A couple of simple reminders and an request for advice

Saker – rule number 1 is no more anonymous. I know that some of the anons have been fantastic in their comments – but it is not too much to ask for people to pick a name. This increases the health of the thread.

Explain that the system doesn’t ask for a URL, just enter a made up name and stick with it. And then as you moderate, automatically delete the anons.

And then when the trolls come around with their names, we the other commenters can shoot them down, not you.

A modest first step might be to forbid secondary comments on anyone else’s comments, plus all off-topic comments, as opposed comments on to the main discussion topic. That would at least eliminate back-and-forth flaming. I realize I often post off-topic comments myself, not having much else to offer, but I’d gladly forego them if it helped.

Yes Saker, I have a suggestion:

Before I lay out my suggestions let me state the obvious truth about your blog:

Your blog, your articles, and the resulting commenter contributions are EXCELLENT (your intellectual tone and moderation is the reason the quality of the comments are so good). It’s the quality of the blog that is bringing policy makers and analysts to this site. Try not to ruin a good thing.

Now the suggestions:

Don’t lay out your heart and psychological profile so clearly, you open yourself up for attack by people who figure out what you’re sensitivities are.

Try not to take yourself or your detractors too seriously.

Please stop exposing your vulnerabilities (I’m repeating myself).

Regarding moderation: Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater (hatred against Nazis is GOOD thing! Don’t remove the passion in your users comments if that passion is constructive or directed towards a good cause).

If you see an ad-hominem attack on Putin or Russian leadership that is not backed up with facts – send it to the bit-bucket/file-13
In addition to the above, if you notice a similar theme to substantive comments critical of Putin/Russia/Leadership and you determine it’s concerted or too similar (allow 1 or 2 comments thru and ‘archive’/File-13 the rest).
I wouldn’t throw out criticisms of Putin if they are backed by facts otherwise you’ll be engaging in censorship and leadership worship (which, I suspect, even Putin would despise – a real man would).

Stop wearing your heart on your sleeve (I’m repeating myself).

You wrote that you believe that: “some commentators are deliberately misrepresenting what I write in order to polarize the discussion and basically hijack the discussion in the comments”
– That’s a tough one, can you give an example?

-There’s a danger that if you censor criticism of your articles or a different interpretation of what you wrote from what you intended to convey, you maybe blinding yourself to mistakes you might have made and you might encourage group think/yes-men sycophancy.

Last point: Everytime you react in anguish or indignation to what some commenter wrote about you or your articles you become troll food/bait. I would suggest you reserve your emotions for compassion and love towards the victims and positive occurences/comments, for negative comments don’t exhibit any negative emotion, including anger.

I hope this helps.

Sorry I forgot to mention a very important point regarding trolling and anonymous comments: These are very good for your page rank and hit-rate. One of the best ways I used to humiliate and neutralize trolls, on other websites that I liked, would be to thank them for contributing to the page rank and hit rate to the site – this would drive the troll bonkers because like Judo, their attack benefited the site’s rating and profile and they wouldn’t know what to do about it; after about 1-2 comments they’d stop commenting further.

So whatever you do, keep in mind that anonymous comments are a very powerful way of bringing in new users and keeping the page rank high. Also, in the age of the NSA people are more cagey about registering.

Dear Saker,
Whatever you do please I beg of you never discontinue this blog site! You wear the Armor of God. Not many do and its a damn shame. I trust you to moderate to the best of your ability. For those who seek the truth they will indeed find it in-between the haters. You can spot them a mile away. Their hate spews from them like toxic waste. You can’t change that. Although you can keep on keeping on. Seems to me they hate that and would find pleasure in having you just give up. They can be exhausting no doubt but that’s what many are paid for to dump their toxicity everywhere. F them. Please don’t give up. As for the disinformationist I don’t know, that’s a more delicate situation. I pray you find the answers. Blessings!

