All things in moderation…
Well, wouldn’t you know it. On the very day I decide to put down some candid thoughts on the business of moderation, a ruck kicks off between two of Slugger’s bloggers, comments are removed and a row ensues about free speech on Slugger. Demonstrating that the Internet is ultimately a free space, Ignited has *some* of the original copy. He reports feeling “quite perturbed at the censorship of Turgon’s comments as it undermines what I believe was the strength of Slugger: that of freedom to contribute, and debate with fellow commentators”. Chekov feels a line has been crossed: http://url.ie/15bv.I don’t intend to comment directly on the events of the other night, except to say that on Slugger we try not to duck difficult issues. In this case we made an approach to interview Belfast City councillor and former MLA Billy Hutchinson, and it clearly caused some upset. That’s not unusual for Slugger. We have a very mixed audience and not everything we chose to cover is comfortable for all of our commenters.
I would make three remarks on the general principles involved.
One, moderation is something that by and large has fallen to two or three experienced bloggers. Often it’s a fairly easy call, but at other times, the surgeon’s knife is called for. Understanding how to moderate with a light touch is a skill to be acquired and not something that comes as easily as it may seem.
Two, the purpose of light touch moderation is primarily to improve the general level of debate. In general that is how we go on. Personally I am much more likely to clip abuse hurled at some third party than any given criticism of me. But the rule should be that so long as it is civil it should stand.
Three, we are serious about finding new ways of developing the comment zone to encourage higher level discourse here, but strong and adept moderation will likely always form the backbone of good online engagement. As I have said before we need greater bluntness in our exchanges combined with greater civility.
I hope we will be able to arrange for and publish the interview with Billy Hutchinson within the next week or so.
In the meantime we’re going to do some in-house work on this to develop more of a common code and try to make sure there are more than just the core team of moderators. In the meantime, let the conversation continue…
Scratch that, I’m still sleeping.
Garibaldy, thanks for that. No I’ve found the comments section to be a problem when I ask for interviews. Not everybody, but a lot. I’ve had remarks from people who simply won’t comment because of it, and people saying they are interested in the interview but don’t want offensive stuff said in the comments. I think they feel they are leaving themselves open. As a consequence of this who in their right mind would touch an interview now with a barge pole?
I feel very strongly, (no I’m not talking about Billy) about nailing people up there for anoymous people to throw things at. The moderation is arbitary, and live people who have agreed to talk find themselves, or may find themselves, in a position they didn’t bargain for.
If people agree to be interviewed tehy need to be comfortable about doing it, and in general my experience is that they don’t feel comfortable due to the comments. That has been my experience.They want an awful lot of reassurance, and now I realise I can’t gurantee they aren’t leaving themselves open to personal attack or their personal information spread about on line.
It leaves them wide open….
Correction
0.3/4% not 3/4%
Kathleen
“Depends on how you feel about masturbation”
I see your wit rivals your common sense
ok my last on this. In general this was new territory, neither slugger nor I had been on this ground before. I suspect that is where objections to interviewing BH came from. Never before has an interview been done BY slugger on someone of billy’s background. As part of a blogging/commenting team people may have found that objectionable. No one stopped to think that maybe the wider audience should have been brought into this. That was an oversight on all our part.
There is new ground out there to be broken. Particularly now that the troubles are over and in a world with so much else going on, all this stuff has been put on a back burner.
Before the past was bedded down I was interested in getting BH or someone or many like him to record their experiences of the past. Simply because for one reason or another its a story that has not been told compared to the republican side.
The other issues are NI politics are now as dull as dish water – soon there won’t be any need to record stuff from the telly, I thought it was a way forward to do ‘outside broadcasts’
a bloggers workshoop which I had initially looked in to. But in truth the enthusiam has been zapped. I don’t mind commenting and sharing ideas but its time for me to do a little thinking and prioritising of my own…
Depends on how you feel about masturbation”
I see your wit rivals your common sense
No FD. It’s a perfectly logical question given the analogy. You didn’t really accept that advice first without questioning it did you? If so I think its best not to take your advice on board.
