Bright's Blog

22 comments from readers

redharry
24 June 2008 at 13:13

Martin

Firstly, Guido encourages that sort of thing on his blog as you admit.

Secondly, if you post on your blog but don't engage with arguments from the reasonable posters, you leave the space open for all the loony-tunes. Perhaps you could make a start with some of the points I have made.

Finally, anonymity is not the problem. Anyone who makes even the mildest crticism of Israel will get called 'anti-semites' by Habara attack dogs. For example, your comrades at Harry's Place published the names of UCU members who were discussing the proposed Academic Boycott of Israel. We would end up on the Zionist version of Redwatch.

guido
24 June 2008 at 14:12

My brand does not depend on people being nasty, it depends on getting good stories.

That is why the same people who voted Polly the most influential hack, voted Guido the most influential blogger. Or maybe they like the comments. Hacks can be so vicious to each other.

mattseaton
24 June 2008 at 14:39

Hi Martin. I'm here in my capacity as editor of Comment is free, just taking time out from my main role "of terminally poisoning the newspaper's brand with its torrents of abuse", as you put it.

Come off it, old chum. That's a lazy cliché and it doesn't stack up. Let's take today and, not to make it easy for ourselves, let's take Polly Toynbee's column: I'd be the first to admit that Polly's columns take some flak on Cif, occasionally nasty; but today, at the last count, two of its 96 comments had been deleted by moderators. The rest was robust in its expression in places, critical sometimes, often approving and generally intelligent and lively... but a poisonous torrent of abuse? I don't think so.

Yes, the medium is metaphorically closer to Speakers' Corner than a church pulpit and congregation. But which is the more democratic form of discourse? On the evidence of this thread, I'd say readers - and commenters - are voting with their fingers.

redharry
24 June 2008 at 15:29

As for, 'The "blogosphere" is a haven for the cowardly, the vicious and the ignorant' - you can take self-hatred too far sometimes Martin.

Martin Bright
24 June 2008 at 16:19

Guido: I think the nastiness is part of your brand and so do you. Actually, I think you embrace it. As you say, "maybe they like the comments". I also recognise that you get stories. The two are not contradictory.

Matt: Don't blame yourself. I think the abuse on CiF is a real problem for the Guardian but it's the nature of the blogging beast at the moment that it's a free for all. I don't think it's particularly democratic either. More of a turnoff for all but the most obsessed and aggressive.

mattseaton
24 June 2008 at 17:54

Martin: Blame? I obviously overdid the liberal guilt. I meant to acknowledge that there is a sometimes Hobbesian 'war of all against all' quality to online debate, but I don't necessarily think that's always a bad thing if it takes us out of our consensual comfort zones. I do think you are caricaturing Cif by saying it's dominated by aggressive obsessives. We are now publishing in a context of a global competition of ideas (I don't say marketplace, advisedly); this ain't no Islington dinner party and people are passionate about what they think and how they express themselves because this stuff has traction in the real world and values and ideas matter. It's not just talking points and debating society.

Does that mean we should allow people to be abusive in the name of free speech? Absolutely not, and we police that as vigorously and rigorously as we can. And that work - and this, by the way, is a crucial element of the medium - is done not only by us, but by our community of users, who report abuse, post in threads to keep them on topic, and generally ENGAGE.

I think that, in your defensive posture towards the blogosphere, you are not seeing this community dimension at all. Trolls aside, the people who get it have bought into that social contract - that's a Hobbesian idea too. It needs nurturing, not knocking.

guido
24 June 2008 at 17:56

Don't read the comments, not hard is it? Also don't watch TV after 9pm, particularly the wildlife shows.

Martin Bright
24 June 2008 at 19:28

The truth, as ever, lies somewhere in between Matt Seaton and Guido Fawkes. But probably much closer to Matt!

On balance I think I agree with you Matt. And you are on the front line on this far more than us thin-skinned hacks who get overly upset by tthe trolls.

I am open to the idea that maybe this space should be left open by the institutions that control it -- the Guardian and, in its limited way, the New Statesman. In the end, paradoxically, it may be commercial imperatives which control the wilder postings.

What concerns me is that the people who should be encouraged by the new means of engagement. Women, the disenfranchised and young people, may end up being turned off forever by the macho, aggressive level of discourse.

robertsharp
24 June 2008 at 23:19

I think there's several orders of magnitude between those who read the article/blog, and those who read the comment. Josef K got lucky with his fantasizing, since he was the first to comment on Guido's post. But does anyone really believe that 'anonymous', the 85th comment on the same post, is reaching anyone when he labels Polly Toynbee a "sanctimonious old cow"? By then the comments of any blog are nothing but an echo chamber. Even here, posting the 9th comment only 10 hours after the initial post, feels a little indulgent.