Saker,

You’re really caught on the horns of a dilemma here bc yes, absolutely, there are (and have been for some time now) organized as well as individual attempts to disrupt, derail and/or discredit this blog. You have created a community here, not necessarily of like-minded people but of people with certain shared interests and values despite their many differences. And again, you’re so earnest and honest, Saker, and I’m pretty sure your default position is to expect other people to be wired that way too. And it’s part of the beauty of this blog that so many of your commenters are — but it’s also essentialy to realize that, whether they’re sickos commenting to get their daily jollies, dedicated “amateurs” blogging-for-(fill in the blank), or paid “professionals” with varying abilities, not everybody is up-front with what they say. But you said the other day it only takes one side to create a war, and hidden behind the cloak of internet anonymity — very few people here use their complete real-life names — and with these intense situations right now it doesn’t take much sometimes to knock a thread, commenter and/or blog host off balance bc (in their minds, at least) they’re fighting some kind of war too — with us.

So I totally agree with Grieved and sketch ey — please require every commenter to have some sort of moniker! Not only would they have to go through a little bit more to post, but when a troll (or troll-squad) has multiple user-names, it’ll still be fairly easy for readers to pick out who to criticize or ignore, plus see quite clearly that “xxx” really doesn’t sound like the same person every time (or that “xx”, “yy” and “zz” sure do sound like the same person despite all the different names.)

Another good tactic I’ve seen on many blogs is an outright ban on ad hominem attacks, but you’d have to define that pretty closely since strong, fact-laden arguments sort of verge into that area but really aren’t the same thing. For example, would it be within the rules to accuse someone of being a hasbara? I personally wouldn’t call that hateful or ad hominem, I’d call it an important point to make about someone who fits all the criteria, but that’s your call to make, not mine. Otoh, please also listen to Grieved about our knocking trolls down — not *instead of you*, necessarily, but for the sake of newbies who might otherwise take their garbage seriously.

Commenter registration, I think, is at the other end of the troll-control spectrum. It might be the best way to create the collegial discussion kind of community you want, but even with the different viewpoints among the non-troll commenters you already have, might there not still be a risk of sliding into a self-contratulatory and ultimately epistemically-closed “in-group”? I’m not really sure it would happen but is it a risk you are prepared to take?

And finally, please do realize that these swarms of sick and/or evil people are not just high praise but a sign of the success of your blog! Accept the efforts they’re going to with a grin on your face as either you, or we, dispatch them one way or another to Troll Heaven.

@ Saker,

A ship sails its course, because the captain leads the way. No need to worry about the rats below deck.

They have their function in the grand scheme of things, but they won’t sink the vessel.

My impression is that most readers/visitors of your blog are more than happy to get a treasure trove filled top the brim with info, and all of them are smart enough to separate the chaff from the wheat.

Saker,

The name thing opens yet another bag of worms. Trolls love it when commentators have names. It is so much easier to start flame wars.

I think Mikhail II had about the best suggestion so far. Don’t let us talk to each other. Require that every comment be directed to yourself and contain no reference to another commentator. Toss any that cannot follow that rule. And then because it will be more personal you might find it easier to reject bullshit comments.

This blog is being cited all over the net and you are poking the hegemon right in the eye. My starting assumption is that most of the commentators here are trolls or nutjobs. Both anonymous and named.

Dear Saker, please continue your work. Nowadays it is kind of hard to get a reliable info. Btw I came across your blog following the link attached to a post in The Guardian (to boost your self esteem).

I suspect that the people saying don’t change your policy are trolls anyway. They want continued access. And the people who complain that you’re too thin skinned are missing the point — trolls hijack the debate and muddy the waters.

I suggest no anons. And I suggest you dump any pointless comments — life’s too short to be wading through other people’s irrelevances.

And since I greatly admire VVP I’d be happy not to see any more of the same old same old attacks on him.

Regards, Michael

His Majesty wrote:
“….It isn’t exactly overwhelming the blog. “

You’re not considering that we’re not seeing all the rubbish that The Saker has had to expend time and mental energy trashing. Also, what concerns me is not that it’s overwhelming the blog, but that Saker’s energy is being diverted into controlling the rubbish rather than doing the work that results in the high-quality posts we’re accustomed to.

