How Partisan is Atlas?

[John Dule]

I thought this might be a fun thread to make. While this forum is pretty aggressive sometimes, I think we often focus too heavily on the partisan posts and don't realize that a lot of the material on here is either essentially neutral or just non-partisan. In order to operationalize this, I looked back through the last five pages of my posts (125 posts) and rated each of them as either "left-wing," "right-wing," or "apolitical/neutral."

An example of a left-wing JD post would be this:

If Trump's personality was a state, it'd be Florida.

Because I hate Florida and also hate Trump, this counts as "left-wing."

An example of a right-wing post would be this:

I can't speak for anyone else, but I wasn't saying his career was over because of this. I was saying it was over a long time ago because he's an insincere person and an uninspiring hack.

An attack on Beto O'Rourke counts as "right-wing" because I'm going after a Democratic candidate from a right-leaning perspective. I should note that attacks on Dem candidates that simultaneously praise other Dem candidates (like the one in my signature) are counted as "neutral." Other examples of "neutral" posts include:

Everything I say sounds like something I would say because I have said it.

I'm going to have my political science degree completed this coming May.

Exactly. Why would a "garden-variety" Republican have won Michigan?

The first is a bit sassy, but not political. The second is just an anecdote about myself-- also not political. The third, while political, is just an opinion about the realities of the race and not a normative statement. All three of these fall into the "apolitical/neutral" basket.

In my post history, I counted 17 left-wing posts, 38 right-wing posts, and 70 apolitical/neutral posts. This means that most of my partisan posts (about 70%) were right-wing, but partisan comments accounted for less than half of my overall posting. Thus, I received a score of +20% right-wing, -8% partisan. Here's what this would look like on a graph:



If anyone is interested to see where they would rank based on these metrics, feel free to do your own analysis of your past posts (1-5 pages or so) and comment below with your scores. I'll add you to the chart, and maybe we can begin to see that Atlas isn't as partisan as we all seem to think it is. (I'd do this myself for other users, but you guys know the intent behind your posts better than I do.)

[John Dule]

I bet Runeghost & Fuzzy would do well here.

For BRTD, can we have a “nonsense posts” category?

Yeah, the problem is that this doesn't measure how obnoxious the poster is. So Landslide Lyndon, for example, might score very non-partisan because so many of his posts are just substance-free ad hominems.

Here's what Peebs looks like on this chart. I also analyzed 74 Higgins posts just to see where he'd end up... it wasn't pretty. I firmly believe that what makes a poster obnoxious is not their political beliefs, but how belligerent they are in discussing them ad nauseam.

[John Dule]

What I've got so far:



You'll notice I did a few other users as well. Badger's results were... unsurprising. With Lyndon, his "right-wing" posts were all just Bernie-bashing.

[John Dule]

What's yellowhammers most recent left wing post? Also thanks for doing me. Tough to go through atlasia.

YH made a post or two complimenting a Democrat, if I recall. You might say that's not necessarily "left-wing," but the X-axis score is mostly used to denote how bipartisan a person can be in criticizing their own side and conceding points to the other side.

[John Dule]

Updated chart:



A few things of note:

1) For those of you asking how to score certain posts... it's hard to say. You'd be the best judge of what your intent was, so I'd leave that up to you. Some of this is hard to score-- for instance, Lyndon spends a lot of time crapping on Tulsi Gabbard, but he's attacking her from a left-wing perspective, so how should I count that? I ultimately decided to count it as "right-wing" even though it isn't technically, because it shows that he's willing to go after people on "his side."

2) Kingpoleon is now rated as the least extreme person on this site, and Nathan is the least partisan overall.

3) A cluster is forming in the upper left hand corner, with three of the most obscenely obnoxious posters on the site all grouped together (as I've indicated). My suspicion is that if/when I add GeneralMacArthur's scores, he'll be within about 5% of those guys.

[John Dule]

Past 100 posts:

26 Left
72 Apolitical
3 Right

idk why this doesn't add up to 100 but w/e

so overall not really political (most of these posts were from my proportional results thread or timelines like Gravelanche which I counted as apolitical, since it's not really serious) but when I am it's very left-wing.

