I don't use the diaries much, but I've heard another round of the "Dean bashing gets your comments squelched" complaint, and in the spirit of community interest, figured I would take a look at the last 48 hours and see what was squelched.
Since 1/06 (the last two and a half days, really) a total of 20 posts have been squelched.
15 of the 20 were from a single user (who made up all 9 of the 1/06 squelches. There were no 1/07 squelches). Another user made up the last 5.
So two users are responsible for 100% of all squelched posts in the last 48 or so hours.
For reference, we're refer to them as Big (15 of 20) and Little (5 of 20).
Over the same time span, Big made a total of 18 posts. Of the three not squelched, one is unrated, one is rate 1.00 (three users), and one is rated 1.16 (6 users).
As for little, he's made a total of 14 posts over the same time span, of which only 5 were squelched.
Big is not "pro-Dean", and most of his squelched posts seem to revolve around insulting Dean, insulting Kos, claiming he's being censored, and the like.
Little, on the other hand, seems to have had his posts squelched not for being anti-Dean...but for being anti-Clark.
All in all, I don't see anything too awful here. 2 posters out of god knows how man, and only 20 posts out of the hundreds or thousands of comments generated since 1/06.
Admittedly, this doesn't cover the abuse of "1" ratings, which can be handed out by anyone...but it does show fairly conclusively that the "zero" ratings are not being abused....at least not cumulatively.