Also, myself and it seems others really value the quality of the comment section; I promote this blog considerably, and I often note that the information and perception of the comments is the highest I’ve ever seen. If the quality comments are allowed to be diluted with trash it’s definitely going to reduce the experience here, and stunt the growth of the site.

Anonymous wrote:
“Keep going just like it is except throw out ALL of the comments you don’t like. My guess is that your trolldar antenna is better than most. After all, it’s your blog and you have a right to throw out anyone you don’t like.”

I strongly support this; in fact it’s essentially my suggestion back when Saker first asked for feedback about moderation.

I can understand it can be difficult to “censor” anyone (but it’s not really censoring, as this is a privately owned site); but I’ll repeat my earlier suggestion (and second Anonymous’ “trolldar antenna” remark above) not to deliberate more than two seconds per comment prior to hitting the delete button.

I agree with many excellent suggestions above, especially a name required (not registration).

I support ruthless deletion of suspect comments.

I/we trust your judgement. Poster can either rephrase and try again or stop commenting.

It’s your blog. It’s special, very valuable and good. Just moderate the comments ruthlessly :) and move on.

Moderating doesn’t have to be perfect or even “consistent.” You are doing better than great as things progress.

Very grateful for your labours. Heartfelt thank you.

Observer said…
Yes Saker, I have a suggestion:….
06 July, 2014 03:35

Don’t lay out your heart and psychological profile so clearly, you open yourself up for attack by people who figure out what you’re sensitivities are.Try not to take yourself or your detractors too seriously.Please stop exposing your vulnerabilities
________________________________

I agree with the above wholeheartedly also I would like to add:
1. Do not remove Anonymous Comments, respect peoples privacy.
2. Limit the number of words to stop the long winded responses.
3. Stop moderating comments irrelevant of their comment, that’s a downfall on your site, your policy was wrong when you introduced it.
4.Do not castigate,get personal or vitriolic with people and become condescending if they disagree with your posts, you have a terrible tendency to do that, whether you like it or not that is a major flaw on your character. Just because you have been recognised as a pivotal blogger, now on AsiaTimes and elsewhere, don’t let all this go to your head. One can fall just as fast as they rise.
5. Don’t tell us about your religious leanings, they are your affair and don’t try to indoctrinate us on the virtues of Orthodoxy (I am Orthodox).
6. Take cue from b at Moon of Alabama….except for long winded responses (limit of words)the balance is there.

This is why I believe you have solicited “f,,k you”” comments…you claim you are an analyst for God’s act like one, if you want reciprocal therapy on here then you may need a professional not a blog site….

LETS SEE IF YOU PRINT THIS

(even though I wrote in Caps here,,,another ridiculous moderation rule you implemented)

THE TRUE SIGN OF A LEADER IS ONE OF BEING ABLE TO ACCEPT CRITICISM, LOOK AT PUTIN YOUR IDOL.

With all due respect, a fervent follower.

So, here it is. Every reference that is contained here that is worthy of emulation is a Soviet reference: every value, every act, every piece of hardware, every heroic result, every historical deed, every analytic perspective, and every developed “national trait”.

What is extraneous is Tsarism which was as dead as the Austro-Hungarians or Ottomans, stupid nationalist theorists who had a corrosive impacts alone on the Soviet System and all the Putin worship from either perspective which gives to a man what are rightfully the characteristics of a social system.

The problem is simply stated: as long as the USSR survived, the free development of the peoples of the world was possible, and this despite whatever strange currents and contradictory influences may have been felt in the USSR itself.

With the end of the USSR, there are only screwball theories, strange mystical propositions and national sentiments without anchor or substance.

National development in Russia was identical to the development of the USSR and included Mongols, Turks, Balts, Jews…

It was a unique development which the Yanquis can only pretend to emulate.

