How Reddit and Bernie Sanders Crashed Our Website

[eridani]

http://utahpolicy.com/index.php/features/today-at-utah-policy/7061-editor-s-column-how-reddit-and-bernie-sanders-crashed-our-website

Monday morning we published a story about our poll results showing Bernie Sanders was leading the Democratic field in Utah.

Interesting? Yes.

World shattering? Probably not.

That is until sometime between 11 am and noon Mountain time on Monday. During that timeframe, someone posted the story to Reddit. If you're unfamiliar with Reddit, it's a heavily trafficked crowdsourced website. Users post articles, pictures or whatever directly to the site. Content and articles are either "upvoted" or "downvoted" by users. The posts with more "upvotes" get higher placement on the site, and more attention. Posts that are "downvoted" get less attention. It's all very democratic and amazing.

Did I mention there are a lot of Bernie Sanders fans on Reddit? That's kind of important to my story.

So, these Bernie Sanders fans started "upvoting" the post linking to our story. In fact, so many in such a short time that the story was automatically pulled to Reddit's "front page" which gets the most attention. That brought literally tens of thousands of readers to our site in a minuscule amount of time.

As Dan Rather would say, "Katie bar the door."

Traffic to UtahPolicy.com went off the charts. It was such a surge that we initially thought we were under a DDOS, or "denial of service" attack. That's when a number of compromised computers target a single website, flooding it with so much traffic that nobody can pull it up anywhere.

[merrily]

1. I'm conflicted. I feel so bad for the website, but I can't stop smiling.

BTW, I have a gut feeling that I would have liked Katie, whoever she was, quite a lot.

Some think it was this lassie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Douglas

[Downwinder]

2. Probably Catherine Douglas.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/213750.html

Another suggestion is that the phrase originates with the story of Catherine Douglas and her attempt to save the Scottish King James I. He was attacked by discontented subjects in Perth in 1437. The room he was in had a door with a missing locking bar. The story goes that Catherine Douglas tries to save him by barring the door with her arm. Her her arm was broken and the mob murdered the King. The 'lass that barred the door' - Catherine Douglas, was henceforth known as Catherine Barlass. The story, although in it is the full Sir Walter Scott romantic history style, is quite well documented from contemporary records and the descendants of Catherine Douglas still use the Barlass name.

The event was commemorated in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poem The King’s Tragedy, 1881. The full poem is 173 stanzas, but this selection shows the possible links with Katy bar the door:

Then the Queen cried, "Catherine, keep the door,
And I to this will suffice!"
At her word I rose all dazed to my feet,
And my heart was fire and ice.
...
Like iron felt my arm, as through
The staple I made it pass:-
Alack! it was flesh and bone - no more! 570
'Twas Catherine Douglas sprang to the door,
But I fell back Kate Barlass.

[merrily]

3. Seems so.

She seems like quite a woman, especially for her time! That is not my stereotype of a lady in waiting.

I wonder if she was also Shakespeare's inspiration for Taming of the Shrew? If so, that would make me a little sad, I think.

[Downwinder]

4. I didn't know that story, and

she must have been a relative.

[merrily]

5. Katie Barlass is your ancestor? I want to hug your DNA.

[Downwinder]

6. I don't think ancestor, probably some sort of cousin.

My Great Grandmother was a Douglas immigrant from the Ald Country. She said she was descended from the Good Sir James.

[merrily]

7. Still, you would have a common ancestor in some generation. Very cool. I'm kinda jealous. nt

[Downwinder]

8. With that and $2 I can get a cup of coffee.

[merrily]

9. Ya gotta work it. On a story like that, Cole Porter could have dined out for weeks.

[Downwinder]

10. Funny how we get back to Kate.

Porter's mother and hit show "Kiss Me, Kate."

[merrily]

11. Really? What a coincidence!

And he knew how to tell (or re-tell) a great, albeit sexist story, like Shakepeare's Taming of the Shrew.

[Downwinder]

12. That's where you started. Full circle?

[merrily]

13. Well, Reply 3. I started at Reply 1.

I have a much older sister who seems to think my IQ is single digits. Whenever I do something like that, she is likely to say, "You have no idea how right you are." Then she'll painstakingly explain to me how what I just said was so apt. sigh.

[Downwinder]

14. Her name wouldn't happen to be Kate?

[merrily]

15. No, but, now that you mention it, she did play Bianca when

her elementary school class enacted an excerpt from Taming of the Shrew. Good work, Downwinder. I'd forgotten that.

Although....maybe it was in my subconscious when I posted about her in this connection. I never saw her in that role, but I grew up looking at the photo of her in costume thinking she looked like a princess.

[merrily]

16. kick

[SoapBox]

17. Feel the Bern!

Go read the comments...lol.

[in_cog_ni_to]

18. First comment was: "It's called the Reddit hug."

Too funny!

How is it that a man who's soooooo unpopular and unable to win the Primary or GE could have SOOOOOOOO many supporters on Reddit? And every other popular social media site on the interwebs!

[SoapBox]

19. I saw that too and chuckled.

I also agree with the rest of your post!

Go Bernie!