I've noticed the same thing you have. Drive-by bloggers. One of whom asked about a rumor regarding Wright and holocaust denial.
No specifics. Just putting the question out there. This is more like dropping off a rumor here at TPM and moving on to the next liberal blog site. And the next. And so on.

I was thinking about assembling a list of the drive-by'ers, but we all have better things to do.

I'm not sure they realize they leave their electronic footprint behind.

But there again, I have better things to do.

It is a little disturbing. I know it's affected me... one minute I was vociferously backing other Hillary backers and the next I was like "Uh... I can't second a point like that!"

Unfortunately, the new TPM is more vulnerable to such tactics. This is a kind of perverse result of losing the much maligned (and abused) ratings system that we used to have.

One thing about those ratings... yes you'd get downrated every now and then but overall your character would prevail. Now a bunch of people that on stock boards would be called bashers and pumpers have shown up in support of both candidates.

Allsburg, I won't deny that a bunch of Hillarybots have shown up recently. But there have been Obamabots too. The new format of the site just makes everything more vulnerable to them and has made our spirited and entertaining disagreements more difficult to enjoy.

I can't speak for the long term congeniality of the site... as a poster, I am much a johnny-come-lately here. However, I have noticed that some people on here do exhibit that obtuseness of which you speak.

You can pin an issue down with sources and fact only to have an utterly moronic reply.

As I have always liked Cafferty for his cantankerous yet affable character regardless of his take - which normally is pretty good anyhow - I went to read responses to his question about whether or not people thought Hillary would do anything to win, including sacrificing the party for her own ambition.

I was astounded by the number of utterly senseless myopic defenders of Hillary on there. I just can't imagine how anyone can respect someone that tells a New Hampshire questioner-citizen that she plans to honor a pledge and then turns around and stridently does the other. How can you trust someone that tells you to your face that she wants to win before she releases information that is rightly expected? How can you respect someone who recommends someone from the other party above her same-party opponent?

But there they were - one or two lines... Obama is destroying the party. No rationale - oh - yeah playing the race card did show up on a few. But nothing like a reasoned response.

What a bunch of twits.

That reminds me - I called one of those people out on here the other day - he had posted the same thing five times over about a day and a half. He never got any play on them - so I told him I didn't think people here liked trolls and spammers.

It was fairly startling in the threads on Obama's speech, a bunch of people saying the same picayune idiotic talking points over and over again, in the exact same language.

Is this supposed to convince anyone? There are some very intelligent HRC supporters on this site capable of good discourse, and then people who just spew this stuff, and spice it up with talk that sounds like it comes from Rush Limbaugh.

It would be nice to have some system of hiding posts or ignoring posters, it just doesn't serve anyone to have a conversation going on and then someone coming in and screaming today's talking point downloaded from the mother ship.

I'd clarify that I've been registered on this site for years, but never participated, the technical support for my particular Mac browser sucks here, takes several attempts before my password/id gets verified, and so I'm more of a reader than poster. This election cycle is important enough for me to speak up, and I'm an Obama supporter. I wander through mostly left-leaning sites and on occasion the MSM feedback sites, and it's truly ugly out there. I might post less here on TPM and more on ABC, NYTimes, etc. because it's some 8:1 negative hateful posts out there, a lot of them are obviously race-baiting. I'm convinced there is an organized web effort against Obama. My time and effort may be needed out there in defense of what he represents more than on here. I don't really "belong" here anyway, not part of your clique.

Just for the record, I highly doubt that many of these posters are Clinton supporters. There may be a few, but what you're seeing is most likely a particularly nasty breed of Republican.

I suggest following a simple rule: if someone's words make you think: "Damn you, poster! If your candidate wins, I'm voting for McCain!", there is a reason for it.

Other than that, I let the post content be my guide. Amateurish troll posts tend to be either very short and contain a "valuable" link that the poster urges everyone to read, or an extremely lengthy essay that no one in their right mind would have written in response to the original post, evidence that it was copied and pasted in a number of different spots.

Harder to spot are people who have adopted a "persona" to fit into the community. Sometimes they tip their hand, like quoting Bill O'Reilly approvingly, but you sometimes end up having to take what they say at face value. Occasionally you can tell that they are repeating three or four points over and over without responding to other people's relevant posts, but at that point you're relying on basic arguing skills, not so much ferreting out "trolls" as such.