Get your head straight. All of it is in front of you, hidden in plain sight.

St. Just

Your blog is appreciated inconsistencies and all ( Christian love and peace one day Putin to war the next) — especially the troll filter (yourself) which save the reader from the rubbish. Not sure how your time and energies can be saved though without recourse to registering etc — and even that can be got round by the determined.

Pavel Gubarev, a leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, confirmed that Strelkov’s men had left the town to consolidate their forces with other rebels and buy time. “Kutuzov retreated too, and that was the plan,” he wrote on Russian Facebook clone VK, referring to the Russian general whose delaying tactics helped defeat Napoleon in the war of 1812. “Russians basically only ever retreat before a decisive victorious battle,” he added. The Wire – via Yahoo

Saker, when forums ‘ban’ anonymous postings, as suggested by various trolls, they actually get a hell of a lot worse- and the reason for this is that the real, paid, psy-op trolls know that victory is theirs for the taking as soon as a forum is ‘regulated’. Government trolls (and recall this was a big issue during the time of the so-called American Revolution) fear free speech more than anything else.

Secondly, why do you care about others holding radically different opinions form your own? You have the ultimate sanction- the ability to prevent their words appearing here. It is a sad fact of life that no matter what the evil, there are plenty of ‘ordinary’ people prepared to defend it.

Thirdly, you are guilty of blowing ‘hot and cold’ in your blog postings, and sometimes use language suggesting the blog fame is more important than the cause the blog is covering. Human vanity (which multiplies when a person thinks they are becoming ‘famous’) is a weakness to be avoided at all cost- and yet few people seem to resist its siren call.

And with such ‘fame’/’notoriety’, the State enemies of your position become ever more rabid. Consider ‘Syrian Girl’. She posts from Australia, a place almost as bad as Canada, and is officially labelled a ‘terrorist’ by Australian NGOs for merely telling the truth about events in her land of origin- this despite the fact that the zionist media machine is literally millions of time louder than her voice.

Your association with the USA is unfortunate, because experience shows that people are never more politically naive than when they have suffered significant exposure to the American system by living there. Those that choose to live in the USA believe, in their heart of hearts, that there is something profoundly ‘right’ about America. This is the terrible trick of Britain II- the carefully constructed son of Great Britain (there never was an American ‘revolution’- the minds that designed and created the USA were entirely British).

Britain always saw itself as the successor of Ancient Rome. And Rome was the ultimate amoral civilisation that happily considered genocide and the police state as perfectly reasonable means.

America was designed to be the ultimate fist- but became (unexpectedly) the master of mainstream propaganda as well.

To understand where we stand today (and what is happening in Ukraine) you MUST face the fact that those who really run America, and seek to control the world, resurrected the ‘Operation Northwoods’ false-flag that was meant to justify a massive US strike against Cuba in the 1960s, and used it as the blueprint for the 9/11 false-flag. If you cannot truly see the evil your enemies represent, you cannot understand how they must be fought.

And team 9/11 will most certainly bring the fight to you in the comments here

Whilst there is little doubt many comments are disinformation and agit-prop, making comments open only to registered users will not stop them.

Sophisticate cognitive infiltration as called for by US version of Goebbels, Cass Sustein, would have no problem in creating dozens of blogspot users, complete with neat profiles. We see them on Zerohedge nearly every day.

I undertansd how frustrating it must be, when your intention is inform and share your point of view. And in all honesty, that is the reasons we all visit your blog every day.

Therefore my suggestion is to disable all comments altogether. No comments. If anyone wishes to share a link, they can send you an email and you can add them if you find relevant.

It is the only way to keep your focus, and you wits, against deliberate and well funded propaganda machine.

Keep fighting the good fight.

The_Prisoner

Greived @ 02:57 July 6th 2014.

Your suggestion on Anonymous will not only restrict the datastream subjected to analysis but will limit opportunities for disclosure.

You appear to be unaware that at least for some attribution is not necessarily conducive to continued well-being or utility.

