I'm a 9% too. I have a day job with a cyclical work-load. When it gets too busy (like now), I stop commenting, but sneak a peak whenever I can. At home I have two small kids and household to help run. So if I don't feel like I can keep up with the running debate in the comments, I simply won't comment.

I do appreciate the ability to rate comments though. Many of the one-percenters do a great job of saying what I'd have liked to have said (and I look specifically for a few of them). If I can give them a four or a five, I feel as though I've participated in some small way.

As for wisdom to impart: Sleep is good. I will take it over posting comments almost every time (at least until the 2008 elections start to heat up).

I have my own blog, so I tend to restrict my comments. If I went crazy with them, it would get really time-consuming.

I'm a lurker. I have an account and I've posted a comment, maybe two . . . I just don't have much to add. I mean, how helpful is it to post a "me too" to every post that I agree with?

OTOH, I don't do diaries expressing my particular point of view simply because I don't have time. I read a lot of progressive blogs from serious to silly. At the end of the day, there is very little to say that hasn't been said. So I leave it to those with more time and a more organized thought process (and better typing skills) to 'contribute'.

sundry

PS ya know, lately I've posted on 'lurker threads' at several blogs. What do you suppose that says about me? Never mind, I prolly don't want to know.

On the 9% vs 1%, I'm not sure that many of the 1% have day jobs. And if you look at comments, IMHO many of the 1% don't contribute anything meaningful.

However, there are 1 percenters who dig for info and coordinate blogs and are an essential part of the picture. But not everyone can do this full time. The 9% group is very, very important, because these are the people who track what's going on and who, when they come across something of interest, forward it to the key blogging sites. TPM does this particularly well.

Another 9%er here. Same reason. No time. However, you'll be glad to know that TPM is the first blog I go to everyday. Second, the Washington Monthly, then on down the line to Glenn Greenwald and The Note. Hmm... Sounds like I have more time than I thought I did.

Thank God I'm a 9%-er... "lurker" sounds so deviant.

In all seriousness, who exactly cares what I think on any topic? And how do the 1%-ers find the time to respond to my irrelevant opinions?

I tried engaging wingers on a local blog for a while. I naively thought I could save their political souls. They usually just called me names and capitalized the word FACTS a lot when refering to some spin they heard on Rush Limbaugh. It wasn't a terribly rewarding experience, so I gave it up.

I have no idea whether I fall into the 9% category, or if I post more than that, but I've been waiting for an open thread to post a request for a guest contributor.

I'd like to suggest Philip Zimbardo, who isn't a journalist or political writer, but a social scientist. Some may be aware of him; he conducted the famous Stanford Prison Experiment in the 1970s. The NYT recently published an article about an interview of Zimbardo:

His Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971, known as the S.P.E. in social science textbooks, showed how anonymity, conformity and boredom can be used to induce sadistic behavior in otherwise wholesome students. More recently, Dr. Zimbardo, 74, has been studying how policy decisions and individual choices led to abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The road that took him from Stanford to Abu Ghraib is described in his new book, “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil” (Random House).

From the article:

Q. You keep using this phrase “the situation” to describe the underlying cause of wrongdoing. What do you mean?

A. That human behavior is more influenced by things outside of us than inside. The "situation" is the external environment. The inner environment is genes, moral history, religious training. There are times when external circumstances can overwhelm us, and we do things we never thought. If you’re not aware that this can happen, you can be seduced by evil. We need inoculations against our own potential for evil. We have to acknowledge it. Then we can change it.

I'm thinking his research and thoughts have a wider implication - and a political one - than just the Abu Ghraib problem. In fact, I think they may apply to the situation with Imus as well.

He comes at things from a bit different perspective, and I think there might be some interesting and worthwhile discussions about the political (and social) implications of his work. What do you think, Andrew?

Know your enemy well, for in the end that is who you become. ~~Old Chinese Proverb

lurker here.

I had a lot of trouble signing up for TPM in the first place so never got into comments. Tried it right now and it was easy so maybe I will comment more.

On the popular blogs and threads, when there are plenty of comments, close to the whole range of opinion is represented. I sometimes read the comments just to find the one closest to my own opinion -- the one that makes the best sense within the ecology of the whole set of comments. I wouldn't have recognized it as my opinion (I wouldn't have a firm sense of its strength) if I hadn't already seen it butt heads with a bunch of other opinions.

And once I've done that, what's the point of further commenting?

I'm a relatively new 9 percenter. Signing in almost every time is a pain. And, I know the domains are different, but why can't registering/signing in be simultaneous for here and TPM Muckraker? And why are there no comments at all on TPM Memo itself, despite the fact that Josh frequently asks questions there that he obviously wants responses to?