Before the Ohio primary, there were a lot of astroturfers on the local blogs. It was sort of hilarious because these were people who obviously hadn't spent a lot of time on blogs. They would post these huge screeds filled with bulleted talking points, or else quote some massive anti-Obama article with a snide comment on top. On Political Wire two different people posted the same article with the same snide comment on the same thread. But the amusing thing on the local blogs was they all had handles like Jemaine256 or Billo35, like the AOL or compuserve screen names that they got in 1998 and never changed because they've never left AOL.

As for Kos, he's not caving. He said, essentially, that Hillary Clinton represents what he's fighting against (DLC, 50-plus-one strategy, lobbyists, etc) but he would have supported her had she been the nominee--until she began to continue down the road where the only way for her to win is to kneecap Obama. It was an interesting post--on Monday, I think.

Methinks there be truth in this post.

This sounds paranoid to me, it really does. There are clinton supporters who feel the same way, I'e seen them on other sites saying how they are being persecuted by Obama supporters. Personally, the most vicious posters I have ever seen are, or say they are, Obama supporters. They are so hard with hate you it's a wonder they don't just snap. I don't understand any of it on either side, what ever happened to polite but lively debate? And constructive criticism?

But I do also think that some people are paranoid, talking of plants and spies---this is not normal. It sounds like the old Soviet Union or something.

Look at this thread!!! Look at5 what we are talking about! The issues? There is something wrong---on every site. And I don't think it's trolls and plants and spies. There might be some, yes, but not near as many as people are implying. Can you imagine what Obama and Clinton and McCain would make of all this? And what if people in other countries read all the crap on all the sites: the threats, the insults, the intimidation, I could just die. I am in the UK and some friends of mine have looked at 3 or 4 sites and decided Americans are sickos.

what's the difference between a Clinton troll and an Obama troll?

I'm confused - was that hilarious snark or just a very precise example of what the diarist is talking about?

"Toast President McCain" - there's a phrase that ought to identify trolls regardless of which candidate they support.

Dorn,

Nice to see you again!

I find Dorn76 to be one of the more passionate Obama supporters who is compassionate to Hillary supporters.

But more important, dorn, is that 2 to 1 bet about Pennsylvania that I took you up on! Never got any word back as to whether or not you penciled it in your book!

You're on buddy!

Brian,

You had it 3 to 1 if over 19%, and 2-1 if 10-19%

I predicted a 14% win.

You don't have to take it, but I place my bet within 20 minutes of your. (I can't find the orignial post ANYWHERE. Sigh)

Yes, there obviously have been trolls messing with us -- and I don't think it's fair to claim they're all Clinton supporters.

They are merely here to stir up trouble. Likely freelance twits who have gotten the message that as long as Obama and Clinton fight and damage themselves, the Republicans have a chance to keep the White House.

I started commenting after this rating system disappeared. Did it work well? At all? I've always admired Plastic.com's "karma" system, where users earn points by posting, by getting rated up by other users, or they loose points by getting rated down. To prevent abuse you loose a point when you give a point, loose two points when you rate someone down ... it's complicated. But TPM folks should look into that.

You're right....just couldnt remember the terms. It's on!

So now you are the voice of reason? And the only "Thick skinned" adult in the room?

You said:

"That is the absurdity now of Obama continuing."

Imagine the guy with the pledged delegate lead, popular vote lead, winner of the majority of States, and polling equal or better in a matchup with McCain than Mrs. Clinton, continuing....He should know his place! The audacity of the man!

These are the rules we adults have to play by.

1, 2, 3...PAPER!

You lose! Try again?

Paid bloggers and no I'm not joking.

After reading some of yesterday's comments on Obama's speech, I was provoked enough to point out that for at least two of them, they made me want to take a shower after reading them--they were so filled with hate.

JTNB and Matthew Weaver were the names. JTNB seems like someone with a personality disorder--half the time the comments are pretty reasonable (and strongly pro-Clinton). The other half? Deranged. Which is how most of Weaver's contributions sound. I don't think they're real Clinton supporters. Or Democrat supporters, period.

And there are readers who post disgusting comments about Clinton. I don't think they're real Obama supporters, either.

I can appreciate the passion people feel towards their candidate. But whenever I see "I am never going to vote for candidate X--I'll vote for McCain!!@#!!!" I just interpret that to mean "I have an unhealthy attachment to my candidate, because it fills some sort of pathetic need in me, and to spite the other candidate, and all their supporters, I'm just going to screw the Democrats and vote for McCain!! Nyah!" And anyone who seriously thinks that McCain is a better choice than Clinton or Obama is not a Democrat.

Thanks for this blog.

I started posting here in late January, before the site's inadequate and dysfunctional makeover. Here is the first thread I posted in, one where an overwhelming majority of posters piled on Greg Sargent for correctly calling out Bob Herbert on an editorial in which Herbert "gleefully" bashes Bill and Hillary Clinton as racists.

Greg was 100 percent correct to criticize Herbert. Yet almost the entire TPM comment thread is skewed to Bob Herbert's defense! No matter that those commenters aren't arguing a supportable journalistic, moral, or logical defense. They simply lashed out in defense of a mainstream media editorial that (unprofessionally) preferred their candidate. And they lashed out by accusing Greg of Clinton bias.

Sorry, Allsburg, but Obama supporters cannot see the trees for the forest. They feel personally insulted when another Obama-positive member or talking point is criticized.

Allsburg says:

I am not talking about longtime contributors like BevD, Destor, Billy Glad and others, who have been outspoken and appreciated voices in our online community

Huh?!! I have never once seen the TPM community express appreciation for BevD, Destor, or Billy Glad. Unless you are counting abusive shouting down as "appreciation"? Or are you silently keeping your appreciation to yourself? Either way, it doesn't count as appreciation.

This site is not just "overwhelmed" with Obama supporters, as oceankat politely says above, it is completely toxic with overgrowth. It's like an invasive malignant species killing off other healthy organisms. I regularly see people like Michael A and others shout down kensdad, for crap's sake!

The most vocal TPM commenters are incapable of giving Hillary supporters the benefit of the doubt. Even drosz lost it in one thread when someone harshly criticized MoveOn.org's impetuous endorsement of Obama. But regulars like clearthinker, terry hallinan, and many others are so rigidly condescending and arrogant that they can't fathom that someone who supports Clinton has two brain cells to rub together. And so, they perpetually misread (and then crap on) pro-Clinton comments. This, of course, is going to rub some Clinton supporters the wrong way. And why wouldn't it?

If you cared so much about the integrity of the site, Allsburg, then why have you permitted the regular pro-Obama posters, like liam and vississitudes for example, their sexist and misogynistic rants? Some of their troll-like comments have been extremely vile, yet Obama supporters are capable of completely ignoring them! What's up with that, Allsburg?

Some of the blame for TPM's toxicity should be placed squarely at the feet of Josh Marshall, who insisted on defending David Shuster's totally unprofessional (and therefore, outrageous) "pimp" comment about Chelsea Clinton (as well as his subsequent "fire David Shuster" hallucination). The comment threads really went downhill after that, because ranters saw the green light from Josh to indulge in their basest impulses.

Also, I think Josh's Geraldine Ferraro "clown" comments were inexcusable—for his position, I mean. Josh doesn't seem to realize his influence on the commentary (not to mention, on his reporters, Greg and Eric), which I find troubling. If Josh would step up, then maybe trolls would find a less inhabitable site to frequent. But until then, Dem on Dem bashing is a full-time sport at TPM. It comes from the top.

In the meantime, I think TPM's Obama supporters need to take a hard look at the level of their own discourse before blaming Hillary Clinton and/or her supporters for everything that's wrong in the world. But I don't hold my breath that they will.

I tend to think of these folks as reality-challenged zealots....

Great dorn, Obama won alabama and mississippi. Wanna tell me the last time a democrat one those two states? The goal is to WIN. Not win style points. And please don't go running to Nader like you fools did in 2000. The democratic part needs to find a way to WIN the election. A party nomination is not a democratic process. Its not a vote. It doesn't have to be fair. But it does have to produce the Candidate with the best chance to win and be emblamatic of the values of the party. IMO Hillary Clinton is that candidate.

Nice to parse what I wrote and not even say anything about racism when it concerns the Hispanic community. You confirmed what I thought about this group to be correct. WAKE UP!

we've been here all along - actually we were here first.

Hillary '08 = SMART + BEST CHOICE!

This site should be a place that both Clinton and Obama backers should feel welcome on. You are always going to get the few drive by mischief makers. I notice that you will get a surge of the more racist types right after something such as Ferraro or Wright hits the news. They drop hate bombs for a day or two. I think it is a bad strategy to engage them. Once some one responds to their initial hate comments, then their fellow sewer rats rush to join in the attacks.

Please do not feed The Arse Trolls.

