should the whole cart be overturned? Unfortunately, in this case the apple is from their own tree (all right, enough with that metaphor) and Foer sounds determined to let that fact ruin everything.

Later in the note, he acknowledges that many potential commenters will drop out before revealing their names. So Foer has just walked into a debate he already seems to have decided he can’t answer: Whether the honesty conferred by anonymity is productive or disruptive. Frankly, the blogosphere itself cannot really answer this question. Some have comments and some do not. Some are attacked for what their commenters say, others are attacked because they didn’t give anyone the chance to say it.

Also, curiously unmentioned in Foer’s meditation: Lee Siegel’s blog is back. All the posts have been returned, even the controversial ones about pedophilia, even the comments by Sprezzatura. I take this to mean that Siegel is not only not fired, he’s cleared to blog again. That’s fine, it’s their call to make. But shouldn’t Foer have included at least a sentence addressing this development?

Update: It’s worth noting that the return of Siegel’s blog seems to fly in the face of the New York Observer’s report, which quotes Foer as saying Siegel’s suspension is “indefinite.” Are some suspensions more indefinite than others? Or is it more likely he actually hasn’t been reinstated, and that the blog’s return is an accident; after all, the last post is dated 8/31, shortly before it was replaced by Foer’s apology. And that apology is pretty firm about Siegel’s blog no longer being published there. What we may have instead is the temporary (?) return of Siegel’s blog as an orphan page, not linked to by any other page on the site. But if you have the URL handy, “Lee Siegel on Culture” is yours for the reading.

Updated again: I am informed by Tyler Green of Arts Journal that Siegel’s blog is not actually back — just the archives. That’s actually what I’d asked for in the previous post; it sounds like they took so much heat for closing off the archives that they decided to open them back up. Good. And so I’ll conclude by going back to how I concluded this post in the first place — Foer’s note is more than annoying, more crucially, it lacks transparency. And in the end, it adds nothing.

Updated one more time: The first and last lines of that Observer piece, the first quoting Siegel, the last quoting TNR literary editor (and onetime Sopranos guest star) Leon Wieseltier, are expecially [Update: This should be a word] telling. Siegel first:

I made a dumb mistake, and I’m very sorry I did it. I took the blogosphere’s bait, and I stooped to the level of these people who were commenting on my pieces, and I shouldn’t have.

If you’re wondering how Mr. Siegel got off on such a bad foot with the blogosphere, look no further. One wonders why he stooped to the level of writing a blog in the first place. Now Wieseltier:

I don’t like the blogosphere for many reasons; one of them is its assumption that a person’s first thoughts are his best thoughts, which is quite obviously false.

I would say this very post is evidence of that. Lee Siegel had no business writing a blog in the first place, but Wieseltier sounds like he’d do just fine. Mr. Foer?

A Flock of Siegels or, Don’t Cross The Streams

Published by William Beutler on September 5, 2006 in Blog Fights, Blogs vs. MSM, Comment Sections and Sock puppets. 3 Comments

Sometimes the blogs take you down. Sometimes, you take yourself down first. The latter is especially true of those who engage in sock puppetry, a too-cute nickname for an activity itself too cute by half. Our latest practicioner is arts critic Lee Siegel, who seems to be everyone’s least favorite writer at The New Republic.

To recap: During the Armstrong/Townhouse/Kos/Zengerle knockdown in June, Siegel stepped in, univited, to unleash an overheated rejoinder to the bloggers, including the spasmodic coinage of a frivolous term, “blogofascism.” Flash forward to two weeks ago, where Siegel took after English professor and, ah, pedophile expert James Kincaid, who had analyzed the national JonBenet Ramsey obsession for Slate earlier in the week. Siegel’s argument, if that’s what you could call it, was that Kincaid was a pedophile himself:

What a shame that editors still publish his disingenuous screeds against the media’s sexualization of children. They really just seem like ways for Kincaid to hide his own appetite for children behind his indictment of all of us hypocritical “voyeurs” out there.

