And over at Waffle House on the Rideau, we have blog thingy authority John Bowman getting down and engaging in some rough-and-tumble intellectual discourse with his readers:
Um ... yeah. That would be on an article that's been up for over 24 hours, but for which Mr. Bowman has magnanimously allowed all of two comments to appear, one of them from him.
A word of advice, John: Stop writing about blogs. You don't get them.
12 comments:
It's difficult to imagine how he's being serious...
Comment posted over there:
John, I don’t mean to be insulting here, but I’m astounded at how utterly clueless you seem to be on the subject at hand. As “Stageleft” correctly points out many blogs are moderated and comments posted on them are censored, edited or pass through filters before getting published. I could easily provide you with a list of examples, but rather than tax your patience, allow me to simply direct your attention to Jason Cherniak’s own blog that is moderated. In fairness, he is fairly permissive in what he allows in the way of comments (many are harshly critical). The same goes for Stephen Taylor, the driving force behind “The Blogging Tories” who also moderates his comments.
This is not a phenomenon peculiar to repressive countries like the PRC or Iran, but a routine practice amongst many bloggers to weed out hateful/libelous comments and the sometimes thoughtless spew of “anonymous” critics. The Blogger platform allows hosts to set parameters that prevent “anonymous” comments or set variables to enable comments to be moderated for approval before being posted. Wordpress, MoveableType and other platforms have similar options to manage the way comments are handled.
Did Mr. Bowman just reduce a comment addressing moderation and censorship to "teh commies and teh Islamofascists?"
Is this the CBC, or am I tripping on acid?
No wonder KKKate ended up on its Blog Roundtable during the last election.
In fairness though, Bowman might be thinking of the blogger's post itself, and not the associated comments.
Ah! Good point. I think you're onto something there. In doing so however he still misses the gist of the whole thing.
I'd love to see the CBC do more work on the nature of censorship itself...so many people don't seem to know what it means, or how it applies differently depending on whether its in relation to the commons or to private space or the nuances involved in being held responsible for what you express. That discussion has been dominated lately by a bunch of well-connected loudmouths.
ti-guy: If Boman is talking about "the bloggers post" as being "the blog" then he surely does not get it.
Quite possibly. With his last comment...
And, yes, moderating comments is necessary for various reasons: comment spam, abusive or vulgar posts, etc.
...I don't think he understands what you're talking about...the type of moderation Ezra Levant does (the suppression of dissent or even just the suppression legitimate questions), for example, which is outright censorship and an abuse of the spirit of blog commenting.
Seems he's only publishing a select few of the comments received.
Not to sound uncivil but, God Almighty, Mr. Bowman is a total airhead. Will someone please put him back on the farm report, or whatever turnip truck he fell off of?
Seems kind of ironic the CBC would have such a tight lid on comments considering the subject involved. Bowman doesn't appear to "get it" and is singularly unqualified to be passing judgment over the world of blogging given his evident lack of a clue about the matter. Flipping from the censorship policies of the PRC to the comment policy of "Boing Boing"... Beyond funny. And stupid.
From the point of view of a CBC employee, blogs are "unmoderated and uncensored" because you don't have to answer to an editor or advertisers, unlike most conventional journalists. Or answer to government censors either.
But I don't think that's why he talks like he does. If you assume there are people online who do not follow blogs, why would you give people any reason to? You would do the standard newscast routine where they probe life's seamier side so you don't have to. They cover bloggers the same way they cover porn stars, complete with the kind of censorship that titillates while claiming that "we're family friendly".
They want you to think of blogs as where to go if you want to read about UFO abductions, and stick with them for the sensible real news.
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