Wow, Eric Zuesses’ article really elicited a fury the like of which I have never seen, at least so far. Right now there are seventy-fire (75!) intercepted comments sitting in my “trash bin” to review and either clear or terminate.
Got to take my trash out…
And, just to add even more misery to an overworked Saker (and exhausted moderators!), I am about to post another article tomorrow which will, no doubt, infuriate the “other side” of the “antisemite vs philosemite” (I am using these categories tongue-in-cheek, relax!) debate. So help me God…
Anyway, regardless of what happens tomorrow, I just want to assure non-trolls commenting on this blog (the vast majority of commentators indeed) that the “Saker war on trolls, imbeciles and other pests” is on and that I hope to bring a set of proposals to our community by the end of the week.
Until then, stay put, hunker down and expect the crazies to show up in force tomorrow. Let them get their last hurrah, why not? :-)
Cheers!
The Saker
May I suggest the rules that John Michael Greer has set up for his blogs?
To wit:
“Courteous, concise comments relevant to the topic of the current post are welcome, whether or not they agree with the views expressed here, and I try to respond to each comment as time permits. Long screeds proclaiming the infallibility of some ideology or other, however, will be deleted; so will repeated attempts to hammer on a point already addressed; so will comments containing profanity, abusive language, flamebaiting and the like — I filled up my supply of Troll Bingo cards years ago and have no interest in adding any more to my collection; and so will sales spam and offers of “guest posts” pitching products. I’m quite aware that the concept of polite discourse is hopelessly dowdy and out of date, but then some people would say the same thing about the traditions this blog is meant to discuss .”
Greer is very strict about profanity. Any post containing words which George Carlin made “(in)famous” are immediately “binned.” Any persistent trolls are publicly named and shamed without right of reply.
The result is perhaps the best and most civilized comment section of any blog in the blogosphere. I commend Greer’s example for your imitation.
I second your recommendation. The guy has got a following with an amazing range of viewpoints and meaningful civil discussions in his comments sections, which has swollen to hundreds each week. I subscribe because they are all thought-provoking, but I just can’t keep up!
He occasionally describes his dealings with trolls, so they still show up, but his ways of dealing with them make it a joy for the rest of us.
BTW, I think your comments section is already very good. More often than not I read through many of them. Keep up the good work!
Saker,
I don’t know how you keep doing it but keep IT up. You write faster than I read. Just finally finished “Letter to my American friends” which couldn’t have laid out a more cognizant explanation of the major imperial plague in the world today and then Eric Zuesse’s execllent dissection of blind and irrational bigotry that so exemplify, probably not just but certainly American (mal)-culture.
Yes, let’s stand up, all of us, to the disinformation trolls in all aspects of today’s world. Maybe my four month grandson will actually have a chance in this era.
Thank you so much Saker. I hope your family recognize and appreciates what they are giving up of you for the benefit of true world patriotism.
On the other hand, if ad hominem comments and insults and personal attacks take a toll on you, (and I bet they do because they do me) writing your blog won’t be fun anymore. And when things aren’t fun, morale goes down and things start to suck. You’re probably aware that Tom Feeley has the same problem at ICH so he’s making everybody register. It’s important to look after your emotional well being and besides, you have hurricane hassles to deal with too. Mean spirited comments are clutter actually. They clutter up your blog, but they can clutter your mind too. People can disagree without being disagreeable.
I feel like Tom Feely caved in. Registration I believe is more of a Free Press deterent as it is a way of tracking people, and thus scares away folks who cherish their privacy.
My suggestiion is simply for the editor, or delegated moderator, to filter out all “unacceptable comments.” Sure that is a lot a of work, yes it is censorship,but that will stop the trolls and so long as the censoring is done honestly the readers will forgive the editor. As as to handling the work load, what my cardiologist advised me to do after my heart attack, is to take it all easy, do only what one can do, and don’t worry about the rest. So what if a few quality comments don’t get through so long as the overall quality of the website is maintained.
Cheers, enjoy life; that is most important!
Your blog is better than Colonel Pat Lang’s, at any rate. He delights in talking down, insulting, and then banning anyone he doesn’t like – and for obscure reasons at that. And with this behavior, he thinks he’s keeping the site “civilized.” The rest of his readers bow and scrape towards him like dogs.
But at least there isn’t much in the way of trolls since anyone he doesn’t like is labeled a troll and banned. :-)
OTOH, it’s hard to tell when you’re banned. I’ve been told I’m banned repeatedly, but he still keeps publishing my stuff. :-) On occasion, when my argument is better than his, he just doesn’t publish the post thereby not having to respond.
