A quick trip over to Alexa tonight indicates that MyDD has experienced major audience/traffic growth since the beginning of the year, certainly in comparison to its much bigger "cousin," DailyKos.

SINCE JANUARY 1ST, 2008
Judging from the front-and-center "history graphs," for which Alexa's known, MyDD's audience reach (percentage of overall Internet users) appears to have almost doubled since January 1, 2008, while the reach of the significantly larger community at DKos is at roughly just 50% of the numbers it was posting at the beginning of the year.

LAST 45 DAYS
While traffic at most political blogs during a presidential election year tends to mirror actual campaign activity--experiencing erratic and/or downward swings once the primaries are concluded prior to an uptick around convention time--Alexa's history graphs indicate that MyDD's audience reach appears to have actually achieved a modest gain in its daily traffic over this period, while DKos "reach" stats have plummeted, dramatically. (i.e.: relational comparisons between MyDD's and Kos' overall audience reach around the first week of June indicate an audience-reach ratio of 1:8 or 1:9 between the two sites; however, this week, that ratio is approx. 1:2.5 or 1:3.)

The point has been made, but I'd like to again note the following current REC LIST:

[!] Imus was fired, but Obama raises $$ to 'Ho' Routine
by catfish2
299 comments (299 new)

[!] Why Does John McCain Hate Our Children?
by sricki
35 comments (35 new)

[!] Uproar and Trolls
by redstocking
35 comments (35 new)

[!] Energy Smart Debbie
by a siegel
3 comments (3 new)

[!] Anti-Obama? What do you hope to gain?
by CAchemist
33 comments (33 new)

This is actually a relatively good showing for MyDD, with only 60% of the Rec List devoted to piefighttery.  Its still a tremendous waste of energy.  

And so a modest proposal in the name of energy conservation:

1.  Obama supporters need not make the case for Obama any longer.  Clinton supporters need not trash the party's presumptive nomineee anymore.  This fight is largely generational, cuts to the core of liberal values that have. for better or worse, evolved over the decades, and is tied up inextricably with the hard feelings that occasion a hotly-contested primary.  Some folks are just going to be angry...and that's their right.

2.  All folks can agree that progressive causes still need fighting for.  Regardless of one vote we'll all be casting (or not casting) in November, let's keep piefighterry off the Rec List.

3.  Let's make the Rec List an impressive sampling of progressive policy discussion, shall we?  Or how about diaries providing much needed attention to all of our downticket candidates?  Or about why politics is something to be excited about (rather than angry and unproductive)?

Let's just all focus on NOT reccing piefighttery.  Let piefighttery remain on the long list.  Let's just all focus on writing and reccing substantive discussion of everything NOT presidential.  The front pagers can handle that.

Sorry if it bothers anyone to read about stuff that has nothing to do with politics, but I thought some folks might find this interesting, or even useful, especially if they read this site a lot.

If you're a news junkie like me and you've never heard of Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, you're missing out.  It's essentially a system that lets websites publish their stories in a standardized format so that readers can easily check what's new on their favorite sites  from a program that's similar to an email client.  RSS saves me a boatload of time when satisfying my addiction, because I don't need to load a whole website to see whether there are new stories available -- I can skim story titles and summaries very quickly and if I want to see the full story it's just a click away.  You can even get a beep when there's a new article to read.   If you browse the web on a PDA or phone RSS is just about the only way to get by withot going insane from the wait and/or being robbed blind by data overage fees,

MyDD makes use of RSS, even though as far as I can tell there aren't any links to the feeds anywhere on the site.  This is a shame, but some googling reveals that the main feed is located at: http://www.mydd.com/rss/index.rdf

and the diaries feed is at: http://www.mydd.com/rss/diary.rdf

Instructions for using these feeds are available all over the place, but if anyone has questions, feel free to ask in the comments.  If you need a good web based client, I use both Google Reader(which is more like a dedicated program) and iGoogle(a portal, it only shows story titles, so you can fit more feeds on a page), Either one should provide a pleasant introduction to this essential tool which makes using the internet a lot easier.

Insert parroted statement from right wing web site.

Insert over generalized non sourced statement of scientific `fact'.

Insert truthy follow up, again without source or citation.

Insert overgeneralization containing sexual, religious or racial stereotype.

Everyone's got a story.

How he or she became a Democrat.  What transpired in their lives to attract them to their political beliefs.  Who inspired them to think beyond their microcosm and view the larger world.

Those stories are easy to forget when sniping or snarking on a website.  Obviously, there are sock puppets, and right-leaning folks here to cause trouble, and bored people who want to see if they can get other folks' blood boiling.  It can be hard to sort the wheat from the chaff...

ubsuandus      1
unitydem08     1
vatoboys     1
chancecoke     1
bbclover1       1

Tonight, these five new accounts've TR'ed every single one of my comments from the past month; piling troll-ratings onto old comments is only the latest in a series of flaunting this site's rules by Republican trolls.  Not only have trolls like Rankles, Aliveandkickin, and Engels not been banned, they even have their rec/ratings access intact.  You want political contributions in MyDD's name?  Make the site's banner worth donating under again.  It's long past time to take out the trash.

I'm a proud, wallet-opening Democrat who gives as much as I can as often as I can.  MyDD needs to decide which audience it's really more interested in maintaining -- Democratic contributors like me, or Obama-bashers and Republicans.  Don't ask me to open up my wallet in your name until you start actively undoing this site's devolution into a playground for trolls.

Update: Jerome responds below:

It's easy to throw tomatoes from the crowd. The ratings system is broken, it'll get replaced, don't waste your time with it.

I look forward to that, and thank ct for his work in implementing it when it happens. But this is more about your recent willingness to let trolls run rampant on this site at the expense of your long-time Democratic readership. If you were even half as "duly diligent" in dealing with today's post-primary trolls as you were in dealing with what you considered primary season's overzealous Obama supporters, things'd be quite different here.

You'd also do well to remember that the "tomato-throwing crowd" are the same folks you're asking to lend you fundraising credibility via an ActBlue donation in MyDD's name. Four, three, two years -- even a year ago -- I'dve contributed to a MyDD-branded fundraising effort without a second thought. Something's clearly changed, and you need to clean up your brand if you're wanting to use it for fundraising purposes.

Update 2: Jerome stopped in to mojo this comment:

Grow up and get over it Please. Of all things. This diary beats PUMA for being silly, pointless and vain.

The quickly-approaching light at the end of our tunnel this election cycle is a turbocharged, nuclear-powered locomotive, the likes of which we've never seen. It will arrive at our station well BEFORE we cast our votes in November.

In fact, if you read below the fold, it's already arrived...today.

Unbeknownst to the majority of U.S. society, due to a total lack of responsible reporting of the facts by the MSM, it is now self-evident to this diarist that the sky really is falling.

We've all seen horrible reporting on the facts on polling.  We've all seen people misinterpret polls, exaggerate, even blatantly lie.  I give many people the benefit of the doubt; they probably just don't know better.

A great resource which was forwarded to me from an AP writer is this link from the National Council on Public Polling.  It is "20 Questions a Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results."  It is an invaluable resource any journalist or blogger who mentions or writes about polling.