Freepers are out tonight...

Keep in mind that everyone who visits this site can recommend, without even being registered or logged in, and the lurking audience is much much larger than those who participate; the standard for most websites is that 80% of the audience is lurkers. It is easy to recommend, just a flick not a click, it doesn't even take you away from the page you are reading.

When they installed this software, management could have made it necessary to being registered and logged in to recommend, but they chose not to.

Even among the registered, I've seen a plenty of commenters express disappoint with Obama. And before the invasion of Obama supporters with the heating up of primary, I would say that the active participating audience here were not big fans of Obama. For example, there was a lot of negative activity about him on threads on issues like his courting of evangelicals and his approach to gays.

Also, a large part of Josh Marshall's audience is fans of Josh Marshall that have been his audience for many years, and communicate with him via email rather than post on this site. They can still recommend.

What I am trying to say is that some people get a mistaken impression of the entire TPM audience by judging from a small like-minded community here that is registered and interact with each other. The whole audience, including the lurkers and long time followers of Josh Marshall, is probably quite different.

Marshall himself even mentioned once in a meta thread on the last software change that he was changing it in order to make it more amenable to his much larger audience, because many of them told him they did not participate because they felt those here were cliquish and off-putting to his larger audience.

One cannot presume a relatively small list of a 100+ registered people one is following is a good representation of his audience, all of whom are allowed to recommend without logging in. Matter of fact, it may be just the opposite, because many select the like-minded to follow.

And one cannot presume that just because someone finally decides to register, that they are not long-time followers of this website. Maybe some never register because they don't want to run a gauntlet of a self-appointed small group questioning their bona fides, maybe they see it happening to others like lizbensky here, and don't think it's worth it to have to go through that participate. Think about what it must look like to lurkers to have a small clique of regulars questioning a new poster. Some may recommend the post just out of spite at the reaction of the regulars, ever think of that?

DanK,

I am as sure as I am that the sun will rise again that that too will pass. Where I might differ from you is that where you see downward spirals, and I see cycles of waxing and waning of groups. I am sure that high school teachers have interesting things to say about how each class' dominating clique is different from the next... :-) Where I might agree with you is that I would like to see someone, just one website in this vast blogosphere, try to extend some editorial control over a large forum. I especially would like to see it because I think it would be inspiration for meatworld politics.

Artappraiser:

I have come out strongly against a few posts that regurgitate blanket criticisms. These boilerplate posts usually contain the threat to support a third party or not vote if they continue to be disappointed.

Everyone is entitled to their political beliefs, but I reserve the right to call BS on divisive astroturf. Even if the author is well-intentioned, if the material contributes to apathy and defeat, then I will step in. Not out of cliqueishness, but out of obligation to keep our eyes on the prize.