Comments policy – slight revision

I’ve been obliged to amend the comments policy slightly. From now on if you wish to leave a comment you must provide a consistent name and e-mail address and you must have a previously approved comment before what you write can appear automatically. This should only slow things down for people leaving their first comment.…

Liam

May 29, 2008

1–2 minutes

A bit of polemical rough and tumble is all part of the fun so long as people are honest about who they are and what their political standpoint is. In recent weeks the discussion has been plagued by a small number of individuals who refuse to identify themselves politically or provide an attributable e mail address. They are not welcome and I’m very sceptical about their motives so I want to encourage them either to go away or play by the same rules as the rest of us.

19 responses to “Comments policy – slight revision”

tonyc

May 30, 2008 at 9:14 am

You might have a problem with those SWP members who have developed 3 (possibly 4) different troll personae, all have their own email addresses but are all the same person. They, by sheer coincidence, are among the most poisonous people posting on here and Socialist Unity.

They can’t see it, but they’re more pernicious than Tim and the HP trolls, cos they claim to be on the left but cannot stop acting like those on the right who see Galloway as the problem.

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redbedhead

May 30, 2008 at 1:54 pm

tonyc – OR you’re a little bit paranoid. I’m afraid that there’s enough poison to go around, my dear. A bit of mea culpa wouldn’t be out of order, if you’re going to mount the pulpit of the wagging finger.

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Ray

May 30, 2008 at 2:22 pm

I think the new comments policy should work quite well. Lenin’s Tomb has a similar approach to first time posters.

It’s ironic tonyc that it’s the SWP comrades who are the most open about their political affiliations. This is because we believe in our politics. That’s why we’re such obvious targets for your polemics. You might find it unbelieveable but there are plenty of people from other left organisations and non-allianed people who don’t support your version of events and post accordingly. Having people disagree with us is all part of political debate.

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Liam

May 30, 2008 at 2:32 pm

Tony – there’s that cynicism again! Anyway it has certainly reduced the amount of tiresome chaff.

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tonyc

May 30, 2008 at 5:47 pm

“tonyc – OR you’re a little bit paranoid. I’m afraid that there’s enough poison to go around, my dear. A bit of mea culpa wouldn’t be out of order, if you’re going to mount the pulpit of the wagging finger.”

Seriously, there’s one person who I can prove posts as 3 different people, and I believe posts as a fourth. Having done comments box moderation for a few years, you get to be able to sniff it out.

Not just that, the person concerned has slipped up and posted under the wrong name from time to time; this stuff gets obvious.

I never really have a problem with the odd hit-and-run anonymous posting, but the person I’m talking about systematically lies and disrupts discussion.

I dunno what the “mea culpa” stuff is about, given that you won’t find me adopting personae that I use over several months, pretending to be different people over several different blogs.

That’s different to, say, you, who even though I think you’ve behaved really rubbish over several months, can at least be traced to being a real person, as can I.

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redbedhead

May 30, 2008 at 6:33 pm

What is paranoid is that you claim SWP membership from somebody who you admit is anonymous. So, yes, it is paranoia in that sense – even if your “troll sniffer” is as accurate as you claim.

As for my behaving badly – I don’t claim to be an angel. I don’t claim that the general wind up hasn’t sometimes affected the tone of my posts. I am human and electronic communication is a notoriously overheated medium. But, you really ought to look in the mirror, sir. Your repeated exclamations of “shame” and “liar” and imputations of intentions that you can’t know have played an important role in winding up arguments and leading them in the direction of being personalized.

My original point is simply that people should spend less time pointing fingers and more time trying to show some restraint and to de-personalize their disputes.

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modernityblog

May 30, 2008 at 6:39 pm

isn’t it rather laughable that in the age of the Internet whole chunks of the Left haven’t caught up, even after a decade or so?

Liam’s blog is unusual and rather welcome as he applies a fairly even handed moderation policy and tries to keep the topics on the subject of politics

whereas if you look at some other blogs with detachment, you’ll see bickering, ranting, low-level pointscoring and hatchet moderation

in this you will notice the discussions at Lenin’s Tomb hardly ever seem to leave the student bar level of debate, embodying the worst of adolescent argumentation

then again at SU blog you are as liable to have your comment deleted if you offend the admins by embarrassing their poor reasoning skills or latest political hero

so all in all, not exactly as it should be, not a great advert for the Left 😦

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Phil

May 30, 2008 at 6:58 pm

It’s ironic tonyc that it’s the SWP comrades who are the most open about their political affiliations.