Now real life beckons…
Kathleen, I’m surprised people have been put off. Politicians must be more delicate flowers than I realised. I hope you aren’t put off permanently over all this. I certainly appreciate that you’ve put a lot of time into it, such as going to the SDLP conference, and bringing people closer to what is actually going on. Plus the Gerry Kelly thing was hilarious.
I finally feel like jumping in here.
This has degenerated into a slugger problem; about slugger posters, bloggers, their comments, commenting rules and moderation.
Billy Hutchinson, was and is prepared to do the now infamous interview. He, as always will answer any question the interviewer chooses to ask. It is up to the slugger selected interviewer to balance probing questions with the respect that would be afforded any interviewee. Suffice to say that no topics or questions have ever been off limits.
I want to make it clear, Billy does not need nor does he seek protection from the internet. Obviously when the resulting interview is posted, people can say what they want. It is for slugger to moderate those comments only as and when that is absolutely necessary.
From a personal perspective my view is: – If posters stick by the principles on which Mick Fealty has built this site and his reputation (this goes for any comments on any topic) then slugger can maintain the high standard of discourse and debate I feel has been slipping of late.
The PUP seem to receive generally negative responses on slugger. I feel that perhaps some of that may be down to a lack of a PUP presence on slugger. I can only assume that much said about us goes unchallenged and we make little or no input to the site. With that in mind, I will endeavor to read and contribute more to the site.
I wonder could it be that the particular murder in question – that of Thomas Devlin – was so beyond the Pale that anyone allegedly connected with it becomes a pariah?
For example, a tit-for-tat killing which leaves a dead victim and grieving relatives has about it a certain ghastly logic totally absent from the killing of Thomas Devlin.
If this should be so is it then not a fact that there is indeed a hierarchy of victimhood, no matter what anyone says?
I don’t know. So I’m asking.
I think the interview needs to be done, for many reasons. I am willing to do it anytime, then afterwards I will think about blogging and what I want to do.
But I will do the interview anytime.
“If so I think its best not to take your advice on board.”
No really I am shocked
“The PUP seem to receive generally negative responses on slugger”
You don`t say…Would it be because their to the uvf, who continue to rob, threaten relatives of victims they murdered, are heavily involved in the drug trade, continue to refuse to decommission, continue to rearm, etc, etc, etc…
Yeah the pup are picked on…
Kathleen are you resorting to threatening to quit slugger if you don`t get your own way?
should have read…
“would it be because of their links to the uvf”
veritas
Kathleen are you resorting to threatening to quit slugger if you don`t get your own way?
I got into a brief argument with Kathleen when she started due to my normally combative style. But it was resolved and I try to deal with things slightly differently in differnet contexts.
Not everyone likes it or can cope with that type of environment. Nopt everyone likes conflict. If you want those people to stay and contribute you have to lay off and bit and extend some slack. Given that Kathleen has posted up soem differnet stuff, that would be a loss. Perhaps she needs thicker skin. but perhaps this place needs ot be less of a bear pit, at least in places, to get other people in.
Veritas my own way about what? I’m not looking anything. Nothing is being negotiated…
I’m not threatening to quit..
I said I need to prioritise and rethink.
jeez!!
I need to rethink the road ahead because I like doing things that are different, refocus, see what is working for me and what is not.
Maybe a photoshop of all the male bloggers here and a lovely girl competition…
Ken photograph please….
Plus blogging can be good when you do stuff and send it to others to post, being part of a team. Covering stuff other people want. I like doing that. Thats good too….
I have been trying to avoid commenting for a while on this but I feel that I should point out that I did not in any way prevent anyone (kathleen or anyone else) doing an interview with Billy Hutchinson. I criticised that decision: there ias a world of difference between criticism of and preventing something. I of course have no power to prevent kathleen or anyone else blogging about anything.
If my comment about a vanity project was unacceptable then maybe fair enough. However, I and many others have had much worse said about us. I for one, despite my ability to remove any comment from my own blogs, do not do so. None of my other comments, I submit, could be called playing the woman if the woman is kathleen. Criticism of Hutchinson for being a murderer is in my view fair enough on a blog about Billy Hutchinson (his being a murderer being pretty widely accepted: I await anyone trying to sue me over that).
