The Reports of DU's Cruelty Have Been Greatly Exaggerated.

[The Doctor.]

So I'm Browsing DU, and for the first time I catch a headline about http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x343162">Duer's cheering the savage beating of Fox News reporters. This is the first I've heard of this horrific event, and it's not about the event, but rather about the apparently widespread callousness and inhuman schadenfreude being expressed by 'many' on DU.

Now, first, I'd like to say that open condemnation of anyone experiencing glee at human suffering is a trademark of what makes a progressive site for good, responsible, civil persons the shining example of the best traits in a national population of otherwise borderline psychotic primates. Not that I'm necessarily blaming the primates, but it's nice to see one place that tends to rise above the visceral and vitriolic far more often than not.

By that same shiny token; Why would so many nasty, horrible, violence-glorifying, vindictive, petty people be expressing so much viciousness on such an otherwise civil site?

So, I picked two http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4720768">prominent http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x341003">threads where the issue itself (the beatings) had been brought up, and took a snapshot. (I just left the various browsers window open and took tallies)

I did this; I counted up the number of posts in the threads, then meticulously went through and read every single one. At the time of counting, it was approximately 11:26pm EST. Between the two threads there were, at the time, 155 post. Now, I have no illusions that my time and effort to determine whether DU was a bastion of civility or a wretched hive of scum and villainy will be terribly appreciated, but I really wanted to get some kind of empirical sense of just how bad (or not) DU really was.

I used a fairly reasoned, if somewhat imperfect methodology to quantify my findings. I'll lay out the method as I put down the stats.

Between 23:20 and 23:30 on 2/3/11, a total sample of 155 posts was recorded between two total threads.

The selected categories of personal displays were as follows;

1)'Empathy/Concern' (for the reporters)
- This parameters for this category were very simple; any expressed concern or well-wishing for the victims, or condemnation of the attacks. -That was the easy one.

Out of 155 total posts, in this category, there were 50 indisputable instances of true empathy for the Fox News Crew.

2) Deleted posts/sub-threads
- This one seems fairly straightforward, but we've all seen the popular 'deleted scapegoat' on DU. If someone can't find an example to back something up, then it had to be a deleted post. In this case, I treated each of them as a quantity of one as it was either a single rules violation, or likely a post by one person followed by a rules violation by one or both of (usually) two adversaries. Either way, there is no way to determine the relevance of those deleted posts, and they permit a standard sample in the 'uncertainty' category.

There were a total of 3 deleted posts/sub-threads (1 and 2 respectively) recorded during the sample period.

3) Neutral/Unrelated
- Not terribly difficult. The distinction for this category was something that did not directly wish harm, evoke sympathy, or attempt to deal directly with the issue of the reporters circumstances. These were such as; "What were they doing there?", or "Why weren't they prepared?", or "Bill O'Reilly is a chickenshit", or any other conversation dealing with politics or journalism that had no direct expression of the actual beating or any direct suggestion regarding it. Basically, if it didn't fall into the other categories, it wound up here.

There were a total of 86 substantively neutral or non-relevant posts recorded during the sample period.

4) Attempts at Humor
- This was, of course, a little more dicey as 'humor' is entire subjective. In this instance I made the criteria simple as it was so warranted; If it dealt directly or indirectly with the event or the journalists, but neither condemned nor condoned the beating, and suggested neither in any way that would require the reader to assume intent one way or another, I very generously put it into this category. Things such as; 'Why didn't they say 'we're on the same side!'', or 'They can hardly be called journalists'. While I know very well that we all loves us some witchhunting, I know also very well that DU is a place that will often give a fellow the benefit of the doubt and realize that he may just be making a miguided attempt at humor where the opportunity is present. Very often, we use levity to distract ourselves from the weight of anger, discomfort, or sorrow we might otherwise feel, myself included. So anything that wasn't explicitly mean; 'attempted humor'.

There were a total of 13 such 'attempts at humor' recorded during the sample period.

5) MEAN
- This was not hard to determine at all. If it was negative toward the plight of the Fox News crew at all, it was MEAN.

There were a total of 3 MEAN posts recorded during the sample period. They were, to paraphrase;

- 'I'm having trouble feeling sympathy for them'.
- 'I wish I was watching them get beat up'
- 'Waaaaaah!'

That, my fellow DUer's, was the worst of the worst during the sample period.


Out of 155 individual posts; 3 were mean, 3 might have been mean, and 13 could either have been mean or not with no way to know at the time without reading minds or perhaps asking them.



I know that there should be no condoning of malicious posts, and that DU is a very generous, kind-hearted community, but even without the benefit of the doubt, I can still say I am very proud of the humanity, compassion, and kindess of DUer's to their fellow travellers. I am also proud to be a part of that community... even if I'm kind of dick sometimes.


Thanks for putting up with me. :hi: