Monday 16 January 2006

Commenting on the commentators

Deborah Coddington has belatedly discovered blogs and has told the Herald all about it. She finds "Planet Blogger" to be nothing short of "a sad, pathetic sphere..." "I feel genuinely sorry for the blogsite hosts who strive to supply a political service the market obviously wants," she says, before scurrying back to the safety of the MSM, which clearly isn't supplying the market -- or is at least supplying it only very poorly.
This could be a good forum for free discussion. I imagine, however, that the genuine commentators, who use their real names and don't hurl abuse, get fed up and find a life in the real world.
Deborah's sympathy is not something too many bloggers will appreciate, but her bitching about some commenters on some blogs does resonate, even if her understanding of defamation doesn't. (Yes, Deborah, bloggers are subject to the law of defamation as well.) "Illiterate ranters" she calls commenters -- and that's you lot she's talking about, just so you're clear. Being called names herself by some commenters hasn't endeared her to the breed apparently:
What did the pundits say about me on David P Farrar's blogsite? Singling out the most colourful quotes - "anorexic drag queen in high heels", "Boring, Irritable, Testy, Catty, Hateful [spells bitch]", and my favourite - "white trash gold digger".
Poor Deborah. But what is it with some blog commenters anyway? If they're anonymous, they are too frequently rude and unhinged. If they're pseudonymous they're too often too poorly argued. And if they're here at Not PC there's just not too many comments to go around -- at least not so many after the rude and unhinged are deleted. Why Not PC doesn't reap a rich harvest of comments commensurate with the number who read it, I really have no idea - instead, most posts have tumbleweed running through the comments section. I've been told I put people off because I'm "so cold and unfeeling"; because I "use too many big words"; and because, I've been told more than once, I'm "too frightening"! Little old me!

Feel free to leave your own theory below. I promise not to bite. In fact, I won't say anything at all lest I scare you away.

Linked Article: Free rein for illiterate ranters - Deborah Coddington

7 comments:

Oswald Bastable said...

If one wants to see sad and pathetic, try this site:

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

DenMT said...

A large part of it might be that many of your posts don't explicitly invite discussion in the manner of, say, DPF's posts, which often contain inherent cues for response.

For me, your politics are so Martian to me that most of the time it would be too surreal to write comments ;) - however everything is fairly and engagingly (if vociferously) worded, and dissenters get respect, which is fairly rare from my limited perusings of the blogosphere.

Just back from Sweden, and 'blogging' as a phenomenon is getting large amounts of media coverage...

DenMT

Berend de Boer said...

I read the first few paragraphs, and I just cringed. This is a good example of a person loosing their face and not even knowing it. Almost akin to someone writing that he just detected that the earth revolves around the sun.

Berend de Boer said...

Just reading DenMT's comments: what's Martin about believing that NZ would be better off if everyone just kept their own money instead of politicians taking it to bribe a portion of the electorate to vote for them?

It's not that we're doing so well. We gave money to certain countries 40 years ago that since long have surpassed us in quality and quantity of everything.

DenMT said...

Berend: PC's libertarian views on laissez-faire environmentalism are about as far as you can get from my own views, hence the 'Martian' call.

Having said that, he is consistently polite, fair and considered in response whenever I am (infrequently) moved to challenge his arguments, which is more than you can say for most political pundits across the blogosphere. So kudos is due, I think.

Anonymous said...

denmt...PC's views on the enviroment are based on objective facts about man, nature and the laws of cause and effect.He proposes solutions to problems caused by those who didn't realise they were on Planet Earth where A is A and things are what they are and not what we may wish them to be.If there is a Martian on this thread it ain't PC!

Rick said...

Well if there were those among us with the good character to compliment and encourage this resource with their own patronage and genius they might hesitate for fear of being misunderstood, their typos ridiculed (in a pot-kettle-black type way.) I can only speculate, for I know no fear.