I agree with Nystrom and some who have posted here, that it CAN be replaced, but it would come down to one person or a couple of people's choice to act. The key factor is if someone is willing to put in the time more than anything to make it successful with no (or very limited) financial or other benefit to themselves, but instead most likely at huge personal cost.
What exactly made DP a hotbed of activism and define activism as it related to that place versus this place, for example.
I don't want to interrupt your exchange, however do want to attempt to answer this question, because I have a perspective on what the answer might be in regards to DPs success having worked professionally for a number fortune 50 companies developing websites, industry recognized marketing and ad firms, and also having built a number of Ron Paul grassroots networking websites personally in 08' and 12', which included two money bomb events that required working with other RP sites including DP.
Analyzing the differences between a number of sites I wouldn't necessarily classify DP as a hotbed of activism, I would describe it more (in most cases) as a source of information for drive-by supporters of Ron Paul and the liberty movement.
What do I mean by that? Although the outside perception of your typical Ron Paul supporter in 2008/2012 was the very passionate and active person leaving the computer and going out doing things in their local community whether it was getting signatures on petitions for Ron Paul to be on the local state ballots, going door to door doing voter issue identification, sign-waving, going to meetup meetings, joining local GOP, becoming a delegate, traveling to early states to hand out slim-jims, etc., etc. The truth is the percentage that are considered actual activists vs. general supporters of a candidate vs. individuals that will vote for the candidate is extremely small, most likely less than one percent are actual activists as traditionally defined.
Who are these other people then that like Ron Paul, but that don't hang out on message boards, or don't take an active part in voicing political opinion or being more involved in the political process? They are people that live their lives going to work, taking care of their kids and having interests and participating in activities beyond politics, the limit to their involvement only comes every few years when they are expected to cast a vote. At most perhaps they (maybe 5-10 percent if they are really inspired) will donate to a candidate by buying a poster, tshirt, or perhaps even a lawn sign, maybe, and there will be a few that will even do a straight up donation to the candidate expecting nothing in return other than the hope that their money will be put to good use in order for the candidate to win. That's it, that is the extent of their participation and they will walk away feeling good with themselves that they were part of something that will either stave off disaster for another four years or perhaps change the direction of the country for the better.
Now comes the question, how do some of these people that aren't true activists formulate their opinions, what sources of information do they use when major topics of discussion come up in the news that become water cooler discussion? This is where DP comes into play, these people will want to find alternate opinions regarding specific topics that match their thinking in regards to a number of different issues that is important to them. They will want to perhaps watch a video or two or read a couple of articles and then leave the site, that will be the extent of their interaction never creating an account or wanting to invest the time to communicate on a message board with others that maybe like-minded. They are just there for information that perhaps they can take back to their families and friends, or the water cooler, or at the very least some talking points they can use to shout back at their TV when flipping through the channels and a MSM talking head aggravates them about an issue they have interest in.
So with all that said lets consider what the actual value of DP was compared to perhaps RPF or other sites in general. From personal experience in 08' and 12' these would be the conclusions I would make based on observations although I would imagine the owners of the sites would have the best perspective on these;
1. DP in general had more traffic on avg than RPF (you can go to a number of different metric websites to compare)
2. RPF had more activists that brainstormed new ideas and coordinated efforts beyond traditional campaign efforts; home of the MBs, organizing and coordinating; phone-banking, transporting volunteers to early states, events such as marches and rallies, micro-sites developed by others in support of the candidate, brainstorming how best to promote all of the above, the list goes on.
3. DP was a source more likely to successful financially fund individual efforts vs. RPF, although not an absolute in all cases in previous campaigns I did notice perhaps because it came down to a simple numbers game if someone needed help to get a grassroots project off the ground one had better luck getting donations from members at DP than RPF, this maybe due to a number of different reasons one that maybe the most basic is that RPF members on avg were more busy trying to get their own projects off the ground while DP members were more support as opposed to being pro-active, again this is a generalization perhaps warranted perhaps not, just an observation.
4. RPF had more volunteers willing to help others beyond financial support but instead invest time in others project to help them be successful, where DP may have had the money RPF had the users that were willing to invest the time.
5. DP news distribution had a wider and louder microphone in a shorter span of time. Whereas large projects are formulated on RPF that tend to have huge influence on the grassroots when they are successful over a longer period of time, DP because of the traffic and the traditional format they used from the start, being more a blog than a message board allowed for information or promotion news to travel to a wide audience in a shorter period of time. Here is an example currently there is a
MB video created for April 7th that although we can appreciate the time in putting this together has not received more than 500 views (at the time of this writing) although it has been bumped on RPF a few times and posted on the front page. I would imagine if instead it was posted on the DP front page the views would easily be much more (by factors) than it currently has and would considerably help distribution, this was the case in 08', in 12' and I'd imagine would still be the case even though in general traffic isn't anywhere near the height it would be in the fall leading up to the primaries.
Anyway I could sit here and write all day about this stuff, but should go and eat lunch. The main point I want to make is DP did have value although as has been said it can be replaced, it's just a question of can and will someone do it to support Rand and how much time will they be willing to invest in a project that would certainly require a lot of work. Not just in setting up a site, but more importantly everything that goes along with that to make it successful with very little reward beyond the personal satisfaction that they helped to accomplish something all the while weathering personal attacks from others that they would have at one time considered friends and fellow members of the liberty movement, or in other words as has been said "no good deed goes unpunished".
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