Among the lefty bloggers who tuned in first, his attacks were deemed so incomprehensible and so unfair that it was beneath even TNR. Marty Peretz and Peter Beinart may offend them politically, but Siegel offended their sensibilities. Within days, a decade-old Siegel column more or less about having the opportunity to sleep with a flirtatious, 16-year-old Uma Thurman surfaced, and brought further ridicule. Ezra Klein suggested it was a case of projection, and though Siegel’s ancient TNR piece seemed to be about not wanting to to do so, it was too on-topic not to become an issue.

And then, without fanfare, Siegel’s blog disappeared from the site, and in its place appeared a mea culpa from editor Franklin Foer:

TNR Apologizes for Lee Siegel's puppeteering.

Unless you’d been reading the comments to these posts, you would have missed the exchange that brought it all down:

Sprezzatura is caught

One wonders if Siegel or his accomplice meant for the handle to be quite so apropos — “sprezzatura” refers to artwork produced from a genteel, aristocratic point of view, a reaction against the more spontaneous work of rising young artists. Sound like an ongoing feud that you know of?

It’s unfortunate that TNR has removed his blog in toto, as we bloggers would really like the chance to go back through and dig for more

Not that it deterred the swarm, of course. At this point, the rightosphere jumped in as well: John Podhoretz dubbed him “perhaps the single most pretentious person in America today,” and Ann Althouse rediscovered just how little she’d liked his writing. The fact that Siegel/Sprezzatura was convinced jhschwartz was Mark Greif from the literary journal n+1 was almost an afterthought, as was the identity of Sprezzatura’s other master — if indeed such a person exists. To date, the kerfuffle has inspired not just a parody post by Michael Bérubé, but also a parody blog by person(s) unknown.

As Blog P.I. has noted before, it’s been a banner year for sock puppets already — Michael “Mikekoshi” Hitzlik, Glenn “Ellison” Greenwald, even Jason “George Gooding” Leopold. As in the case of Greenwald, hubris played a big factor in this un-socking. For both writers, the temptation to praise oneself in a manner even one’s biggest fans are unlikely to do was insurmountable; this hubris [in part] drives the similar impulse to pour self-generated adulation into one’s own Wikipedia entry. Had Siegel (or his rumored accomplice) just toned it down, Sprezzatura might still be antagonizing Siegel’s antagonists. And whereas the semi-retired Greenwald is unfireable, Siegel like Hitzlik before him is (or was) eminently vulnerable.

Another interesting aspect is just how muted the swarm has been. Possible reasons include the fact that Siegel did himself in, as well as the possibility that Greenwald’s allies are unwilling to make themselves hypocrites. A typical half-hearted criticism comes from Gavin M. at Sadly, No!:

[S]ock-puppetry is bad and embarrassing, but on the scale of human folly, it must rate somewhere near swiping parking spots or soaping postage stamps — a meniality for which one’s own conscience ought to be the thing most permanently troubled.

Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money offers some good thoughts, but still downplays the charge:

It seems to me that most incidences of sock puppetry come from writers who are moving to the blogosphere from another medium, and who are unused to a) the immediate feedback, b) the vitriol, and c) the freedom to be whatever or whoever you want to be. I also, like Gavin, think that sock puppetry is a relatively mild crime as blogospheric sins go. Siegel’s examples were particularly pompous and mean-spirited, but I still suspect that sock puppetry is the excuse more than the cause for his suspension, and that the real reason is that his blog proved to be an embarassment (and perhaps even legal liability) for TNR.

