Combating Biased Moderation: How To Save Posts Before Deletion

Ariadne – yes, I’m afraid my oppostion to the howling lynch mob calling for Rivka Carmi’s head was more than the Guardian could tolerate. Possibly my reference to the mob as reminiscent of crowds gathered by the guillotine did the trick, and for a while I’ll have to sit things out.

Not a bad thing altogether – the increase in anti-Israeli invective, anti-Semitic comments thinly masked as pleas for academic freedom, endless postings of faked “quotes” attributed to Ben Gurion and others, etc. were taking up more time than I can afford in efforts to refute them

That thread was the worst I have seen since Freedman accused the parents of the just murdered Habad Rabbi in Mumbai of being Rottweilers, which, I thing, set the bottom of the pit for CIF, though the comments on the Carmi thread come close.

So, in the spirit of this blog, here is a comment from the Loach thread which was deleted (after my first brief , deleted, message comparing boycotting film festivals to the grand old tradition of burning books by Jewish authors). I leave the gentle readers to wonder why, and perhaps consider where boycotts will lead to:

———–
I am fascinated to see how hard my brief and only previous comment on this thread hit home, and therefore was deleted.

Let me rephrase it and see if the truth can can survive

Throughout the centuries, one of the first symptoms of rabid anti-Semitism has been a call to burn Jewish writings.

This activity goes back to before the Inquisition, and culminates most recently by the statement by Farouk Hosni, who has served as Egypt’s culture minister since 1987, was seriously nominated to head UNESCO, and who has declared that if he could, he “would burn Israeli books in Egyptian libraries.” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088178.html . (He retracted the comment in an unavailing bid to try to save his candidacy).

Of course, my earlier comment was no doubt deleted because everyone remembers the famous book-burnings by Nazis, including, no less, the works of Einstein. What the readers of this blog and whoever deleted that one-line comment should be thinking about is the consequences of that act and remember that it did not start, and did not end, with the Nazis.

What I said, and stand by, is that the attempt to boycott a film festival because it shows Israeli films, or has financial support from Israel, is the modern equivalent of the centuries old business of burning books by Jewish authors.

Rather than deleting this comment, consider it carefully.

What starts with burning books (or boycotting films) written by or made by or supported by Jews will spread like an evil cancer to devour those very people who support these actions. It spreads to include all writings (and in our times, will include films) made by Jews or non-Jews alike, wherever there is someone with the power to decide which are “describable”, and which are not.

The historical trail is extremely well-marked.

Mita

Am I quoting if I say “Have they no shame?”

At least I’m getting to know whose comments to just let slide by.
That so far is most of them.

I picked up a nice deleted one from JOHNQPUBLIC:

JOHNQPUBLIC

For the rest of you: Blah Blah Blah occupation; blah blah blah ethnic cleansing; blah blah blah apartheid, blah, blah

AKUS: They just seem to hate knowledge and truth.

Great ideas.

These will be a kick up the arse for the laughingly called ‘moderating policy’ of CI(F).

Fairplay

“Go and play with yourself, exiledlondoner. You’re a stupid moron.”

Will this stop him being stupid or a moron or both?

————————————————————————————–

Can I also add that you back-up the saved comments just in case the machine crashes and all data is wiped off.

I do a back up once a month.

Demeter – just “tuning in” in the evening to see what’s going on – at work, “social” sites like CW are blocked by our IT department.

I’ve always been ambivalent about the idea of moderation – free speech and all that – but when you see the disgusting comments on the Rivka Carmi thread, which amount to a verbal pogrom launched against her by a howling mob, you feel that moderation may be a good thing.

Of course, on CIF they moderate the decent people and leave these latter-day Cossaks to continue their pogrom.

The flip side is that leaving these anti-Semitic turds there to be picked up, sniffed, and tossed away has its merits as well. It brings the issue of anti-Semitism into the light instead of keeping it under wraps. In this case, these disgusting posters were wrapping the hatred in the guise of “academic freedom” and, of course, of the tired, hackneyed old “ethnic cleansing”/”apartheid”/yada yada/ accompanied by a faked quote attributed to Ben Gurion (my letter to Matt Seaton seems to have worked – it was removed).

There seems to be a coordinated set of “talking points” being used by three or four of the posters there – for example, the latest is “I don’t know how the palestinians have coped for 50 years of occupation – I weep, I really do”, when, of course, its more like 40 years, and they have coped very well, since until the intifada their standard of living only improved and was vastly better than in the countries surrounding israel.

So those still posting should look out for the coordinated group – namokel, moron, berchmans, allobragh, papgali, talknic, Dotty, Larit (my spellchecker wants to turn that into “latrine)- and point out the use of these talking points.

Thanks for the compliments – perhaps just for fun you need to start a “bring back AKUS ” campaign – they’ll really love that over there!!

