Can blogging be made less abrasive ?

Updated Wed 11th at 12:30


"Bloggers urged to help clean up the web" is the title of an article by Toby Harnden and Sally Peck in today's Telly.

I had spotted this item in the Guardian this morning, and quickly resolved to make it the subject of the next post. Come 10 am I was halfway through writing it. But it all became too depressing for words, arguing for a few ground rules. Why ? Because I could hear the howls of protest. Who needs censorship ! Protect our freedom of speech ! The blog is a free spirit, not bound by the constraints of the printed page ! Away with you, Stalin/Hitler/ Attila the Hun (delete as appropriate).

It's some high-profile bloggers in the States who are pushing for a code of conduct, backed up by an easily recognized "kite"symbol that signals you have entered a zone of civility, policed by a blogmeister who has signed up to the scheme. Beyond that, it all got very technical and wordy, and I was frankly not inclined to take in all the detail. But rescue was at hand in the form of a "wiki", which invited one to contribute one's own ideas, which go into the melting point along with everyone elses. Well, that sounded like the soft option, so here's what I quickly bashed off to "Blogging Wikia" , sending a copy, natch, to the Comments under Toby's article.

Toby's really going to have to slow down. This shadowing of Telly blogs is getting to be hard work when he's around !


"I suspect that attempts to simulate an MSM level of moderation/censorship in personal blogs are doomed to failure. Most folk feel the disadvantages outweigh the advantages, and are prepared to tolerate a bit of hassle and occasional victimisation. It's sad but true.

Being myself the victim of chronic low-level harassment, verging occasionally on stalking behaviour, I've tried to read the mind of the perpetrator, and to think how posting might be made a little more difficult for that individual.

I know that I myself from time to time take a dislike to certain bloggers who post remarks that are predictable and banal, and feel tempted to get in with an instant riposte. But that's hardly grown up, is it, to become a kind of bull at whom someone waves a red flag, and off one goes at full gallop ?

Here's my remedy: there should be an understanding that all comments added to a new blog post must be comprehensible to someone visiting the blog for the first time. There must be no obscure references, in-jokes, wind-ups etc that would require the visitor to go searching back through the archives to find out what it was all about. Put more simply, one must not bring baggage to a new blog posting.

But what of the situation in which a fellow blogger has been banging on incessantly about a particular obsession, and is getting everybody's back up. In other words, "single-issue man/woman". Simple: if you want to raise it as an issue, then do so directly. Summarise, in a few well-chosen words, the source of irritation, rather than engage in sniping. That way the newcomers are quickly apprised of the problem, and can offer an opinion, thus opening up the perceived problem for general discussion."

Summary:Never bring baggage to a new blog posting. If it's your blog, prevent others from doing so.

In a few words, clamp down hard on "carry-over" of unresolved disputes.


Update: Wednesday 11th, 09:30 There's a must-read on this topic by Jonathan Freedland in today's Guardian with its reference to "point-scoring males" (aka survival of the loudest)


See also Shane Richmond's latest blog post ("Let the Internet look after itself") which appeared yesterday. He makes the interesting point that blogs can be self-regulating, to the extent that people will vote with their feet if a clique of boorish individuals monopolize a particular site. He chose not to illustrate with an example that springs readily to mind, which is perhaps understandable, but a pity all the same.

Oops: I could be accused of breaking my own rule there - dropping heavy hints that leave newcomers wondering who is being got at. So let's not mince our words. The blog to which I refer is Colin Randall's "Salut!". It gets plenty of hits each day, probably 4 times as many as this one, but there are long periods when it attracts few if any comments. Yet look at Colin Randall's
recent appearance on the Guardian's "Comment is Free". That attracts dozens of lively comments, so one cannot argue that Colin's prose has lost its charm - far from it.