Needless to say, I can’t agree, at least not entirely. Besides plagiarism, what could be worse? (The pedophilia accusation was likely a factor, though legally speaking, Siegel never outright accused Kincaid of being an active pedophile; he merely (if that’s the word for it) suggested Kincaid had the inclination). Sock puppetry is no different from astroturfing, which bloggers usually despise, only it’s done by an individual or two in service of ego rather than many individuals in service of an outside interest. In the blogosphere you have little more than your integrity to go on, and when that’s shot, well, at least your friends will (probably) still link to you. Atrios, incidentally the object of scorn in Olly’s post preceding this one, gets it right:

Simply having an alternate identity online is fine. What isn’t fine is when there’s implicit deception involved which is almost automatic if you’re assuming a new identity to defend yourself. There’s no reason I have to be “Atrios” everywhere on the internets, but if I assume the name “Atrios Rulezzzz!” and run around the internets talking about how Atrios is human perfection defined then I will have succeeded in making a supreme ass out of myself. And if one, Mary Rosh-like, starts inventing tales (I was in John Lott’s class and he was the best professor ever!) then you’ve moved into the realm of explicit deception…”

I’m reminded of the advice Ray Stantz gave to Peter Venkman early in a classic film of the 1980s:

Don’t cross the streams.

Why? It would be bad. You can have as many online identities as you see fit, and they can say whatever you’d like, just so long as they don’t interact as if they were different people (the number of longtime Internet users still using the handle they first logged on with is vanishingly small). True, the Ghostbusters got away with it at the end of the movie, just as as many (perhaps most) sock puppeteers escape undetected. But as web literacy rises, it’s easier and easier to root out the cheaters. When called out, the consequences can be dire. Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light — or at least losing your job and reputation.

P.S. The first half of this post’s headline was borrowed from S,N!

P.P.S. As far as I am aware, this post has the most 80s-centric header yet.

Blog Traffic As A Reverse Bell Curve (Kind Of)

Published by William Beutler on August 29, 2006 in Blog Fights, Comment Sections, Instapundit and Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere. 0 Comments

The comments to the Hotline On Call post that started the McCain/Mele Melee (feel free to borrow this phrase!) calls to mind, though doesn’t perfectly illustrate, a truism not just of politics but of the blogosphere in particular: Centrists are loved by no one, not even fellow centrists.

Originally, the post mistakenly identified Reynolds as “center-left.” Verbatim down to the formatting, reader Kathleen complained:

  Glenn Reynolds as a center left blogger?! you have got to be freaking joking.

And so it was corrected — but a few hours later Not Marc (possibly referring to post co-author Marc Ambinder, perhaps even a handle of the Not Larry Sabato variety) disagreed with the updated descriptor:

  Instapundit is not ‘center-right’. He’s hard right. Do the research: his front page regularly links to sites containing the most rabid, racist crap imaginable.

Here at Blog P.I., we have cast aspersions on the oft-proctored renounce-your-allies tests employed by the left and right, and this is a typical case; Reynolds points readers to Little Green Footballs, but that shouldn’t constitute an endorsement of LGF’s commenters. This kind of guilt-by-association has unfairly dinged the man behind Big Orange, and Reynolds has said before this is one reason why he doesn’t have a comment section of his own — and singled out the Lizardoids as a specific example. For what it’s worth, he doesn’t even self-identify as conservative, but in much of the blogosphere, it really doesn’t matter what you call yourself. (Many of Reynolds’ own fans even dispute his non-conservatism.) And if you do describe yourself as “center” anything, you’re more likely to get burned at both ends.

I’d also wager that even moderates are more likely to criticize fellow moderates, because their independence in part defines them, and their particular issues are also different. Centrist is not a definite category like Left or Right; it’s a None of the Above or Other. And overall, there are fewer moderates driving big traffic compared to their more ideological (or more easily-pegged) peers.

If you lined up a sample of blogs according to ideology along a left-right axis, I predict you’d find something resembling an inverse bell curve — though traffic would drop off again as one approaches either fringe. On the other hand: While the high traffic sites are found closer to the edges, if the center of this curve describes an amalgam of different philosophies, a long-tail effect would flatten the curve, maybe a little, maybe a lot. So it could be a fat upside-down bell, if that makes any sense.

All of which presumes, of course, that one could even agree on how to classify individual blogs as lefterer and righterer (these should be real words) compared to their peers. Which raises too many questions for this post, and cries out for the sort of levity provided by Fred, also in the Hotline’s comments:

  Who’s Glenn Reynolds and what’s Instapundit?