If we want to categorize my anti-Gabbard stuff as right-wing (even if it's attacking from a left-wing perspective) then it's like this:
22 Left
72 Apolitical
7 Right

Eh, I suppose you could quantify it either way. Maybe I'll write up a more cohesive operationalization for this if a lot of people really want to participate. The good thing is that we can collect a lot of data points from every user, so even if a few comments are hard to quantify, the general trend for each user will be pretty visible.

[John Dule]

I have to say, I thought a random selection of my posts would tilt one way or the other more. But yes, I’m the only self-identified centrist with as many posts as I have. In fact, I think I’m probably the only very active centrist poster excluding bronz (the troll).

Some of this is very unscientific, but the fact that we're basically getting the results we expect indicates to me that we're on to something.

[John Dule]

I suppose the question here is what we're actually trying to measure.

If we're measuring pure ideology, then a post like "I hate Joe Biden because he's too far to the right for my taste" would be considered left-wing, because it's a critique coming from the left.

However, if we're measuring how polarized the forum is (which was my original intention), then a post from a Democrat saying "I hate Joe Biden" is going to be counted as right-wing, because it's a political attack on one's own side of the aisle. This indicates that the person doesn't move in lockstep with the party and is willing to speak out against his side, instead of feeling the need to justify everything they do.

It's up to you guys how you want to proceed. Any suggestions are welcome.

[John Dule]

I suppose the question here is what we're actually trying to measure.

If we're measuring pure ideology, then a post like "I hate Joe Biden because he's too far to the right for my taste" would be considered left-wing, because it's a critique coming from the left.

However, if we're measuring how polarized the forum is (which was my original intention), then a post from a Democrat saying "I hate Joe Biden" is going to be counted as right-wing, because it's a political attack on one's own side of the aisle. This indicates that the person doesn't move in lockstep with the party and is willing to speak out against his side, instead of feeling the need to justify everything they do.

It's up to you guys how you want to proceed. Any suggestions are welcome.

I didn't have any problems determining whether a partisan post was left or right leaning, I had difficulty determining whether certain posts should be considered partisan or not.

Anyway, I'm sticking by my count.

Here's how you stack up-- now with color-coding!

[John Dule]

I could try myself, but there are a couple questions I would have first:

-Is talking about evangelical Christianity considered right-wing when it's not explicitly political?  I'd say no, but I could see how some would say yes.

-Is criticizing Trump from the right on stuff like trade considered right-wing or left-wing?

1) I would say generally no, unless it's related to something specific like how your beliefs affect your politics.
2) For now, let's count critiques of Trump as left-wing-- not so much "left" as "anti-right," I suppose, but still indicative of a willingness to criticize one's own partisan camp when the time comes.

[John Dule]

Someone looking to pass some time should evaluate my posts for me. I gave up after looking at just a few because I couldn't tell.

I had a look at your posts too, but it's hard to know where you're coming from sometimes. For instance, if someone is dumping a lot of polls that have Warren ahead of Biden in the polling threads, and their username is "Warren 4 Prez," I'd count that as political rather than neutral. But sometimes when you point out certain things, it's hard to tell whether you're attacking from the right or from the left. Again, you'd know better than I would where you fall here, so I don't know how much I can help.

Hmm maybe I counted too many posts as "partisan" since a lot were a stretch.

Since most of mine were in the Atlasia boards I counted anything vaguely supporting the Atlasian Labor Party as "left wing" so that can be interpreted in a lot of ways.

If you want to recalculate, go for it. I did find it odd that you ended up alongside Lyndon's crew when you're nowhere near as annoying as he is. I'd count Atlasia posts as apolitical.

One factor that isn't being accounted for here is the intensity of ideological sentiment within a post. For example, if I posted something along the lines of "corporations that aren't either worker-owned or consumer-owned cooperatives have no right to exist" (a position I do actually hold and have alluded to in the past), it would count the same as some random D avatar posting his nine thousandth variation on "Orange Man Bad", even though the sentiment contained would be much more pointedly leftist. I don't really think there's any objective way to operationalize this, and if the goal is to measure rhetorical evenhandedness rather than raw ideology then the difference doesn't matter nearly as much, but it is a factor to consider.

This is true, but while it may not account for how those sentiments come through in a particular post, it will be able to measure how strongly those positions are held throughout a posting history. If someone is as far left as you, I think it still registers appropriately (as the chart shows).