A key thing to remember is that blogging is a catharsis. It stops the likes of me writing to newspapers (and the New Statesman) every single day. And I dare say it might even stop Joseph K and his ilk doing actual violence to actual Guardian columnists. Not a very noble calling, granted, but all mediums of communication fulfill more than one function.

redharry
25 June 2008 at 22:00

Martin's case is undermined by his mate Nick Cohen's use of the title 'Ratbiter' in Private Eye.

But is he still a mate after this?

http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/wire/3398

Nick Cohen to sue New Statesman over changes to pay and conditions

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 24 June 2008 at 16:23

Tags: Journalism, Magazines

New Statesman contributors are reportedly outraged over changes to their terms and conditions which have led to their pay packets being “seriously reduced”, according to the Evening Standard.

Nick Cohen says he is suing them and told the Standard: “For a socialist magazine they are behaving far worse than a capitalist daily.” Cohen tells the Standard his pay has been cut by two thirds and says others are now getting “next to nothing at all”.

knave
27 June 2008 at 17:12

Martin, Martin, Martin

Mark Seaton’s analysis is spot on. Polly can handle herself and that is not the reason you and Tory Nick hate the blogosphere

“The "blogosphere" is a haven for the cowardly, the vicious and the ignorant”

Which was the realm of the press journalist and columnist?

This article shows the real problem with journalists like your self and Cohen. You can write columns that are cowardly, vicious and ignorant about targets you hate such as Livingstone, Brown and the left in general. The language in Cohen’s columns is particularly abusive. Calling Hari a Maoist for example.

What you don’t like about the blogosphere Martin is.

1. You are asked questions you don’t like to answer. Such as, why was your trip to Israel paid for by an Israeli arms dealer?

2. Abuse is dished out to you, Cohen and others in the same way you dish out your abuse. Like most bullies you can give it but you cannot take it.

3. You don’t like your ideas or your friends ideas questioned. All part of that authoritarian personality that is part of the right wing journalist.

Living through the seventies and eighties when the press ritually humiliated any left wing politician or trades union leader, I think is great to see abusive right wing journos like Cohen get in the neck.

The other point about politics of the blogosphere been aggressive. Wake up and smell the coffee, Martin. Canning and Castlereagh had a duel and get a book on political quotations and tell me that their wasn’t abuse in any century.

knave
28 June 2008 at 17:58

A perfect example of a vicious, cowardly, personal attack and ignorant attack is Tory Nick Cohen disgraceful attack on John Snow in the Conservative Standpoint magazine.

Martin you blame the "blogosphere" as a haven for bigots, what about the "Cohensphere".

At least we don't get paid for our comments.

Martin Bright
03 July 2008 at 16:19

Knave -- do you do anything else apart from write comments on my blog. Sometimes I wonder if your time would be better spent making the world a better place. There must be an opening in the local Oxfam shop or something.

knave
03 July 2008 at 21:18

Martin aren't all bloggers wasting their time and how about answering the questions.

ravcasleygera
04 July 2008 at 11:22

Boys, boys! There's something marvellous about the comment board on a topic such as this turning into another playground spat.

Most (Guido, I think, excepted) blogs recognise that violent or abusive posts need to be removed - apart from anything else, they're probably worried about legal risks if they're not. There will always be some that aren't sufficiently careful, and that has a very odd effect on the debate. For example, those two dreadful articles on CiF this week arguing that Hillary was the victim of a massive misogynist attack based their evidence almost entirely on nasty things said in - yes! the comment boards of blogs.

The real question is: what is the ability to comment for? Martin and Matt Seaton have, I suspect, different perspectives on this (Guido is, as usual, too busy being pointlessly combative to care). Martin, I suspect, assumes - as I do - that the point of allowing readers to comment is that they will challenge and critique the arguments made, move the debate forward, and provide a flavour of the public's views on the issue. This is a great idea. The problem is that, in highly popular blogs like CiF, 90% of comments are:

1. off topic (how many comments have you seen about Iraq and Israel on posts that have nothing to do with either?)