There is a simple reason, or rather two, why people read Salut!, but decline to leave comments. They are called "Bill Taylor" and "Richard of Orléans". They fit Freedland's description of "point-scoring males" to a tee, although I could add a few extra tags myself.
One of them - the journalist- can write well, and has a good line in wit, but only when he has cleared the blog of all perceived rivals, and is then free to hold court.

I'm not saying anything I have not said already. Late last year I advised the resident rottweilers to take a three month holiday from Colin Randall's blog, by way of letting in some new blood in the Comments section . Advice ignored - and the result is plain for all to see.

Moving on, I guess it's everybody's duty to be on the lookout for humbug, and be prepared to become whistleblowers when they find it. Here was my good turn to the blogosphere yesterday re maintaining a respect for truth and transparency: it was sent as a second contribution to the Harnden/Peck thread referred to above:


"On my blog I have the option of publishing or rejecting any comment that visitors post. I do not publish objectionable comments. - No problem... (o:"

Posted by Margarete on April 10, 2007 1:32 PM


I have just visited Margarete's blog. There is not a single comment attached to her last 36 posts no less (that's where I stopped scrolling down). In fact it's not a blog at all - it's a shopwindow for her theory that obesity is caused by excessive salt consumption, and that what we thought was fat is actually just water(!). I've posted a negative comment, but it "will not appear until approved by the author ". One is not holding one's breath ...... Posted by Colin Berry on April 10, 2007 6:53 PM

No doubt she would accuse me of hypocrisy if making a cursory visit to Dreams and Daemons. But just a reminder: I have had most reluctantly to close down the separate Comments section due to harassment by a pair of ill-disposed individuals ("point-scoring males"). The option of deleting abusive comment is not workable if said individuals then leave comments on other blogs to the effect that I am authoritarian, an enemy of free speech blah blah blah. Thanks to those of you who have used the email facility.


Update Wed 12:30 pm. I have just submitted the following to the comments facility underneath Shane Richmond's article:


Fears about curbing free speech are a red-herring, one that distracts from the real issue, but which gets referred to only once in the above article.

The real issue is one of harassment, which sometimes leads by degrees to stalking behaviour. Harassment is at best tedious, but in the example quoted, is decidedly sinister.
Targetting and harassment of fellow bloggers is, I believe, often a manifestation of obsessive-compulsive behaviour. As such, it's unhealthy, and ought to be recognized and addressed.

I share peoples' concerns for the sanctity of free speech. But if each time I stepped inside my local, the same guy jumped out, grabbed me by the lapels, berated me for being personally complicit in some subject dear to his heart, let's say the Slave Trade, and then began calling me all the names under the sun, I would expect the publican to step in on my behalf. That's because the haranguer is abusing someone else's hospitality, ie it's not his pub.

And it's the pub's trade that stands to suffer if allowed to go unchecked.

Update 16:15 No comments have appeared (the above one having been found wanting, it would appear !)

Update 15:50 Resubmitted the rejected piece to Shane Richmond's blog on the same topic, prefaced with the following preamble :


Title: Maybe the ground's less stony here ?

Comments were invited at the end of Shane Richmond's article in the main body of the paper, but so far, none has appeared, including this one that I made earlier. Maybe the blog moderators are a little less pernickety, so here's a copy:


And guess what ? It appeared almost immediately !

Update 18:50 : Have just added the following to the end of Colin Randall's blog on the Guardian's Comment is Free:

"Great bunch of comments, everybody. Have you considered posting to Colin Randall's Salut! blog ? Infusion of new blood urgently needed there in the Comments section!"

http://colinrandallfrance.blogspot.com/


Comments invited: emails to sciencebod01@aol.com

Is it time to crack down on internet harassment ?

I have just submitted the following to Shane Richmond's "April Fool" blog:

"There is a pressing issue that maybe needs discussing next Thursday, Shane.
It's to do with harassment, which comes in many different forms. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

***************************************

Types of harassment

There are a number of harassments that fall into this category.

Bullying

Harassment that can occur on the playground, school, in the workforce or any other place. Usually physical and psychological harassing behaviour perpetrated against an individual, by one or more persons.

