February 20, 2012

#1019: First Post explain

[Single panel showing a bar graph with two gray vertical bars, a dollar amount above each bar, the vertical axis on the left side with tick marks every $250,000, and the horizontal axis at the bottom with a descriptive label below each bar under the axis. The first bar is much taller than the second.]

[First bar:]

Amount: $1,500,000

Label: Cost to buy an ad on every story on a major news site every day until the election

[Second bar:]

Amount: $200,000

Label: Cost to pay five college students $20/hour to camp the site 24/7 and post the first few comments the moment a story goes up, giving you the last word in every article and creating an impression of peer consensus

[Caption below the panel:]

The problem with posting comments in the order they’re submitted