The moderators are taking the piss, Brian. They obviously agree or thinks it’s all terribly entertaining to have “Shactman and his friends” being described as having “disorded realities” for having dared to make a joke with ExiledLondonoer, all Shactman wrote this

03 Sep 09, 7:30pm (about 6 hours ago)
Welcome Back Petra (exiled’s been pineing for you , but go easy on him as he’s a bit out of practice ).

Comment is Free is seemingly proactive in their encouragement of LaRitournelle’s sheer nastiness since they haven’t bothered to delete those posts. It’s bloody obvious they want her to make these sneak attacks on particular people. I’ve just noticed one of her other posts is gone but not the ones you’ve brought up? Do they want her to start a free for all? Doesn’t look like anyone has bitten, everyone except ExiledLondoner have wisely ignored her. We’re finally learning not to rise to the bait.
Whatever our politics, it’s time for Jews and Israelis to get off that site until Comment is Free agree to stop treating us with this particular brand of contempt.
Pointless complaining, they ignore you. It’s a contemptible set up engineered to breaks tempers. Instead of giving them our time of day, lets give them our cold shoulder. Take our complaints directly to their advertisers, that might actually make a difference.

Clive

here, here

I agree with you.

Anyone know what happen to delightful Parisa?

I have not seen her on CIF for a long time.

Is she boycotting CIF?

Hold the phone, chaps. It looks as if, by sheer coincidence, naturally, the offending posts we’ve been looking at on here have just been removed. They didn’t remove them before, as it happens, they only removed one other post {can’t remember what that one was about, I was too stung by the hateful attacks in the posts Steve brought up} whilst completely ignoring the complaints about the posts in which her personal attacks were contained. Anyone taking bets her posts showing up here, much to everyone’s disgust, embarrassed CIF’s moderators ?
Does anyone think LaRitounelle has finally been banned for her vicious attacks on other users? Of course she hasn’t.

Clive.

Sort of justifies CIFWatch Commenters page where LaRits poison is preserved for prosperity.

Poor CIF.

Poor LaRit.

Life just isn’t fair.

Brian – Does anyone know that CIF has the ability to premoderate when they want to ?

I had my ‘dissappeared’ so I cannot post anymore.

I was pre-moderated a few times and during the premoderation periods, a lot of good comments from my part were disappeared into the nevereverlands. Others were posted eventually

I ‘wear’ this as a badge of excellence.

My comments were hard hitting and spot on. CIF uses its moderation policy to ‘tip the scales’.

Pity nobody thought of CIFWatch a long time ago.

I am contemplating a return to CIF taking the above advice to ‘cover’ myself . I somehow doubt that CIFDisgustsMe will be an acceptable moniker but I may try.

Jubilation – wow!

So they nailed those two obssessives again.

I can never figure out exactly what it is about Dotty that gets him banned all the time, unless they are really slow in catching up with his multiple personalities and ban him for using mutiple personalities. But he is generally more tiresome than abusive, though in the end seems to explode in a tizzy of frustration. He always comes back he – can’t stay away and seems to have nothing else to do. Neither does that 63-year old alte kakker from Australia.

I use the term “multiple personalities” in a clinical sense, not just referring to LeonWells’ monikers – each time he takes on a new moniker (Edwardincognito/Countbernadotte [whence "Dotty"/kypriano]/LeonWells, etc.), he takes on a new persona. Although there is a trail of similarities in the style and content he does write as if he is, for example, a female Greek schoolteacher (Dotty), or a Bertie Wooster etc. He even posted a link to Famagusta when he was Dotty. But you can always “out” him when he starts in with his pandering “robust comment, sir!” /”that’s a corker, old chap” that seems to have been lifted from an overdose of childhood British comic reading or his references to three favorite hobby horses (Burg/Barenboim/Barghouti). Mind you, since the Palestinians tossed Barenboim out of Ramallah he has refrained from using that one.

I does make me wonder whether he is actually writing from an institution.

Talknic as interested1 seemed to have been rehabilitated – they may have simply found they couldn’t invest enough to keep server space free to contain his endless repetitive BS. Maybe others complained about it – it was like having an IED on the threads when he appeared.

LaRitournelle
04 Sep 09, 5:31pm (35 minutes ago)

#Petra among many others, is a wordsmith…..#

Lordie, how I wish someone would pursue this rotten egg through the courts, if she isn’t worth a smug bean, how about those who publish her ?
Shocking behaviour from the Guardian’s comment site.

Jubiliation – the name “Dotty” was coined by some veterans to avoid having to keep track of the numerous monikers LeonWells, or recently, JohntheGuardianista”as you came you know him, has adopted. I doubt anyone can remember them all any more. He (and talknic) are obsessed – two lonely Israel haters adrift in an uncomprehending sea of support for Israel, except for the little desert island we know as CIF.