Your logic reminds me of the opponent’s notion that you have nothing to fear from surveillance if you have nothing to hide.

Hi Saker,

Before I begin, this is your biog. Do what you like with it.

I rarely post, except reads comments pro, con and alternative views. There are many worthy posters here and they are your crown jewels, always follow the links website posted.

Like you and many here, we believe in Democracy and freedom of speech, what wrong allowing someone who may not think like the rest to comments? Should you shut them off? No, if you do, you are no different from the rest of the fakes MSM which I loath.

I watch RT and other website all day on my old reliable laptop, no TV. There are two programs I dislike “Thom Hartman and Larry King” and my favorites is CrossTalk host Peter Lavelle. Whenever Thom or Larry is on, switch to elsewhere.

If you or anyone truly believes in real democracy and freedom of speech and not fakes, let everyone have their say, anyone who disagrees may not be troller or whatever…. You call atheist “god hater” are you sure? Have an open mind. You will be far more credible. That’s my opinion.

Kindest Regards

you do not need moderators. what you need is to have direct replys to individual comments posted inline with them so the blob can moderate itself.

2)concerning the moderation problem, I think that you have been given very convincing reasons for why registration is a pretty good solution.

3)concerning the posting of articles which are not yours, I think you should keep doing so, even if the article is not excellent. It’ ok and a good thing if it simply gives opportunities to think and make commentaries. I have been amazed by the brightness of so many commentaries of the Mark Sleboda article.

4) In spite of my catholic orientation, I have been very impressed by what the cheik Imran Hosein had to say of Russia and the orthodox church in the perspective of the coranic eschatology and in particular for what is at stake in Ukrain as well as in Syria. For this reason I think that talking of the orthodox faith and church is necessary to help understand what is at stake, i.e., Apocalypse.

I comment quite a lot on a Dutch blog, which is quite heavily moderated.

I loose about 1/3 of my comments. sometimes this is partly my fault: like
2 topics in my comment, diversion toward another topic (usually Ukraine) or not using the accepted lingo.

If it is important, I recomment, streamline. Sometimes I give up.

A motivated commenter can always rephrase a comment when it´s important.

(2/3 of my comments there are lost because of censure: my views about Ukraine, pro-Putin, anti radical feminism, anti zionism, anti-war on drugs and anti-war on prostitution).

I stand behind Larchmonters suggestions.

Hi Saker
Your blog is one of the best concerning Ukraine and Middle West, thanks so much.

As for the hostile comments, Dedefensa, like many other anti-sytem sites, has had of course the same problem so they decided not to publish them and not no heed them. The more you pay attention to them, the happier they are. If you ignore them they will find no (or much less) interest in sending them…

Saker ,
I appreciate your comments . Regarding Trolls and offensive comments , You already have the tool of moderation , that can be applied more severely .
On Putin . I agree that he has demonstrated great
patience so far , but now he might have to take some action for the reasons you explained . There are few things that make me suspicious about Russia/ USA relationship .
Rumors of a US space fleet ( Gary Mckinnon case)
US – Russia cooperation in space – Chemtrails in all western world and Russia . Those thing indicate a deep and secret relation between those two powers ….

144I have a blog of my own (sailboating, nothing political) and am inundated with garbage comments from businesses, real and fraudulent. So I have some idea of who much time is wasted on deleting junk comments. I delete 99 percent of mine, as they are really just links to some business website.

When running a political blog you either have to just allow everything like RT does, ignoring the content and trolls, or not allow comments at all, thereby saving a lot of precious time, or be prepared to moderate them, a time consuming but occasionally rewarding process.

If you are going to moderate them you probably needs a helper who does only that, as you obviously do not have the time to spend separating the wheat from the chaff while trying to hold a family life and work together and maintaining a daily updated blog.

