I have read the posts at Sigma Frame for a number of years now, participating in a number of discussions. My intuition (and feedback from the beloved “professorGBFMtm”) leads me to believe that Sigma Frame is hovering at an inflection point.
The Suspicion
One of the things that has set Sigma Frame apart from other blogs (like Dalrock) was the relative diversity of thought. Towards the end of the Dalrock blog, it was getting a similar amount of engagement to Sigma Frame’s peak (in 2021), but the comment section was hostile, often crude and disrespectful, and significantly one-sided. This bled over into the posts themselves, as feedback on the posts became less constructive and more confirmatory. Sigma Frame appears to be headed in the same direction as Dalrock, including what appears to be an increase in editorial censorship (though nothing remotely close to how bad it was at Dalrock!).
During 2021, Sigma Frame experienced significant growth in readership and popularity, with popular post after popular post. At the time, articles with 200-400 comments were not uncommon. A recent post, “Comparing Carnal Chads and Churchian Cucks” (PDF), has achieved a level of popularity not seen since July, 2021. The result of the post was that influential female commenter Liz has exited the manosphere. She cited personal attacks as reason for her departure, and it is no wonder. The type of hostility she experienced has been growing at the blog and is, in my opinion, cause for concern.
I am not referring to mere disagreement on ideas, but personal attacks, mocking, and other such methods to shame and shut down discussion. Of course the other commenters denied doing so to Liz, which only made her exit all the more likely. And it now appears that frequent female commenter Elspeth has joined Liz in exiting as well, having not posted since.
Liz and Elspeth represented the predominate female perspective on Sigma Frame. They appear to be joining Jason—another frequent dissenter—in their exit from the space. Other bloggers, such as Deep Strength, Ed Hurst, and myself—who provide unique perspectives—have seemingly largely exited as well, to focus on their own blogs or other personal endeavors.
The result appears to be the beginning of a Dalrock-style echo chamber and the possible decline in engagement.
The Data
I thus decided to confirm my intuitions by looking at the amount of commmenting on the blog, as a measure of engagement. The first thing I noticed is that over the last 30 months (excluding this month), the number of articles per month has remained mostly unchanged:
The issues at Sigma Frame are not with the amount of published articles, which remain more-or-less unchanged over time. But what about total comments?
With the exception of the weird 3-month period of unpopularity from December, 2021 to February, 2022, we can see a slow, but steady, decreasing trend in the total number of comments per month. It’s a not particularly strong effect, and may possibly be explained as a leveling out (or reversion to the mean) after the unusual 2021. So let’s examine the average number of comments per article:
This looks very similar to the graph above, except the decline is a little more pronounced. The reason for this can be seen in the next graph, which shows the number of comments for the most popular article in a given month:
Now we can start to see the problem. In recent times, posts have simply not been mega popular. But when we dive into the data itself, it becomes even more stark. That big spike in April was extremely popular, but it is the comments on that post that (permanently?) chased off two of the commenters (Liz and Elspeth) who drove the discussion to near record levels.
What about the two spikes October and November of 2022?
The post in November was “Artisanal Toad on Women’s Agency” (PDF), a post that I requested. This was during the Sigma Frame series on women’s agency, and it turned out to be one of the most popular posts in the series. I made the suggestion precisely because Artisanal Toad was so controversial, and controversy makes for interesting discussions. But, as I’ve mostly recused myself from Sigma Frame, this type of suggestion from me is much less likely to happen. Perhaps others will step up, but it is a concern.
The post in October was “Nita Marie’s threesome with her second husband and God” (PDF), a post that I more-or-less personally derailed, much to the annoyance of most of the regular commenters. I believe some of these complained to the host of Sigma Frame. It seems quite unlikely that this will ever be allowed to be repeated.
If you exclude these three articles as aberrations that are unlikely to be repeated, Sigma Frame shows notable declines in total comments, comments per article, and comments in each month’s most popular article. If these trends continue, the blog will experience more significant decline, although I think it will plateau eventually, perhaps at a mean of 50 and a median of 40 comments per article.