Another question: Why isn't there an Iraq discussion table? I'd specifically like to hear what others have to say about the idea I've seen talked about elsewhere, suggesting that the Dem's next Iraq funding bill (after the veto) include a provision that *any and all* further Iraq spending be paid for by a dedicated income tax increase.

Just to chime in, if we could get him, Zimbardo is an excellent speaker and writer.  He's old enough to feel like he can say what he thinks, which is refreshing.  And he just retired from active teaching, so maybe he has some time on his hands?  In other words, I second the suggestion.

I read TPM and its extensions everyday, though seldom comment because I can't improve on what has been said by others. I've learned so much here, and I value the educated and thoughtful level of discussion. I also often link articles and discussion at TMP to the Clark Community Network.

The rating system is a way for me to gave a pat on the back without making a comment, and I like that.

As for subject matter, I appreciate that there is fire built to light selected issues, like the current U.S. Attorney mess, until the proper feet get held to the fire. Other sites are like reading the headlines in a newspaper, which may inform but make no real difference in the world.

I am an infrequent commenter here although I jump in frequently elsewhere. I was a lurker for some time. For most of us "lurkers" the reason for lurking is that some of the 1% who comment consistently will stomp you flat (figuratively of course) should you dare say something they do not agree with. Not "troll" type disagreeing but just average human beings differing about something. Usually whatever I have to say isn't worth getting my brains beat in by someone that doesn't like what I say or how I say it. So, I lurk.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
P. J. O'Rourke

Go to your own profile. Click on the "comments" tab. When the comments page is up, bookmark that. Each comment shows when there are rec's and replies to that comment. Click on the link including the leading text, and you are at the comment and can read the reply.

This makes it much easier to catch up on replies to your comments if you are a fellow 9%er who comes to the site a couple of times a week but not every day.

The same thing can be used when a diarist has a very active comment thread and you want to see what their response to things happens to be ... click on their name to get to their profile, and their comments tab.

I am a 1 week and 1 day member although I have lurked since prior to the 2004 elections. This is my first post here, although I regularly comment at another site. I am still learning my way arround so as a 90%er I hope at some point to join the 9% if I think I have something to contribute. I come here daily to see what news the MSM is not reporting on. You can always find it on TPM first and if the MSM decides to report on it it's usually a week late and weak on content. Thank you to all of the 9%ers your comments and opinions are always insightful and educational.

I've been a reader at TPM for some time, not lurking because I primarily read the TPM main page for the political news. I read and post extensively at other sites and always have. I didn't want to bother to register here and I find the interface clumsy and irritating. What changed my attitude was reading the comments posted on a blog post by EJ Graff about a topic I was following with some interest. It was the Kathy Sierra matter. I decided to take a look at the comment thread and I was blown away by the arrogance, contempt and downright hostility of a few of her (apparently) male commenters. They literally drove everyone else off the thread, shut down all discussion, and turned the entire discussion into a space where they could act out some pretty serious hostility towards women in general and towards other posters in particular. I was not then a registered user so I couldn't post anything or add to the thread.

I decided to register, but I'm not certain I'll bother entering into these discussions. I"m not interested in being part of a discussion group in which discussion can take place in such bad faith. Perhaps that's unfair to the TPM community as a whole but I read and post on many blogs--No More Mr. Nice Blog, Hullabaloo, dailyKos, pandagon and *even* at Kos I haven't seen such blatant misogyny and such childish pettishness.

That's by way of saying that if there is every enough of a critical mass of civil posters here, or a method to weed out juvenalia, I'd be interested in doing more than lurking. But really, its not worth my time to read more than th epolitical updates if the discussions of important topics are going to be ceded to the hatemongers.

aimai

Sorry, I just had to rate that comment. :)

I have no idea what effect the ratings have, but I enjoy using them.

If I'm going to write something, I want it to be done well enough to justify putting my name on it. That means it needs to satisfy my personal standards. I prefer to do critical analysis of a particular argument; I tend to specialize in reasoning rather than extensive factual expertise. But blog comment threads tend to have numerous arguments in different directions. The result for me is a field where it would take an enormous amount of time to sort through the whole thread -- the ratio of time required to time available just doesn't work for me, I don't have the time.

By contrast, the local weekly paper has in its op-ed pages lots of material wherein the ratio works much better for me; there I can occasionally write a 300-word letter that does meet my standards.

I like to do things such as pointing out pernicious assumptions such as the idea that evils are radically competing, so that to sympathize with one set of people requires ignoring or minimizing or justifying the suffering of another set of people. Or "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here." (Weak: an example of blog comment haste.)