Most people who do not write think that if it takes them five minutes to read something, it only took the author 5 minutes to write it. Wrong. Big time wrong. Being the editor of a couple of newsletters, I know it takes hours to write something that can be read in five minutes. Write. Re-read. Correct errors, edit, rethink, rewrite, correct errors again, shuffle paragraphs as you decide to add something that would change the logical reading order . . . repeat . . .

I’m very impressed with your openness about your thoughts and feelings, Saker, which make the blog much more human than a news report.

I think, to use a WW II analogy, that however disappointing the “fall” of Slavyansk, it is more like the Zhukov’s decision to pull back from Smolensk in 1941 and save his forces from being surrounded by retreating to the outskirts of Moscow, than like Stalin’s decision to refuse to allow his army to pull back from Kiev, resulting in a million and a half Red Army servicemen and all their equipment being lost. Those very experienced men and their equipment are now available for the defence of the core cities, buying them more time to gain international recognition, possibly leading to a subsequent Russian recognition of and defence treaty with Novorossia.

With Russia taking all the wrong steps to date – shipping tanks and artillery from Crimea to Ukraine, providing little or no help to the self-defence forces, and offering to effectively close and jointly patrol the border with Ukraine – and Putin now heading off next week on a South American tour, it is obvious that Russia has either written off Novorossia or expects that it can somehow hold out against such overwhelming firepower on it’s own long enough for public opinion in the “west” to swing behind the besieged defenders.

We can only watch and wait from the sidelines, like spectators at a football game. Thanks for providing the binoculars.

I liked Michael Collins comment and agree with him. You must be doing something right.
Speak truth to power and feel the heat… ;)

How about using the correct terminology: this is not ‘trolls’ or ‘shills’. We are talking about saboteurs.

Recall, there is a world war going on (3rd, 4th, last – depending on how you count).

The war is conducted in many spheres, including:

– economic (monopolization, coercion),
– political (NGOs, civil society, minority rights activists),
– perceptional (mass media, fake independent media, paid commentators directing the popular consensus, etc.),
– intelligence (spying, blackmailing), and finally:
– military (private armies, radical thugs, and, if all else fails, the regular army).

In the course of this war you will see saboteurs – with a rifle, or, in this domain, with a keyboard (and accompanying persona management software), who, like their counterparts in the other domains, will use their tools and processes to make events move in the desired direction of their puppet-masters and financiers.

Look back at WWI and WWII and you will see the same machinery in action, utilizing the technology of the day.

Having said all that, there are also genuine people with organic opinions which can be interpreted as trolling, i.e. sabotage. Then there are genuine people with non-organic opinions (someone put it into their head). Remember who benefits from controlled chaos.

Whenever there is trouble (organic or manufactured), stay focused on your real objectives, don’t be derailed by the circumstances. Every airman knows that getting the flak means you’re over the target.

SAKER is this true? Ukraine giving Donbass land to National Guard soldiers as incentive to fight ??

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=100217

Dear Saker, I have noticed all my comment and replies have disappeared from my emails? any incite on how this happened?

Also is this true does anyone have more info on it?

Ukraine COUP government giving Donbass land to National Guard soldiers as incentive to fight
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=100217

Latest Igor Strelkov post in English, relating to the retreat and relocation.

http://slavyangrad.wordpress.com

I think Slavansk was converted into a rather fine sting operation. Strelkov became the face of the rebellion. This is true for here and both pro- and anti- Russian blogs elsewhere. The anti-s seemed to take a particular dislike to him. His increasingly strident talks about running out of ammunition would raise the possibility that the Ukies might not only regain Slavyansk but also capture Strelkov dead or alive. Imagine the propaganda coup if they had caught him alive. Now they clearly surrounded Slavyansk, and I would expect them to particularly focus on the escape route to the south. I would expect a high concetration of best armour and troops to capture anyone fleeing the city.

Now imagine their surprise when advancing in from the north, the can approach the main building in Slavyansk without the need for significant battle. They then hoist the flag. And no Strlekov to be found.