I'd say there are actually two related problems going on right now in the forums.

The trolls are one of them. We can almost always recognize these folks, after seeing a handful of their messages. Right now they're mostly pro-Clinton, but not exclusively.

The second problem is the generally declining signal-to-noise ratio. Here I'm talking about all the posts that seem to lack any substance beyond "Right On!", "I agree", or "Way to Go!", or their negative equivalents. Both camps offend in this regard, with the pro-Obama side probably the worst right now.

Between the toxic trolls and the generally meaningless messages, I'm having trouble reading through entire threads these days.

I have a place you can send those people...

100 REASONS NOT TO VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON

I have another site, besides the one above, and one day I had a similar thing happen. In the comment section of a page having to do with Hillary Clinton I had about four Clinton supporting sock puppets show up all at once. It was very comical because they (if it was in fact more than one person) were each relaying the same lie about how the Clintons have already made all there tax records public, and, at the time, going out of their way to pretend they didn't know each other. I think a bunch a middle schoolers could have pulled it off more convincingly.

I speak from personal experience - in another time and on another continent I witnessed a rise of a charismatic leader from relative obscurity to national (and then international) scene.

All the signs that were there then are here now - ambiguity and loftiness in the message, call to transcendence and unity, projection of hope and change, with very little substance to back it up.

It was a blank screen onto which people projected their desires, their dreams, their needs. It all ended in blood. A lot of blood.

At first, I had a very postive opinion of Obama - he was, fresh, eloquent, inclusive, optimistic, promising. But then I looked at his followers - there was blind adoration, vociferous support, and a lot enthusiasm.

Too much enthusiasm. It grew into intimidation, then it became bullying. And I realized... all the signs were there.

If you dare to speak up, you are attacked, silenced, or persecuted. You get called names or start receiving death threats.

If you speak your mind, there will be 'truth squads' to come knocking:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/22/obama-announces-truth-sq_n_82652.html

I do not stand for opression. Never have. Never will.

And I will not be silenced.

As you can see, this really has nothing to do with the 'other candidate'.

With this said, I am glad to see that the tone of a civilized dialogue has started to spread on this forum.

Oh, I don't mind the "Clinton trolls." For the same reason, I like to go over to Hugh Hewitt: you need to know what the other side is thinking (or not). I cannot say, however, that I go to Obamabot sites. So I don't know if they are as nasty and ugly about Hillary as the Hillary sites are about Obama (some seriously unhinged stuff) or the Hewitt site is about Dems. In fact, the Hillary nuts have as many silly name skewering things and conspiracy theories as the conservatives had during the height of the Clinton administration.

What else is new?
Reading what "those kind of people" are saying does help me remember that these same people will be trying to say this summer that "some of those agents of change that are supporting Obama really are my kind of people".
It does help me focus my mind to remember that this process will be a long, long process with many challenges along the way of which those trolls are only an insignificant background noise.
Like house flies in summer they provide a constant buzz of nuisance with little substance.
They also provide the added benefit of reminding us of the quality of our competitors message and of the requirement that the ebb and flow of these flies be observed & remarked upon to track their attempt to spread their diseases of fear, hate, ignorance and division.

Obama trolls have been out for weeks... as commenters anyway.
I figure all these trolls, who substitute personal attacks and unsubstantiated claims against candidate X, for real discussion, are really GOP.
It's so disappointing!

I thought about this for a while before deciding whether to comment. I have been a long time daily reader of TPM but very seldom read the comments, the same for the other blogs I read daily. I am an Obama supporter and when certain things started happening a few weeks ago I spent more time reading online and started reading the comments. I know I made some comments in anger here and I apologize. I am not a new troll here to cause problems.

I denounce *and* reject your comments.

Hi Allsburg,

I am one of those "trolls" who is a Clinton supporter and who hasn't really been commenting in the last six months, and who recently stepped up to write a few things.

I've been reading TPM since 2002, went through the entire 2004 election with Josh Marshall before all this blogging was even on the site, love to read his analysis. But for the last few months I found so much Obama bias on the site, in the imbalance of coverage, the pictures chosen (HRC always looks mad) and the featured blogs that I did not feel like commenting and was frankly disappointed. It seemed pointless, because I didn't sense any interest on the part of most bloggers to debate.
But recently a few bloggers have been asking: why are some of you supporting Clinton? So I got involved in blogging here a bit more to share those feelings. It's much better now than before, when these blogs were overwhelmingly "Obama-Rama".