2. ill-informed (my favourite being a commenter peppering a climate change article's board on CiF with explanations about how we were all going to be saved by the Tesla Coil)

3. furious and shouty without really engaging with the points being made.

This is a serious problem, *if* you accept that the purpose of comments is to move the debate forward. But the comments here suggest a host of other reasons. Matt Seaton wants to create a "community" and allow people to "express themselves". robertsharp thinks it's for "catharsis". If you see it from this perspective, the current state of many comment boards isn't a massive problem - though we do need still more enforcement of abusive comments like those Martin identifies.

What it boils down to is: is the comment function there for the benefit of readers, to see the debate moved forward and occasionally chip in when they've got something personal or informed to say? Or is it there for the benefit of the more frequent commenters, to have a chance to give their views?

I can't think of any reason why the Guardian, a highly-respected news organisation - or the Statesman, for that matter - thinks its job is the latter. Newspapers should do everything for the benefit of their broad spread of readers, not a relatively small "community" (or to put it another way, "hard core") of frequent commenters.

Fortunately, there's a way both needs can be satisfied: Matt gets to feel like he's not at a dinner party, and people like myself and (i think) Martin get to see the debate moved on and enhanced properly without all the shouting.

File away the comments on every post on a separate comment page, where anyone can post and they appear in chronological order much as now. BUT, pay an actual human being to choose the best comments - ones that are well-argued, relevant, informative or affecting - and showcase them on the main post page. Readers get the best of the debate - and the potential for improvement to the debate is really vast - and the "community" get their place to express themselves. And, to answer redharry's point (although Martin is a lot better at responding than most), why not require bloggers to respond to comments that make it to the showcase.

All this requires is a bit of software design and - crucially - a human being or two selecting the best posts. It shouldn't be the blogger themselves, obviously, but it ought to be possible to find someone who can select according to clearly-laid out guidelines without being seen to be biased. And to be sure everyone has a fair chance to make it onto the main page, lay out openly what the standards are.

If I want to hear people rant, I'll go to the pub. If I'm on the bloody Guardian website, I expect a higher standard of discussion. But this way you can please both camps.

knave
04 July 2008 at 17:11

Some interesting points rav but in the end your idea is dependent on the moderator and his own bias. The whole point of blogging is not to just to read jane austin or the calibre of debate you find in a university debating society, although I would say writeon's post are usually of a very high standard, it is about reading dross, sometimes abuse and sometimes first class posts.

Also josef K might have a point about polly but he has lost the thread of his argument by the silly threats.

So his approach is counter productive.

The net doesn't need to be nannified

knave
04 July 2008 at 20:46

Giving it some thought.

Actually rav your idea is an excellent one, if a little time consuming for the moderator.

Two streamed blogging. I think you have winner

gnuneo
06 July 2008 at 02:10

the best cure is to move the site forward to a full forum, where the NS can have some full time moderators, who can warn, edit and delete abusive posts. There will still be the problem of such personal battles as harry/cybertiger (actually, harry v seemingly everybody), but by making editorial decisions open (and possibly moderators elected, when the forum is sufficiently mature), by making it possible for discussions to split off the original thread, and also by having rapid responses to such abuses, foruming has a lot more potential for peaceful discourse - note i said *potential*.

gnuneo
06 July 2008 at 02:13

btw knave, perhaps your 'reading' of MB is accurate... can't see it myself, but i don't know everything, but it does seem like you've accused him of everything except killing kennedy...

...were you covering that martin, were you there at the time?!? Interested parties want to know! ;)

knave
06 July 2008 at 09:00

Gnuneo I haven't accused Martin of that much, Cohen is the real target.

I found his comments about Hari appalling. But what I found so distasteful is he accused bloggers of same type of comments.

Also if you look at any of my comments. the only things I have accused Martin of been is a Gladstonian liberal and PEU Cameroonian.

Many of my best mates are the same and they certainly don’t look upon it as an insult

ravcasleygera
09 July 2008 at 11:14

Glad about your change of heart Knave! It's interesting, though, how our view of journalism has changed so much - we used to trust newspapers to tell us everything, now we don't even trust them to select reader comments for highlighting... are we taking this a bit far?

Claire
13 August 2008 at 18:10

In any discourse there are a limited number of points worth making. I like the BBC website where people 'vote' for the points made that they agree with. Otherwise I'd rather read the better written and informed journalists/experts than the rent-a-posts - you can pick up the different angles by reading the same stories in different papers.

And yes. The personal slagging off on 'serious' comment space is off puttingly tedious.