Well, the title of their article is "All-Stars of the Clever Riposte." DU should definitely have been mentioned in this article but was not. Instead they featured some conservative website about little green footballs.
Nevertheless, the article is worth a read. It makes the point that some people are better at reacting than starting the conversation. People with around 4000 posts and up will relate to this!
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/fashion/30commenters.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1The article also focuses on Metafilter, a site that many here also frequent.
In addition, there's a slide show to go with. Here are a few excerpts from the article:
There are those who have blogs. Then there are those who leave comments on other people’s blogs, sometimes lots and lots of comments, sometimes nasty, clever, brilliant, monumentally stupid or filthy comments.
...
“People are doing it for the same reason another generation of people called in on talk radio,” said Shel Israel, a social media consultant and a columnist for Blogger & Podcaster magazine. “They are passionate, they live in a world where nobody listens to them, and they suddenly have a way to speak.”
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“There are people who react rather than act,” Mr. Israel said. “As much as we talk about joining the conversation on the Internet, the most popular bloggers start a conversation.”
Cher