It seems the relatively lightly armed forces of Strelkov, with little ammunition managed to breeze through the southern blockades. How did that happen? This blog may give a clue. A large number of Ukie armour has been destroyed and by destroyed I mean shredded. Strelkov was then able to pass on through.

Who shredded the armour? Either Strelkov was keeping quiet about some pretty mean weapons he had or someone else did it. Perhaps it was the little green men who magically appear, work their spell and disappear without a trace. In Ireland they are known as Leprechauns.

Now let us summarize the Greatest Ukrainian Military Victory to date. They have managed to hoist a flag on top of an undefended building. That’s it. Glory to Ukraine. Glory to the Heroes.

One other thing. For what it is worth, the ICAO (International Commercial Airline Organization?) has changed authority for control of Crimean airspace from Ukraine to Russia. The official documents, detailing radio call-signs and frequencies, are produced by Jeppesen, a subsidiary of Boeing.

Hi Saker,

yes these trolls makes the discussion disgusting sometimes…

*** On trolling ***

Maybe we should open a thread about the “Trolling Phenomena”. I was talking to a friend yesterday about this thing. Trolling is a kind of torture, most of the time, people trolls just to produce (and observe) sufferance and make the counterpart angry and sad. A quick look at social networks shows that there is a lot of people which never gave a serious contribution to a discussion, but really spend time trolling more or less randomly. I suspect it is a kind of side effect of social network artificial happiness status. In conventional (non-trolling) social network contents, peoples try to looks always happy, like if their life was perfect. This behaviour push envious people to troll, for example. I get scared when I realize there is so many people available to torture. I think this is ultimately a effect of the capitalistic culture diffusion, which in last instance corrupted almost all humanity values.

*** On trap wars ***

About Kremlin choices: Russia should increase the covert support to the militia and pursues for a humanitarian corridor to Russian territory but never go to open war in Ukraine. Novorossia people needs get more involved in the war too.

Please try to look at big picture and in a more objective way. Ukraine is a trap to Russia. Sanctions plus a war in Ukraine would distract Kremlin from care the global Russian interests. War makers prepared the same trap for Iran in Iraq, with IS. As well for China in
south China sea.
Putin should talk openly to Russian people about these things.

We should always keep in mind that Ukrainian people committed national suicide, now they have no future. Why Russia would spent its national enegy to make war to defend people, which all resources available, are doing not much to defend them self? US emperor know they can not win war, neither military neither culturally. So they changed strategy. Military they are trying to make their enemies get fubared by them self in proxy sectarian wars. Culturally they are trying zombiefy the people around the world with fake journalism and corrupted superficial cultural contents. It is the last breathing of a falling empire. It is like when a old, big and sick Jatoba is going to fall… the better is stay far. Russia win each minute is not replying the US provocations.

Dear Saker your blog is probably the best source of contra-information that there is right now in the internet. You are becoming a real star :) I think that it’s pretty sure that you are under attack by maidanites or even by the Pentagon. I want to tell you that our network, the people working at IOUC (International Observatory of Ukrainian Crisis) appreciate very much your work. Let me include here a link to our website. http://iouco.tumblr.com/

We will appreciate, when you have time, if you include in some of your posts the movies our network developed about the massacre that took place in Odessa. The videos can be found here

First part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whqQCx6RXkY
Second part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8hOpZyVydc

Thanks for your amazing work and brave fight against the Empire.

The truth will set us free

Mykolas Alutis
Lithuania

Dear Saker, I’m a long-time reader but have only posted once and hope it’s not too presumptuous to give an opinion. It’s only that I’ve seen many good commentators warning you not to ‘wear your heart on your sleeve’, and want to plead with you to continue to do just that.

I’ve no right to ask it. You’re the one vulnerable, and I’m only a ‘keyboard warrior’ who hides my efforts under the anonymity of different accounts. But I just want to make two points:

1. Your humanity is what gives this blog its unique ring of honesty. You are no ‘Putin-bot’, you’re not reading a script, you’re looking at the issues with your heart as well as your mind, and it makes what you write compelling reading.