My further comments were due to my initial comments being removed. I felt that this was the removal of free speech.
The suggestion that I should have complained to Mick about the interview is not appropriate. I have the right to publicly criticise the decision of another blogger. I would suggest that I have less right to try to use back door channels to try to reverse the decision.
I think the thing to grasp here is that I and all of the rest of us have the right to criticise a particular course of action which I or anyone else takes. However, we cannot prevent it. I did not prevent the interview. I do not pretend to be sad that the interview was pulled but it is a logical fallacy to say that I prevented the interview.
I do hope kathleen continues to blog but I am afraid that I do not feel it reasonable to have some bloggers off limits to criticism from other bloggers.
More importantly Turgon “Frodo Fealty” has a wonderful alliterative ring to it….
Dewi,
Yes: I think we need an online petition to force Fealty to give his child a daft name.
Maybe Frodo, Finglofin Fealty?
Dewi,
Yes: I think we need an online petition to force Fealty to give his child a daft name.
Maybe Frodo, Finglofin Fealty?
Would it be alright if I criticised that. I think that is a terribly insensitive thing to say to someone waiting on a new life. Is everything subject to commnent?
The other thing is turgon, an awful song and dance has been made over a couple of comments being removed. I mean the world is in chaos and you’re up in arms over a comment or two.
I can understand you wanting to distance yourself from the interview, but the whole thing is as Mick Hall described it chickenfeed.
It really is time to move on….
Yep Kathleen – but you need to chill as well.This is a wonderful forum facilitated by some fairly thick skins.
I never met a bigger bunch of girls… screaming over a couple of comments and not big enough or tough enough to tolerate an interview. Of course turgon posed questions for billy then ran away to his moral high ground. Like I said a big girl.
This is a wonderful forum facilitated by some fairly thick skins.
And like I said I’ve been doing some thinking. From here on in watch out…..:)
I do hope kathleen continues to blog but I am afraid that I do not feel it reasonable to have some bloggers off limits to criticism from other bloggers.
Tugon old son, here is twenty pence go down to the shop and phone somebody who gives a fig.
Grr…. come on put ‘em up!
Kathleen
Any chance of an interview with Mark Harbinson?
And Mark McGregor, what about Colin Duffy?
if we could get them to do a joint interview maybe in the same studio? I have a couple of questions for them.
Throw in a case of Stella and box of flags and I’d pay to see that Drift me aul flower.
This will be my only contribution to this thread now it seems to have developed some of the civility Mick has been calling for.
I completely support the idea of interviewing people like Billy and I completely accept Slugger should carry out those interviews in the same respectful manner they have been carried out with every other person ever interviewed.
I remember how we lost an interview with Bairbre de Brun during the last European election, the final link in a series of interviews with candidates, due to the abuse and slurs added via comments in advance.
However, that wasn’t a case of genuine and difficult questions, that was due to the site allowing people to carry out ‘carryout’ electioneering.
My only point on this interview was while questions may be outside the remit (and it seems from ‘PUP’ that was not even the case) that they should be left on the thread as valid questions even if unused in the final interview.
I questioned the level of moderation.
What I found personally unacceptable was to discover just before the blog entry was removed that it had been updated, with comments closed, accusing me of something I completely dispute and give me no right of reply.
I made a valid and legitimate comment within the site policy and saw the blog altered to have ‘man not ball’ pop at me.
As such I’ve found the complaints of man playing a little hard to stomach.
Hi Kathleen,
I see you have given my pithy contribution an airing having clipped it the first time within about one minute of my posting. See Below:
“Only on Slugger….
West Belfast Catholic Conservative protects Liberal Loyalist Murderer from Bible Bashing Polemicist from Middle Earth !! ”
Now far from being an attack on you or (wo)man playing or an ad feminum slur it was simply a fairly puerile attempt at a tabloidesque headline to summarise the thread as I saw it to date at that point.
