and I thought it was me!  

Same users, different names, as the admins are pretty aggressive in banning people.

There's a lot of people trying to convince me to vote Obama.

The users, or maybe just user names, seem to be constantly in flux here. I hardly recognize any of the same names as when I started coming here a year ago.

I don't see them putting up smear job diaries or any cut/paste jobs or even ganging, so I am not too worried about it.  Maybe a lot of people took a break during the primaries and they thought it was over...doh!  They must feel like Punxatawnie Phil at the moment!

Back to your holes dagnabit!

One of my favorite lines: "Sometimes paranoia is really just a heightened sense of awareness."

Yes. If it looks like a duck...

I would like to caution that promoting this innuendo without any evidence might inadvertently lead to the unfair delegitimization of new or less frequent posters.  

I am new but it's just because I've been reading mydd for a while and didn't feel like commenting.  Now I guess I'm... fired up and ready to go.  ;)

I'm thinking we've been getting 'operation chaos' types coming here to poke sticks at the hornets nest here, and keep us at each other's throats.

OT, but CG, did you really have to use such dark language?
Mmm, fudge, dark fudge made with Irish butter! I'm headin' to the kitchen to rattle those pots and pans!

Good lord stop believing rumors. It doesn't speak well for your intelligence. Paid? Pffft. I've read Mydd for a long time but never bothered to sign up. Is it a crime to do so now?

Paranoia will destroy ya.

I am an Obama supporter.  I am new.  I read many political blogs, most particularly Daily Kos, DemocraticUnderground, Huffington Post, and this one.  I had an account at DemocraticUnderground but I left it several months ago because the level of discourse had taken a nose-dive.

I guess I recharged my batteries between now and then, because then I made an account here.  I was getting tired of just shouting at my computer monitor, so I figured I might as well get an account so I could at least type my responses.

I can't remember what the straw was that broke the camel's back, but it was some time after IN/NC.

I'm no astroturf blogger.  Please consider that there may just be lots of Obama supporters like me--content to simply read and watch MyDD without participating until the site took a rabidly pro-Clinton jaunt away from reality.

I suppose I enjoyed my ability to rec and rate for the short time I had it...

to the point where we were arguing and disagreeing amicably when all of a sudden 10 or so hit diaries happened yesterday. And then today another 10.

I don't know what's going on. I wonder who's coordinating it because the timing is suspicious.

The answer......a resounding YES.  I wonder how many are all the same people, too.

This "paid bloggers" stuff is BS, from both sides. On one hand, Hillary doesn't exactly have the money to pay a bunch of bloggers. On the other hand, why would Barack NEED to pay bloggers? He has 1.5 million people willing to donate to his campaign, I'm sure he could find 400 people with the time to volunteer blog for him.

Beats me but I noticed it changing a while back.

An excessive amount of new users?

People gaining their posting powers in the past few days would be people who joined shortly after NC/IN and the media consensus that the primary is over. It is unsurprising that (if there is such a wave) that a wave of new people deciding to join the somewhat reasonable bastion of Clinton support would be people who want to push mydd in the direction of being a site that supports the putative Democratic nominee against McCain. We've seen the front page moving in the same direction.

Many of the "new" users are likely to be old users who got banned earlier, decided it wasn't worth it having more of the same arguments, and stayed away until the terrain shifted again.

And the people I usually love to agree or disagree with seem to be having their voices muted.

How do users at mydd have their voices muted? Do you mean that the rec list is less reliably filled with the same 4 or 5 users doing pro-Clinton and anti-Obama posts? This is probably related to the fact that a huge number of users had their rec'ing privileges restored after many people complained. Any new user you've noticed posting for the first time in the last week almost certainly doesn't have rec'ing privileges.

The paid blogger slur is tired. It was tired long before the most recent repetition of it. Your attempt to use it as the explanation here is just sad. mydd is shifting out from underneath the anti-Obama crowd, but no paid bloggers are required for that to happen.

The old cadre of diarists is going to get eclipsed shortly, as their candidate becomes no longer the Democratic candidate. Some of them will switch over to supporting the Democratic nominee and may remain highly rec'd; some of them will try being concern trolls, but are unlikely to dominate the rec list; and some of them will probably declare their support for McCain and flame out.

CG, yes, fewer recognized names.  I was wondering about it myself, and the missing are a mix of supporters of both the primary candidates.  

It could just be more folks speaking out.  Times are what they are, seems quite possible that there is just a moment afoot for more discourse.

I have been advocating just such a thing for the past while.  All well and good to talk to folks who already agree with you, but if open party - and ultimately national - discourse is to be had, it's best to find folks who don't always agree and find out why.

Not perhaps as straight-forward as taking marching orders from Central Command, but it's the democratic approach...

:~)

-chris

Honestly, I think it's a group of folks who see a once-respected blog going in a direction they disagree with and, rather than leave, decided to speak up.

That's the case with me.

This IS a partisan blog.  Todd posted as much a few days ago.  This isn't a place where we can continue to put in hit after hit on our *Presumptive Nominee.

At the end of the day, we're all on the same side--the defeat of John McCain.

I have every confidence that all MyDD users are up to the task!