[John Dule]

A quick explanation: While GeneralMacArthur is a Democrat and purportedly a left-winger on this forum, a clear majority of his posts attack Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Tulsi Gabbard from a right-wing perspective. His defenses of Joe Biden pulled him back to the left end of the spectrum, but based on posting history alone, it appears that he goes after Democrats far more often than he attacks Republicans. I tried to be as fair and balanced as possible here, but he still ended up breaking the old partisanship record and nearly shooting into the 90th percentile.

Red avatars of Atlas-- will you guys trade him to us in exchange for Badger?

[John Dule]

Interesting how 20 to 30 is the most common range

From our data set, the average poster is about 8% to the left of the midpoint (less than I was expecting), and almost exactly half of his posts are partisan content (49%).

[John Dule]

Added a trendline now that we have a lot of data points. Horseshoe theory confirmed?



Here's a better visualization of the emerging trend. On the X axis, we have PPF, or the frequency with which the user makes posts that voice his personal opinion on political subjects. On the Y axis, we have partisanship, or the user's deviation from the 50% line (where posts are evenly divided between pro-Democrat and pro-Republican). As you can see, a relationship is beginning to develop. The more partisan a user is, the more likely they are to aggressively voice that partisanship-- and thereby, I would argue, establishing a reputation as an obnoxious poster.

[John Dule]

I did calculations for a few new users. My hypothesis is really starting to hold water.

[John Dule]

I wonder what Mr Morden's score would be: long-term poster who has literally never let slip his actual opinions.

I just looked through 100 posts of his... his score is actually incalculable, because to plot him on the chart I need at least one left/right data point and he has zero.

[John Dule]

If anyone disagrees with my scores for them, they're free to submit different ones by calculating them themselves. However, if they're significantly different I'll have to look back to make sure that their numbers are accurate (or at least arguable).

EDIT: Added color-coding.

DOUBLE EDIT: Also, I stuck Morden at the 50% marker because I thought it seemed fair.

[John Dule]

My past five pages of posts:
Partisan:44%
Of which:
55% Left
45% Right

Nonpartisan: 66%

I'm gonna need you to crunch those numbers again before I enter them.

[John Dule]

Would anyone be interested in redoing this to see how much the forum has changed?

[John Dule]

I have begun entering the new data, but I'll wait for more people to post before I upload the new chart.

[John Dule]

How many posts are y'all choosing to count?

I would recommend about 100 to get a good sample size, but you're free to do as many as you want.



Here's what we've got so far. The characteristic curve seems to be appearing again, but this time it's moved noticeably to the left. My data point in particular has shifted much closer to the center (though to be fair, this is because I counted several of my posts attacking Islam as "left-wing"). Cody is the only big outlier so far.

[John Dule]

Left: 24
Neutral: 91
Right:10

You have much potential, my friend. I hope the red avatars can win you over to their side - you argue in good faith and have a lot of good opinions (and even the bad ones, you express courteously, in good faith, and politely, so that others, even in disagreeing with them, can still respect them, and respect you for holding them). I truly believe, despite some right-wing opinions, you could really be a solid D avatar if you got your political priorities right, and gained a more accurate perception of both parties (particularly of the GOP). I hope to help with this (see that post of mine from a few weeks back, for example, whenever you consider the GOP to be the lesser of two evils - and if you want more evidence/example/reasons to support the Democrats, just tell me, and I'll take the time to list some out).

Not every "good person" is obligated to share your values. This sounds extremely condescending.

Believe me, I know that (not Ferguson97, lol).

I didn't use the words "good person" even once in my post. And Christian Man recommended my post, so obviously he didn't consider it condescending (to be sure, it wasn't meant to be taken as such, either).

My point is that Christian Man genuinely has a somewhat unique set of beliefs, and he vaguely seems to favour the GOP over the Democrats. He also is in good-faith and doesn't troll or trigger anybody, and genuinely seems somewhat undecided in who to support. He also has believed some GOP talking points, and it's important those notions (notions like 'The GOP is the party of free speech' or 'The GOP is the party of fiscal conservatism' and the like) be fact-checked - since they are false GOP talking points that the party is very successfully able to spread around as fact.

There is blood inside your walls


Carve into them with a sharp blade




Feast on the flesh within