West Belfast Catholic – Self declared community background
Conservative- Blogged sympathetically on David Cameron
Liberal Loyalist Murder – Should have said self styled socialist loyalist murderer (oops!)
Bible bashing polemicist – fair enough description of Turgon IMHO
Middle Earth – Where the Tolkein inspired Turgon may dwell.
I simply thought your over protection of Mr Hutchinson was a tad over the top especially when you were protecting him from as mild mannered a beast as Turgon (savaging by a dead sheep springs to mind).I doubt that Billy Hutchinson is quite as thin skinned as yourself.
Forecast: Stormy and cold today. Much calmer and warming up tomorrow.
The society of Northern Ireland decided to turn its homicidal psychopaths into its political elite with the express purpose of persuading them to stop murdering its citizens. You agreed to give them power to rule over you, turn a blind eye to their lucrative rackets and other criminal acts, etc, and in return they agreed to stop murdering you. You can phrase it euphemistically, but that’s the gist of the Faustian bargain.
The State granted equivalence between loyalist murder gangs and republican murder gangs when both gangs were released from prison under the terms of the GFA, so that expedient pretence by republicans that their campaign of sectarian murder was less squalid than the loyalists’ campaign of sectarian murder has been long abandoned. Eames and Bradley restate this equivalence in the here and now.
So what is the difference between Billy Hutchinson and, say, Gerry Adams other than the size of the mandate? Both of them were principle organisers of sectarian murder gangs. It is hypocritical to isolate Mr Hutchinson while Mr Adams is centre of the provincial stage, and talk of decommissioning as a remarkable difference is disingenuous and self-serving.
Remember, kids: the new official line is that everybody is a victim and that even psychopaths are victims too. Behind every extreme AP disorder is a politician waiting to be born. Okay, that’s not true: there were no psychopaths in Northern Ireland, despite comprising an average of 2% – 3% of the population elsewhere (coincidently enough, a similar number to the percentage of the NI population who were members of the various murder gangs).
Besides, even if one psychopath did come to political prominence (probably imported fenian genes), you should know that psychopaths do, contrary to that eminent criminal psychiatrists like Robert Hare think, posses a conscience and are therefore capable of feeling remorse and empathy, and thereby make excellent benefactors and moral stewards of a society. Nope, they are not wholly self-serving (that’s a TUV lie); they are, in fact, perfect speculums of selflessness and thereby perfect in political roles where they are required to put the interests of others before their own interests.
“My wife is at 40 weeks today…”
At the risk of playing the man, aren’t you a little old for making babies?
Best wishes, anyway.
Aaaaah Dave, just when I thought that Slugger had moved forward enough to be able to discuss unionist violence without immediately jumping to “republican murder gangs”.
well done to everyone else for keeping it grownup and making it to 3.5 pages
Well done for not noticing that the Shinners signed up to the GFA which granted de jure equivalence to the loyalist and republican murder gangs. Naturally, the self-serving Shinners had no objection to letting the loyalist murder gangs back out on the streets because such an objection would have been based on non-equivalence and that would have meant that the Shinners would have to remain in prison on a point of principle. Since psychopaths don’t have any principles, the Shinners had no problem accepting that both sectarian murder gangs were equivalent.
Billy Hutchinson and Gerry Adams are exact equivalents. Of course the Shiner sheep will continue to insist they were not equivalent even though their shepherds conceded that point 11 years ago. Won’t they, fin?
Driftwood, how many sectarian murders do you have to commit or direct before you qualify as a sectarian murderer? One is enough. There is no difference whatsoever between the loyalists and the republicans.
If your narrative is that you were fighting a war and that your POWs should be released at the end of it, then your narrative fails when you agree to the granting equivalence between your imaginary category and civil murderers, i.e. to those whom you consistently dismissed as sectarian serial killers and “loyalist death squads” who were deemed to be pro-state and anti-catholic and therefore not legitimately involved in a ‘war.’
The ‘soldiers’ could have held to their ‘principles’ and declared it an outrage that civil murderers should be released back onto the streets, refusing to sign up to such a deal, but that would have required that they had any principles to hold to.