First they came for the trolls…
I might be a troll. I can see how I could be classified as one.
Occasionally I write things like…Dear Saker, did you know Trump was 70 years, 7 months and 7 days old on the day of his inauguration.?
I point things out like…Obama selected Trump to be his successor. A fact evidenced by Obama’s team gifting Hillary with the logic of her selecting Trump as her opponent, and by the actions of Comey pulling whatever rug she had left under her out a fortnight before the vote.
This Troll pointed that out.
It is a fact Putin was exactly 777 months old the day he met Trump in Hamburg. It was Putin’s birthday. It was the 7/7/017.
I think that is news worthy and worth sharing into the info streaming through this wonderful blog.
First they came for the pests…
VV Putin is born on Oct 7, 1952
The Vineyard is a special environment.
It is global, first of all. It has truly deep and knowledgeable commenters.
Saker is erudite, cosmopolitan in many ways, open-minded in many ways, utterly polite and equipped with a sense of humor as well as a great education and wide reading background.
It deserves to be treated with respectful behavior.
A few rules enforced should clean it up.
Visitors should use a little decent self-restraint in comments.
Conflating “war” , which in theory is an abnormal and temporary condition, with the expenditure of energy necessary to maintain the intellectual equilibrium in Saker-symposia, which is without end, may be misleading. Maintenance of this equilibrium might be compared to the daily chores on the farm, they’re ongoing, for as long as you farm. The difference is that war ends, some time, Work does not. Maintenance is simply work.
A prudent silence might help the moderator’s efforts, as might a thoughtful turning away from strife-making.
Good luck.
LZ
One possible solution would be to allow any site visitor to vote for or against any given comment. If he/she thinks a comment ADDS to the discussion (even where he/she might not agree with the comment) he/she could vote FOR it. If he/she thinks a comment does NOT add to the discussion, he/she would vote AGAINST that comment.[1] Comments with more favourable responses would remain posted in full on the same page, whilst those with ufavourable responses would have only an excerpt posted on the page, with the full comment being placed elsewhere and linked to from the excerpt. That way outright censorship would not be necessary.
The less favourable are the visitor responses to a given post, the less prominent it would be. The excerpt from the post could be made still smaller and/or it’s font size reduced.
I don’t think that the technical difficulties of implementing such a facility would be insurmountable for most programmers.
FOOTNOTE[S]
[1] Often discussion can even be cluttered by well-meaning people when they repeat what has already been posted. I would vote against such a post, even if I agreed with it, if it only repeated what had already been written in preceding posts or in the article.
As it stands, that is trusting people to be honest.
Under your system trolls would mob us — upvoting their gang’s nonsense and downvoting worthwhile comments. And that’s assuming one computer user = one vote, which will not be the case. Such a system could easily be swamped and the comments sections turned into their graffiti walls.
If there were some way to create the category “trusted user” without too severely compromising annonymity, those votes would honestly reflect an intelligent consensus.
(In reality, nobody online is really annonymous. I post comments using my real e-mail address, which — assuming interest on its part — any real state surveilence already knows and logs anyhow).
FWIW
Zionists call me “anti-Semite,” while Neo-Nazis accuse me of being “Jewish.” I think that any forum is better off without such people that only want to engage in name-calling. It does seem that many alternative news sites do have a lot of people in the comment boxes that espouse Neo-Nazi type beliefs. However, many of them may be undercover Western agents (provocateurs) trying to discredit or disrupt the alternative press. In any case, it seems perfectly fair that posters are asked to refrain from making violent or disruptive comments.
There are too numerous examples that walking over this ‘field’ is extremely dangerous, because it is a minefield. It should be walked with extreme caution, because the mines are so cleverly placed (buried at different depths and triggered by different types of detonators) that they might blow out when you expect it less.
Dear Saker, here is an Island which shares your name.!