This matters. It’s what makes Juan’s reports work, it’s why Auslander’s reports make people cry. It’s why I can direct doubters to this blog in absolute confidence that even the most brainwashed Kiev supporters will come away shaken.

There is NOTHING wrong with how you express yourself. You are ALWAYS clear on what’s opinion, what’s conjecture, and what’s fact. There’s no weakness in your changing your mind – that’s what honest people do when circumstances change.

2. Don’t laugh at me for this, but as a Christian I think this blog has a function even beyond spreading truth and encouraging rational discussion. The Vineyard is a ‘healing place’ and God knows we need it.

I certainly do. I spend only 5 hours a day engaging online, but the inhumanity and hatred of the Kiev camp is so toxic it can leave me shivering and wanting to throw up. The gloating is unbearable, and ever since Odessa I’ve only ever been two seconds away from tears. Anger is good, we can and must channel it into proper action, but rage can eat at your sanity and make the world so bleak you don’t care if there IS a WW5 to blow the whole thing away.

So I come here. I find that there ARE still good, decent, caring people in the world, and it gives me strength to go back out there and fight again tomorrow. But it’s YOU who makes that happen, Saker, you are the heart of it, and if one day you post nothing but a scream of pain, then we are all there with you to share the catharsis.

There will always be trolls. There is only one Saker. Thank you for bearing the pain and frustration to help those of us who would otherwise be lost and alone.

Dear Saker
Here is speech by Sergej Yurievich Glazyev in Croatian

Otvoreno pismo Sergeja Glazjeva ukrajinskim akademicima: “Radujete se gubitku suvereniteta, što je rezultat sporazuma s EU, to može samo rob koji pati od kompleksa inferiornosti i ne cijeni ukrajinski identitet”

http://www.advance.hr/vijesti/otvoreno-pismo-sergeja-glazjeva-ukrajinskim-akademicima-radujete-se-gubitku-suvereniteta-sto-je-rezultat-sporazuma-s-eu-to-moze-samo-rob-koji-pati-od-kompleksa-inferiornosti-i-ne-cijeni-ukrajinski-identitet/

There are a bunch of ill-thought-through suggestions above, with the odd useful one here and there.

To those (many) saying stop “anonymous” comments, [I agree in terms of making it easier to read and follow comments and threads when there are “names” to them, but] in terms of dealing with trolling, what’s the point? If you look at the identity dialog, you’ll see it’s just as easy for an NSA-USA-NATO troll to select a name (or many different names for each post) as to select “anonymous”).

To those saying leave it to The Saker to filter out anything he disapproves of, that’s all well and goo, but it supposes he has ther time and energy to consider each post (in addition to the far more important task of writing the blog posts (not to mention living a life, family, job, etc.)

The Saker, on balance. I tend to agree with those who say just ignore them. (Though I hate the pernicious sort of troll that overtly or subtly tries to subvert discussions, drive in wedges, drive away visitors, etc., it’s generally easy enough to spot and then skip over them.) As someone above says, thank the obvious trolls for increasing your rankings and then move on (or just don’t waste energy on them at all). Also, if you try to tackle them head on, you won’t succeed. There’ll always be ways they can insinuate their way in. You’ll divert energy that should be going into your research and writing into a pointless war against a phantom enemy that comes and goes, shifts shape. And there’ll always be subtle one, you can’t be quite sure about for a while. Just let the comments section below your posts “happen”. If you happen to spot anything highly inflammatory, delete it, but don’t go on a mission to analyse each comment.

Concentrate your efforts and emotions on your above-the-fold blog posts, not below-the-fold hubbub of comments. It’s for YOUR blog posts and the insights, analysis and information they carry, after all, that you’re winning a growing audience and citations in the alternative media, not the comments sections, though they contain many useful thoughts and links. This is so obvious that it bears repeating. It’s for YOUR thoughts, as well as those of the guests you host that people come here, primarily. The fact that your posts trigger much interesting and useful discussion, links, etc. is secondary.