The Guardian’s Comment is Free moderation needs transparency…

I wrote, some time back, about the poor quality of moderation in the Guardian’s Comment is Free section, especially the habit of deleting any comments questioning the impartiality of the moderators, no matter how polite and reasonable.

The comment thread following this article, discussing the first student demo/riot (depending on which side of the argument you’re on), protesting about the grant cuts, and also covering the fact that the cabinet is so badly out of touch with reality because 18 of the buggers are millionaires, to whom the concept of a day’s work is, for the most part, entirely alien, is studded with deletions. And there are bound to be many deletions we don’t even know about, as comments seem to vanish without trace, as I mentioned in my original post,

And a thought occurred to me

The Guardian’s Comment is Free moderation sucks…

The moderators at the Guardian’s Comment is Free section are completely out of control.

In today’s online paper, there’s a discussion of the “Blood Diamond” trial in CiF, and Naomi Campbell is getting a lot of coverage, especially in the  comments, and one guy had a comment deleted by the moderators. A few hours later he came back, protesting about his deletion, politely, and

The dumbing-down of the Guardian…

According to the Guardian,  “The taxpayer is sitting on a profit of close to £10bn on its stakes in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group after a surprise surge in their share prices.”

Well, no, we’re bloody well not. The taxpayer will see bugger all of that money. The exchequer will reap the benefits, if any, not the taxpayer. As always.

In theory, taxes might

Comment is Free…

The Guardian online has a blog segment called Comment is Free, whereby contributors write articles, and the great unwashed get to comment on them. I spend a lot of time there – it’s interesting – and I occasionally post comments myself.

There is, though, a massive problem – a bunch of fascists who call themselves the moderators. They’re not, they’re censors, pure and simple. As far as I can see, they are responsible to no-one, their decisions are entirely arbitrary and, when challenged, they are unable to justify their decisions.

Personally, having had several posts deleted today (in a blog pretty much devoted to kicking Al Fayed), when others saying much the same thing survived intact, I’ve pretty much had it with these clowns (they forget that all the posters contribute free content to their online “paper”), and I’m not prepared to waste any more time helping to fill their space – the more so since, a couple of days ago one guy directly challenged the editor to control the moderators, and was completely ignored. I protested at that, and I was ignored too.

So, until the Guardian finds the balls to impose some constraints on these dimwit censors, and teach them the meaning of free speech, they can get by without me and, judging by comments from other disenchanted people, I doubt I’m alone. Not that, of course, in their arrogance, they will care one iota…

If you’re familiar with CiF, this is my offending post that was deleted:-

@fromtheislands
“Has with Mr Al Fayed broken any UK laws? – not as far I know”  (quoting a previous poster)

Damn right he has – for years this guy has made a career of driving a coach and horses through the UK’s libel and slander laws, no doubt believing that, if challenged, he has enough money to buy “justice”.

To the best of my knowledge, the royal family aren’t allowed to defend themselves at law, but I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the wealthiest of those he’s libelled and slandered over the last 10 years haven’t sued this clown into oblivion.

It’s perfectly clear from his performance at the inquest, that he hasn’t an iota of proof to support his claims (like that’s a surprise), so WHY has no-one sued? I just don’t understand it. Yes, he’s mentally ill – I don’t think any other conclusion can be drawn from his ravings – but that does NOT give him carte blanche to say whatever he likes about whomsoever he likes. Yet he’s allowed to, time, after time, after time...

And, a few minutes later  there it was – gone – consigned to moderated oblivion. Comment may be free, but speech sure as hell isn’t, not in Guardian-world.