I'm a new member. I'm an Obama supporter, although I'd certainly vote for Clinton in the GE.

I've been reading for months, as I like the give and take here, but what sparked me to sign on were the diaries on the CA Supreme Court's decision that denying gay folks the right to get married based on the fact that they were gay was unconstitutional.

Of course, those diaries scrolled off long before I could add my 2 cents, but, oh well, here I am, a member, trying to figure out how the system works, so I can engage with the community without getting banned. :D

Lyndon LaRouche the entire time.

I believe the new paid bloggers are being funded by the Church of Scientology, however.

Fortunately, there's a way to deal with Scientologists

Not LaRouchies, though. You'll have to stick with us. We're leading the charge against the hell on tubes that is Web 2.0

If they are paid bloggers, then why were they hired?  They certainly didn't raise the level of discourse on the O side. I would think paid ones would at least be trying to sell their candidate.

I signed up on talkleft, dailykos and mydd recently.

I spend most of my time on mydd because it's like a day time soap opera - little substance but enough drama to keep one occupied.

I have been lurking here since the beginning of the primary cycle.  Everyday I regularly check MyDD, Dailykos, Openleft, and 538.

Dailykos is an echochamber.  I agree with all the pro-Obama threads and ignore the rest.

Openleft is great.  I love Chris Bowers.  He speaks openly about what he is feeling at the time and has an astute sense of observation.

538 brings out the stats nerd in me.  Poblano tells me the numbers and I find his data trustworthy.

Now MyDD.  At the beginning of the primary it was (to me) a smaller Dailykos.  I enjoyed MyDD more because there were fewer diarists and regular commentors (sp?) and I felt like I got to know them.

As the primary wore on, I started to feel like I could add to the conversation but never did get an account.  I finally signed up because I felt that MyDD was becoming the anti-Dailykos where only Hillary supporters had freedom to speak their minds.  An echochamber of HRC supporters or BHO supporters will not help our party to victory in the fall.  

I hope to become a more active participant at Mydd in the coming weeks and months  and hope to be respected even though I am new.  Instead of questioning the new users and calling us paid bloggers, maybe you should be happy to be expanding the active democratic base.

Thanks for listening.  I get paid by the letter so it was a little rambling.

I'm fairly new myself, a Obama supporter, and the reason I don't post over at DKos is not because I don't like it over there, it's because everyone else posts there. I feel like my comments get lost in the other 500-800 that accompany each popular diary and front page article.

Plus, it's hard to have reasoned debates when everyone agrees with you. I'm sure Hillary supporters here would get bored without us around. :)

I had to take about a month off, it was getting way too nasty and I was starting to harbor negative feelings towards Hillary supporters although I would be the first to admit both sides were way over the top.  I thought that was probably not in the best interest of my mental health nor in the best interest of the party in the long-term.  

At Kos, its like preaching to the choir.  I read Kos just for kicks but I come here to try to actually learn something.  

What do they say about walking a mile in another man's (or woman's) shoes?  It just keeps things real for me.  

And I might add, when I left last time I swore I would never vote for THAT WOMAN.  It wasn't until I realized how unreasonable I was being that I allowed myself to return.

Happy to be back and if someone wants to pay me for doing what I enjoy doing, that would be great.  I'm all over it!

I think there a lot of new inproved paid obama bloggers. One of them even suggested that  I should enjoy out doors instead of blogging.They are actually behaving like "Stepford Wives".

hmmmm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e9CkhBb1 8E

Canadian girl - there's another point about the lack of familiar names.

There are dozens of people who have been posting on this site for years who have been disgusted by the republican talking points, Jerome's divisive bias, and will just never come back here again.

I'm now paid by the Obama campaign. I've been on this site for years, but once I started getting paid, I changed my ID.

I get $25 per post. It's unbelievable! I'm going to clear more than $300,000 this year and I only work two or three hours a day. And since the give me the money in small bills in a brown paper bag, I don't need to declare it on my income taxes.

Guys and gals. You should all become paid bloggers too. It's the easiest way to have fun and make money from home!

"And the people I usually love to agree or disagree with seem to be having their voices muted"

Muted? That could mean a lot of things but if that particular remark and the rest of the diary is a partial response to MyDD Admin deleting part of a recent alegre diary on paid bloggers, my suggestion is that you suck the Admin decision up and move on.

I note that the MyDD Admin 'private' message to alegre has been screencaptured and posted elsewhere leading to people attacking MyDD.

MyDD gave alegre a good home after she left DailyKos, I think that circulating such screenshots to 'rivals' is a tad uncool and disrespectful way to repay this village >
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/05/16/ meet-me-in-denver-the-rest-of-the-story/

I'm an Obama supporter but have always liked this place because it was not just a groupie site for him, and I could listen to her supporters' POV.  It's true some Obamabots (and I use the word with all due affection) have been banned, but also half the Hillbots (also with affection) seem to be gone, and even the favorite diaries list seems, well, listless.  It really is weird.  Maybe just a product of the winding down of the primaries but it's discomforting.

Whether they are paid or not it doesn't matter. Hillary and her supporters are finishing this race.