To sum up then Dave: what is Unionism and Nationalism if it is nothing worthy at all?
I’m working on the questions now, sorting them into batches, so if anyone else has any?
*No criminality of any kind is acceptable.
*Anyone with any knowledge of a crime should take that to the PSNI
*No form of threatening behavior should be tolerated in society
*The drugs trade is a drain on our communities and people – the full force of the law should come down on everyone selling drugs.
*There should be no illegally held weapons in Northern Ireland (or any part of the world)
*There has been no indication that they have continued to rearm-but hypothetically see above.
Nothing has ever been said by the PUP to contradict any of the above and never would be.
In response to:-
“The PUP seem to receive generally negative
responses on slugger”
You don`t say…Would it be because their to the uvf, who continue to rob, threaten relatives of victims they murdered, are heavily involved in the drug trade, continue to refuse to decommission, continue to rearm, etc, etc, etc…
Yeah the pup are picked on…
Posted by veritas on Feb 04, 2009 @ 05:20 PM
Yeah we`re all stupid, blind and dumb….
The uvf isn`t linked to criminality especially drugs, hasn`t continued to arm and get this, this will make you laugh….
isn`t linked to the pup….
Yeah the pup are picked on…
I didnt say that UVF members are not involved with criminality. According to the IMC individual members are. I accept that assessment, because they know better than I do. What I said was ‘that is unacceptable’ and that the full force of the law should come down on anyone involved in any criminal activity.
I genuinely dont think the UVF have ‘rearmed’ as you say. No member of the press, police or IMC have suggested they have.
The PUP has an historical link to the UVF. Having said that, I work full time for the PUP, the only time I hear about them or even the mention of the name itself is here or from a journalist -fact.
“The PUP has an historical link to the UVF. Having said that, I work full time for the PUP, the only time I hear about them or even the mention of the name itself is here or from a journalist -fact.”
That must be the understatement of the decade…
talk about ostriches…
If this the level of content you intend to post, I can`t wait….
“To sum up then Dave: what is Unionism and Nationalism if it is nothing worthy at all?” – DC
Did you have content deleted or is this fragment supposed to mean something? I don’t see a problem with either nationalism (except the obvious one that both of them conflict within one sovereign territory). The problem lies with the textbook cases of APD who masquerade as militant defenders of their respective nationalism but whose actual motivating dynamic is self-empowerment at the direct expense of others (the classic dynamic of the sociopath) – and, of course, with the muppets who were brainwashed by the State into thinking that those who are devoid of conscience are capable of redemption and that such pathological types who are most responsible for destroying your society should be the ones who are most capable of rebuilding it.
“I’m working on the questions now, sorting them into batches, so if anyone else has any?” – Kathleen
Here is one you can ask without ‘taking a position’ on anything controversial or creating an unpleasant interviewing environment: “What are your views on why the republican movement attempted too create the impression among the general public that there was no moral or legal equivalence between loyalist and republicans killings?”
veritas,
Some level of content would be welcome from you. Your contentless quips give us little to figure by what knowledge and authority you so casually dismiss the opinion of others.
I will post honestly.
I will post factually.
I will post openly and as 1 user.
I will post as intelligently as I can muster.
I will not post short or negative comments about others.
I will not criticise without offering an alternative.
I will post with respect for the views of others
In response to veritas’ ‘argument’:- So to begin with we were too close to the UVF and now not close enough?
Karthleen
“Mick Fealty said don’t just grab what is around you, reach accross to unionism… look what I got for my trouble. ”
To be fair K. most of the inapropriate posts on the original thread where from republican trolls.
You cannot be naive enough to think that you introduce a thread asking for questions to be put to a former terrorist and not expect trouble.
What where you expecting posts asking, “Hey Billy, what was your favourite subject at school.”
Perhaps you where out of your depth but I can´t help thinking you have a big stirring spoon behind your back.
As regards bloggers moderating threads, I really do not have the confidence that any of them besides maybe Fair_Deal would do it fairly.