Saker Island, Euphrates River, Syria.
https://southfront.org/russian-mod-syrian-troops-crossed-euphrates-using-pontoon-bridge-liberated-villages-eastern-bank/
One way of course to, in a big way, prevent the problem would be to not allow “replies” to comments. Only allow comments to be made. But the problem with that is ,that is a major reason people comment on the site. They either agree with a comment and want to say so,and add to it. Or in other cases they disagree and want to rebut the other comment. That leads to “wars” of comments in many cases. But all in all,allowing replies keeps people interested in coming here.I think its the “rock and the hard place”. And that (barring a few exceptions sometimes) the blog does a good job at “coloring between the lines”, and keeping the conversation civil.
if locus in quo is Symposium, then replies is dialogue (we hope!) and symposia cannot exist without dialogue…
Most regulars would agree, I guess, that all in all the Saker’s commentary and moderation policies work very well. It allows for a very wide range of opinions to be shared and discussed while keeping the toxicity threshold low enough so that people feel safe enough to come out and share thoughts and feelings that are close to their hearts but may not be universally accepted.
To hear that over 30% of the comments on Zuesse’s ‘Is It Really True…?” piece got filtered out is to anyone who at least made an attempt to read it : ) not much of a surprise.
The high percentage is also a clear indication that for once not only ‘trolls, imbeciles and other pests’ were trashed, but that in our taboo-less society the taboo of the ”Jewish question’ looms as large as it did a thousand years ago. Like it or not, it is really true.
Dear Saker,
Please do not waste time or energy on this ‘war’. It is just a feint to distract you and your moderators and drain your energy.
Create some simple guidelines for trashing comments, and have the moderators enforce it. No need for you to spend time poking through the trash.
Best,
Stephen
“Create some simple guidelines f…”
Oh! How I wish these existed! And they do, lets us be polite – this custom is proved in all natios and especially here in a quasi Slavic space…
There’s the door. If people cannot be polite and speak/write in constructive contributive communal agency…then they may go…
This requires that some agency must show them the door…it is work…and that’s simply why such “guests” are seen as rude…they cost in an unreasonable way, they, if you like, “steal”. This is part of the cost of being man, civilized, aware, and not simply an animal…one must from time to time expend the energy and time and resources to show some people the door…
It’s simply chores, like on the farm…
Dear Saker
The very first to do: Thank you so much for your very intelligent political analysis you give to us every day!
Next thing: So much thanks, you want to get into the problem of ideologist comments that are plain stupid.
Please let me explain my view of things: I am not specialist on Israel, nor on palestinians, but one thing i know for sure: Israels politics right now is something between apartheid and genozid. I dare to say the government of Israel of today has been Hitler´s best students.
But on the other hand, I see a big difference between the government and the people who are born as jews and grew up as jews worldwide. Of course Israel is a kind of dream for them, but is it really the politics of Netanjahou??? Is it not the country, the place of their ancestors, rather than the “modern” Israel? If all the jews in this world are so egoistic, condemning other peoples, so why they would not go to “Haaretz Israel” within one year, all of them???
I will tell all of your “Aryans”: These people do believe in a dream, but they don´t believe in Israels right wing politicians who are now torturing human beings called Paestinians. Who are right now delivering support to headchopping Isis. Who are in bed with Saudis, beating and raping women wherever they can . These People, whom you calling jews with such a spitting condemnation are very much aware of the difference between their dream of a common home and the rough reality of a so called jewish government they would never ever want to live in !
And what concerns your 1% Riches: The relations have been been showed up in a very good article here. Read it! Greed is nothing that could be stopped by a religion or be forced by a religion. If you want to talk about greed, you need to talk about the nature of human beings, better said about the nature of sick human beings and by the way, the sickness of greed goes in most cases with the sickness of racism, because only if you deny humanity to a human being you don´t feel bad about stripping this person of all his / hers goods!
Sorry if my English is not best, Iam not a native speaker , but at least I tried it. Could not keep my mouth shut this time!
Thank you Saker!
Big Like you :)
ladytramp
I am not a frequent reader and almost do not write here. But there are publications I spare quite a time to read together with the comments.
One thing I notice is that post go through approval procedure which by itself is an enormous task, requiring time and mental effort.
The other thing – When the new Saker site started I looked for an option to register and not fill in the form every time I want to post an opinion. Maybe I am not looking at the right place but I didn’t find a registration entry. Registration will not stop human trolls but will allow to users to be easily identified.
It’s a global problem. Forums, for example, have tools to reject registration to bots by identifying them through several approaches. Also there is a reporting to a moderator option which helps the moderator or administrator to quickly identify a potential troll or offensive poster.
And, Saker, it seems to me you have become less tollerant to people who do not share your views every time. That’s a dangerous track.
You can not fight against something infinite!
Two quotes: a) Gegen Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens. Against Stupidity even the gods fight in vain. ( German proverb)
b) I know of two things infinite: the universe and human stupidity. About the former I am not so sure. (Albert Einstein)