Odd – it seems to me that anti-Respect commenters are the least likely to state their political affiliations, or indeed their identity. I suppose both statements can be true.

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Ray

May 31, 2008 at 2:19 am

“Odd – it seems to me that anti-Respect commenters are the least likely to state their political affiliations, or indeed their identity. I suppose both statements can be true.”

That’s probably because, as I’ve said before, not everyone who disagrees with certain aspects of Renewal’s politcs is in the SWP or even affiliated to a politcal party. Just as not everyone who disagrees with Respect/LL is in Renewal. The political universe doesn’t just consist of these organisations.

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Andy Newman

May 31, 2008 at 9:03 am

MOdrrnity

seeing as you get almost no comments on your blog you have no idea how difficult it is to moderate a high volume blog, with hundreds of comments a day.

Some comments are deleted because they are off topic, and deliberately seeking to divert debate. Some comments are deleted because they are abusive.

Given that a reasonable proportion of the comments on SU blog are from people in a continual outrage at how right wing I am, compared to whatever irrelevant puddle of ulta-leftism they swim in, then I think i am quite tolerant really.

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Nedludd

May 31, 2008 at 4:04 pm

Liam has the perfect right to moderate his comments policy in recognition of the small number of individuals who fail to identify themselves. And it’s his blog as well.

AN should not be so popular if he wants to avoid comments from the irrelevant puddle of ultra-leftists who are outraged about how right wing he is.

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Jason

May 31, 2008 at 6:06 pm

“compared to whatever irrelevant puddle of ulta-leftism they swim in, then I think i am quite tolerant really.”

Thanks, Andy, I’ll take that as a compliment then shall I and ever so polite too!

The only problem is as we do have campaigns that actually win I’m noit qute sure if that’s completely irrelevant. Of course I do recognise that we are a very small if not quite insignficant minority. The question of politics is how to build a mass movement.

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Jason

May 31, 2008 at 6:13 pm

Again to Andy (and indirectly everyone)

I do though accept that you are goaded and completely understand you deleting abusive comments.

As for those who make them it’s just silly and reflects badly on them- I also accept though that such appeals largely fail.

Sorry for the gentle sarcasm above.

On building mass movements I think actually in the day to day discussions around praticalities bonds of trust and even friendship can grow between political rivals that can begin to allow genuine dialogue. Sadly blogs don’t so easily lend themselves ot this!

That’s partly why I keep advocating them- not as an alternative to theory. If anything I think new theory and critical reflection is very sorely needed- albeit one grounded in practice.

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tonyc

May 31, 2008 at 6:13 pm

“Thanks, Andy, I’ll take that as a compliment then shall I and ever so polite too!”

He’s not talking about you, Jason. What he’s talking about are those people who do the “yeah but why did you do [blah]” stuff, when they never cared about “[blah]” until the split. In other words, those who are not commenting as a way of advancing debate and advancing the movement, but instead are trying to disrupt debate and make sure that serious questions are never addressed.

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Andy Newman

June 1, 2008 at 12:03 pm

Tony is correct.

Obviously I don’t object to people having political views to the left of me, and am happy for that to be part of the mix of debate.

What distinguishes the disrputive comments, is those who start with areas of political difference with other people, instead of points of commonality, and then try to raise the temperature with abuse.

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Jason

June 1, 2008 at 2:31 pm

Fair enough

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Liam

June 1, 2008 at 3:00 pm

For some reason the number of abusive, ranting, apolitical arsehole comments has dropped a lot since the revised policy.

Isn’t that odd?

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johng

June 1, 2008 at 3:59 pm

Is that technically possible? to differentiate posts like that? the joys of modern technology.

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margo

June 2, 2008 at 10:36 am

I hope you are right Liam. Sadly, i think it may be down to the lull in argument.
Wish you well tho, as your blog head and shoulders above ‘the other one’ for fairness and political discussion IMO. Paranoia and partiality dont make for good discussion.

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