I took a look at Petra’’s article and the one about Fayad – both excellent – and noticed that letmeseenow is gone – no doubt already back as something else.

Interesting to see, as I think you among others point out, how bitter these anti-Semites on CIF (moron, acomol, etc.) are at the very thought that a Palestinian state might arise, and how they grasp at irrational straws in their hope that somebody – the US, the UN, the UK, Israel anybody – will prevent it happening so they do not lose the anti-Semitic figleaf they hide behind – Zionism as the source of all evils for the Palestinians.

Petra has the patience of Job to be able to respond to these people.

La Rit ,doesn’t do cynical,she does stupid instead.That woman fancies herself,
she, moeran, berchmans,and a few other CIF permanent fixtures,are as dumb as,but at least they provide some comic relief.

If I were you AKUS, I’d ask CIF to explain why they’ve banned you. Try to get them to pinpoint the offending post, then if you would be so kind, could you let the rest of us know ?

Larit still there. Akus gone. Own goal cifwatch?

Brian

“If I were you AKUS, I’d ask CIF to explain why they’ve banned you.”

I think you’ll find that CiF has merely been watching CiF Watch…

JerusalemMite: Lovely name you have there. What a pity you are in pre-moderation. Mentioning this site might be considered treason at cif so people should be careful.

Aha – my old fencing foil LeonWells, banned on CIF but welcome here, as he would be in the democracy called Israel, alerted me to the fact that there was some discussion of my banning here.

Just by the way – someone is occasionally posting under my moniker and I will do my best to alert this board when that happens – it would be nice if they can find a way to correctly identify fakes, but I imagine they need special software and the money to do it. I think “Irish” is being stalked and faked as well.

I think I was banned after posting on the Carmi thread for any of four reasons. It did not keep my posts so cannot be sure, and they, of course have vanished into the vaults of the Guardian’s servers. So, let’s play “you be the moderator” and take your pick of the following four possible “infringements of community standards”as a reason to ban someone:

a) I objected to the howling mob, which I compared to a crowd or lynch mob clustered around the guillotine calling for her head.

B) I wrote something about that thread exemplifying the worst of CIF’s tolerance for, and providing a home for, anti-Semites dressed up as anti-Zionists

c) I supported Carmi’s position

d) I complained about albagobragh’s use of a widely circulated fake quote attributed to BG claiming he supported ethnic cleansing but it took a direct letter to Seaton and Henry to get it removed, though my rebuttal had immediately been removed.

So, contestants – which was the reason for banning? I will make up a false moniker for the the winner to use and go back to post the answer on CIF.

Yo, AKUS

So this is where you’re hanging out — I was waiting for you over yonder.

“Aha – my old fencing foil LeonWells, banned on CIF but welcome here, as he would be in the democracy called Israel, alerted me to the fact that there was some discussion of my banning here.”

Glad to be of service.

Yes, I did notice that a whole bunch of your posts were removed on the Rivka Carmi thread. I didn’t get to read ‘em before they went, but I have a sneaky feeling (you know, you just feel it in yer bones sometimes) that they were probably deemed as ‘trolling’.

So there we have it. You, my dear fellow, were probably jettisoned from the bad ship Commentisfree for persistent trolling.

Still, that’s just the way the internet propaganda war cookie crumbles.

Take care now — me old mucker.

I take that back — there’s my original post.

Well done, folks.

Ah, JerusalemMite

1) Did the commenter known as ‘CountBernadotte’ lie on CiF? You’re the accuser — the onus is on you to provide some evidence of this.

2) I don’t come here to be loved, so I’m not remotely concerned about being accepted.

3) Who are you when posting on CiF anyway — one of the highly aggressive Clapthehammer’s numerous incarnations?

Moderators

I don’t think it does your website any favours by allowing personal abuse to remain on the board. Allowing someone to refer to a fellow commenter as psychotic, is not good web practice.

Thank you.

JerusalemMite

I did respond to your comment in detail, but unfortunately I fell foul of biased moderation. I also forgot to save my post before deletion. Ironic, don’t you think?

But yes, as you say — Shalom/Saalam/Peace

AKUS, hi

Your post at 4.45 – and the old lags of anti-Israel posters being bitter and twisted haters – yes I very much agree with you.

It has to be Israel for them; if they tried substituting Italy or China it just wouldn’t have the same zing would it, not least because that couldn’t justify the Jew-hatred.

I was appalled at some reactions to the building the Palestinian state thread – I honestly belief that most of these idiots would lose their raison d’etre if the Palestinian people finally said “Enough!” to their various corrupt leaders and asked for Israel’s help to build a state of their own.

In my lifetime I hope.

Incidentally, who the blazes has given E-numbers to Dotty/LeonWells? Please stop! He’s practically bouncing off the walls! Look at the number of posts from the silly b*gger.

Dotty mentioning reincarnations,he is on an eternal wheel of reincarnations.