Hits at pro-Obama blogs plummeting.

[Perry Logan]

If you think the anti-Hillary zealots are alienating Democratic voters--you're probably right:

Trend Analysis: Candidate War Impact on Progressive Blogs
Richard Blair

As readers of progressive blogs are painfully aware, the Democratic Party candidate wars have become acrimonious and in some cases, very personal. I was a long time reader (and contributor) to Daily Kos, but recently bid farewell to “big orange”. Why? As a relatively non-aligned member of the DKos community, I no longer felt welcomed on the site. The evening of March 4th was pretty much the kicker for me. Venom was spewing, stupid declarations were being made, and it was clear that an online civil war had been joined.

...

A quick review of the graphics below tell a surprising tale: traffic is down significantly on the pro-Obama sites (30% or more over the past month), but about level on the pro-Clinton and “neutral” sites....The trends are clear and appear to be statistically significant.

http://allspinzone.com/wp/2008/04/01/candidate-war-impact-on-progressive-blogs/

[rodeodance]

1. After a while peple get tired of the constant smears/lies against Hillary

[flor de jasmim]

2. this was debunked several days ago

[Perry Logan]

3. Do you have a link?

[flor de jasmim]

4. I'm not always successful with DU searches, but I'll give it a shot.

[Bolo Boffin]

5. Just look at the graphs, Perry

It's completely arbitrary how the blogger picks where he draws the line. For AmericaBlog, he starts back at the spike at the beginning of the year that ALL the blogs fell off from.

Atrios is really unchanged, but he finds a way to draw that line down. If he'd done the same thing at MyDD, he would have drawn the line down there too, but he found a way to draw the line level. If TalkLeft hadn't had a spike on the 31st, he would have to have drawn that line down too.

This blog post is "seeing what you want to see" and making up the facts the way the blogger wants them to be.

[flor de jasmim]

6. Here you go...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5379196&mesg_id=5379196

[Perry Logan]

12. Thanks.

[shaniqua6392]

7. I enjoyed reading some of the comments after the article.

It is good to know that there are others out there feeling the same way I do. The disappointment at some of my favorite sites to visit is immeasurable. I was saddened that some of them actually endorsed a candidate. I can understand the posters following a certain candidate, but for the site itself to endorse was just appalling to me. They should have just demanded that our candidates fall in line with our progressive values. We will eventually get a candidate, but what results will that candidate give to the Democratic Party? I think we are about to be disappointed again. It is wrong to give a candidate your undying love before you see what they will actually do. Talk is cheap.

[C_U_L8R]

8. statistically bogus

those red lines don't mean a thing... there may be less peaks
but there could be more overall traffic. This person seems too
lazy to do the real math. And the comparison with Hillary sites
is just laughable.. the so called trend lines are totally arbitrary.
This isn't just lying with statistics, it's hallucinating.

[Tesha]

9. Perhaps no one needs to be convinced anymore?

There are precisely zero political blogs that I've ever
frequented (unless you consider this board a blog).

Tesha

[DerekJ]

10. Oh!! for fucks sake .. I have proved this shit wrong before..

[TheDoorbellRang]

11. LOL. GD-P -- the de ja vu forum

I guess cut n paste is our friend, DerekJ. Here's my post for this OP from the last time:

I've got a book called "How to Lie With Statistics" that this blogger must have read.

Notice he's only posting results from one month? Is there anything we can think of that might have made traffic heavier earlier in the month -- say around March 4th?
Oh, yeah! The primaries in four states!

So what's the traffic pattern over a longer period?

Here is the six month traffic graph for daily kos from last October until now. Notice the traffic increase starting in January and going through early March? Results for earlier months are between 200-300 million. Then February results swell to between 300-450 million. Finally, the end of March shows hits once again subsiding to pre-primary season levels.

Here is the corresponding six month graph for MyDD. Hovering at 20 million, picks up in January, and peaks at 50 million in February and March before starting back down at the end of March. Same pattern as daily kos but on a much smaller scale, pro-Hillary or not.

Do you think when both these sites spike again around April 22 it will be because of the mass return of Hillary supporters? Or do you think maybe -- just maybe -- the PA primary might have something to do with it?

[Perry Logan]

13. It still seems intuitively right to me. I've stopped going to lots of anti-Hillary places.

[TahitiNut]

15. We humans tend to believe what we WANT to believe.

As we recognize this, we're well-advised to be on guard for 'intuitively obvious' material and employ particular diligence in critical thinking in such cases. I get more than enough reminders myself in getting sucked in ... and keep trying to get better at not feeding on stuff that appeals to my biases.

[central scrutinizer]

14. And this means exactly what???

Have we fallen so far that we measure a candidate by how many hits a website gets? Where is the analysis? Couldn't this actually mean the opposite of what the OP is implying? Maybe the Obama supporters are out knocking on doors and working phone banks instead of sitting in their parents' basements, working on their minty green complexions, posting on various blogs which will only be read by other sycophants.

[Cheap_Trick]

16. they're grasping at straws

it's all they have left.

[mkultra]

17. Way to squeeze a nice brown one out of those stats.

It could easily mean that Hillary supporters are rabid.