Thoughts
What causes high engagement in a comment section? A lot of times it is discussion where people are free to disagree with each other. This is not happening as much as it used to, and people who used to provide alternative views have left. More importantly, many are getting the implied message that “you are no longer welcome here.”
Of course the top 5 commenters at Sigma Frame are likely to keep commenting, as they have for the last few years, and they will keep up engagement. There will certainly be fewer distractions, and maybe this is what the blog owner wants, I don’t know. It will certainly be a calmer echo chamber.
It used to be a lot more fun and interesting to post at Sigma Frame. That was back when I could post something controversial (e.g. on kephale) and get useful feedback and genuinely productive discussion. I so rarely posted on Dalrock, because it wasn’t worth the harassment. Sigma Frame was also better when Jason provided his unique perspective that is now sorely missing. His loss is perhaps the most significant loss of all.
Sigma Frame now has now developed a cult-like atmosphere that it did not have three years ago. Even as it talks about how “Women were Created to Conform” (PDF)—a decidedly non-scriptural claim—it is implicitly and ironically enforcing gross feminine-style social conformity in its comment section.
It is worth noting that there is a not insignificant chance that some of the commenters believe that it is good that I, and others, are gone. I suspect they feel that we caused much more harm than good. Perhaps that is true.
In any case, it will be interesting to see over the next year what happens. Will Sigma Frame—which only recently experienced significant growth—join the rest of the manosphere in steep decline? Or will it refine its purpose. After all, comment section engagement is not the sum total of a blog’s importance. Where will it go from here? Time will tell.
I think the flow of comments is often driven by conflict. And women tend to increase the number of misunderstandings, conflicts, and comments. When I was actively posting on my own blog, I had certain women who would antagonize, and the men would respond. I didn’t mind the opportunity to battle against their best churchian and Feminist talking points, but some of my male readers found it exasperating, and requested that I send the contentious women away. Eventually I decided that since my blog was a site where men would assemble in the name of Jesus Christ, in a way it could function as a virtual church, and so I asked the woman to remain silent there. When the women remained silent, however, there was then less controversy, and the men did not take advantage of the lull to offer much of their own teaching to each other. But, I don’t think my impact on my world can be properly measured by views or comments on my blog. And I don’t mind commenting elsewhere. In fact, I didn’t begin my own blog, to share and teach my viewpoints, until I got blocked from commenting at Dalrock’s blog. Dalrock was apparently taking a lot of heat from the churchian powers-that-be, and my views and language were seen by them as being extreme. And I kept harping on one foundational truth upon which Dalrock and I disagreed.
I disagree with a lot more things over at Jack’s blog, Σ Frame. Also, I find Jack’s writing to be verbose and confusing, and I don’t like his tendency to try to redefine words to his own private definitions. I refuse to accept his redefining of the English language. In fact, I consider the goal to, unite humanity with a living new language, to be a Satanic goal.
Furthermore Jack has often deleted my comments when I get into heated arguments with people he agrees with. They’ll make some insult disparaging me or my viewpoint, and when I “take them to school”, then my rebuttal gets deleted while their disparaging statements have been left to stand. At that point, I’m just being defamed on a forum where I’m not allowed to respond in like fashion to the intentional infamy being put upon me. It is hard to win an argument where your winning points get deleted.
I personally don’t worry if the manosphere loses its small female contingent. You really aren’t even truly being “manosphere” if you’re too concerned over the hurt feelings of women.
I respected Jason’s counterpoints, but his delivery was often off-putting, and unnecessarily combative. He and Oscar both seemed to get into unnecessarily combative spats, most often with each other.
Hopefully, in a small while, I can get back to blogging at my own site. I’ve had a few new further thoughts/arguments that I really haven’t shared yet in a definitive way, that contribute to my foundational premise.
This has little to do with women and more to do with community. Even on the internet, throwing brick bats might be fun for a short time, but eventually even the best schadenfreude gets old when it is the one trick pony show.
I have maintained contact with a couple of former sphere participants who stopped posting long ago, and they said “certain personalities” became tiresome. The sphere has changed from what was once a pretty engaging (and about 50 percent humorous) environment to a humorless one.
Even some of the folks who created the rubble are starting to notice. If longstanding participants (the few remaining) notice, what does the random reader who might drop in to peruse see? Use the reasonable person standard.
There is a concept of irreparable damage (often cited, but I’ve never seen it called that specifically)…happens in relationships, and in online relationships also. Certainly I’ve experienced it in the sphere (still have a soft spot for Spawny’s which maintains levity and I very much like most of the participants there. I read it but don’t participate)
Liz,
It’s nice to see your comment here. You are welcome any time. I was dismayed by the unreasonable personal attacks you experienced. To the best of my ability, you will not experience that here.
I agree.
My blog is not intended to be a community, like Sigma Frame or Dalrock. I started it so that I could cite my opionions, not establish a community. To the limited extent that this is a public forum, it is intended as a place for rigorous debate and disagreement. Agreement does not serve my purpose, which includes improving my arguments and correcting mistakes.
The bricks I prefer to throw are controversial arguments and ideas. If I find that I have instead attacked a person and not their ideas, I strive to delete my comments/posts or edit them to remove such content.
Alas, I am not funny.
Peace,
DR
Thank you. 🙂
I was drawn to the sphere for the ideas (I was a moderator in an online political discussion forum for years, I enjoy reasonable debate…mostly military issues and most of those places have historically been de-facto mostly male).
Appreciate the welcome.
Grace and Peace.
-liz out
Hello.
Doing okay. Saw my name here mentioned. Long time reader, and I do like your photography. Just wanted to say the following:
*I wish no ill on Jack, and others at Sigma Frame. Even Oscar.
*I never thought I could “convince” anyone of my stances or views, but I did believe I could honestly help them to at least take their intellect, their amazing lives, looks, skills and talents and be able to speak to someone like me. The fault of PUA and Game in the end was not that it was all *bad* but if you didnt get it, apply it, and get results immediately, well….you were:
a cuck / blue pilled / obviously liked being a loser in the world / not a real man / a simp / a churchian / putting women on a pedestal / must like feeling sorry for yourself / you didnt want to put the work in
I was hoping this new, new, newer revised Red Pill Game 10.0 or whatever it was would at least be able to relate to the unwashed masses of men out there. It was the same thing. “We few men got it right…….the rest of you are messing everything up!”
*They in the end believe their sins (sexual) were normal, a-part-of-growing-up, and “It was okay, you see there is a Savior named Jesus….” or “I would not be the amazing man I am today if I had *not* had this in my life”
No kidding. Any woman that kissed on the first date is now a “red flag” and needs to sit in shame in the corner of the church and be told they serve a loving, forgiving and just God. While at the same time telling men to “be bold n biblical” and “find a wife” but again told “no good women left…..except the ones we married of course….sucks to be you”
*Never met so many men in one place who can bench-press a house, have sex for hours, were endowed by-their-maker with a much larger than average penis, a very high IQ, all the spiritual gifts, and were just born “natural leaders”
And me? “I just didnt want to put the work in” evidently.
*The final straw was a recent scenario I was in. Again, I got “should have” advice, advice they would have never used if they were in the same situation and the usual “not a real man” swipes.
My goals going forward: Stay off RP / Christian chats, they know everything anyway. Just focus on my work, save to travel to Egypt for a good month. Leave people alone.
Anyway, the Egos at Sigma Frame are so big, I finally learned that I had been wasting MY time 🙂
Fair enough. I respect that. I nonetheless will miss your insightful comments. Best of luck to you, safe travels, and God bless.
Peace,
DR
Pingback: Choosing one or the other
Pingback: Signs of Demise? | Σ Frame