Psychological harassment

This is humiliating or abusive behavior that lowers a person’s self-esteem or causes them torment. This can take the form of verbal comments, actions or gestures. Falling into this category is workplace mobbing.

Racial harassment

The targeting of an individual because of their race or ethnicity. The harassments include words, deeds, and actions, that are specifically designed to make the target feel degraded due to their race of origin or ethnicity.

Religious harassment

Verbal, psychological or physical harassment's used against targets because they choose to practice a specific religion.

Sexual harassment

Harassment that can happen anywhere but is most common in the workplace, and schools. It involves unwanted and unwelcome, words, deeds, actions, gestures, symbols, or behaviours of a sexual nature that make the target feel uncomfortable. Gender and sexual orientation harassment fall into this family.

Stalking

The unauthorized following and surveillance of an individual, to the extent that the persons privacy is unacceptably intruded upon, and the victim fears for their safety.

*******************************************
Anyone who follows Telegraph blogs cannot have failed to notice two quite obvious examples:

1. The harrassment of one particular individual (myself) by another, clearly visible on this thread, but which has been going on now for the best part of a year.

2. The harassment by one individual of his own ethnic group (Anglo-Saxons)which from his adopted home in France he now views with utter contempt. So great is that person's obsession with the anti-Brit agenda that one senses that he scrutinises every blogger's post on the Telegraph for the opportunities it offers for his baiting and demonising that, quite apart from anything else (fair play, good taste etc), is usually a distraction from the issues under discussion.


In both examples, I would guess that we are seeing a kind of obsessive-compulsive behaviour.

OK, so we are not supposed to dabble in amateur psychology, and I certainly have no training in that area, but one has at least to try to understand and rationalise what is going on around one. The question I would ask is this: should the Telegraph moderators be on the look-out for harassment, and if they find it, what should be their response ?

My obviously biased opinion would be as follows:

Firstly: they should state that harassment in whatever shape or form will not be tolerated.

Secondly, it should be open to any individual to claim that past comments constitute a long-term systematic attempt at harassment. If the complaint is upheld, then all the offending comments should be retrospectively erased from the archives, being replaced by a standard message eg "Comment deleted due to breach of Telegraph guidelines".

It should be apparent to Shane Richmond that his belated April Fool's joke has been pushed to the back of this particular writer's mind, despite my being part of his Aunt Sally line-up. That's because there are weightier matters that need to be dealt with.

What defects of personality or character will Bill Taylor discover in this comment, one wonders ? Be on the lookout for the P word, but ask yourself if it's not something that better applies to him.

And one wonders what defects of Anglo-Saxon character Richard of Orléans will discover, and consider it his personal prerogative to expose ?

Today seemed as good a day as any to lance a few boils ( well, two of them, anyway)


Comments welcome: emails to sciencebod01@aol.com

Those special relationships

Here's a picture of one of the recent additions to the seafront-furniture at Antibes.

ed: for full screen enlargement, just "point and click" on the photo

It really speaks for itself. It's a weather-resistant reproduction of a painting by Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier , dated 1868. The plaque (see close-up below) reads "Antibes, la promenade à cheval, l'artiste et son fils Charles.

How's that, then, for a self-portrait ? To put yourself in centre picture, astride a horse, and then to fit in two family members as well . Yes, two: his son, who's also mounted, and his pet dog, by the looks of it, leading the way . It could be someone else's dog, I suppose. Or a private family joke !

But from a casual tourist perspective, the genius is in the siting of the picture. Not only is Antibes' fortified headland in the background, with those two iconic Saracen towers, but the picture is sited at or very close to where the artist must have sat when he painted it. Even for a first time visitor, it's fascinating to do a before -and- after comparison.

For local residents like ourselves, there's the extra interest from seeing precisely what used to be there, before most of the ramparts were knocked down in the late 19th century. It was felt, probably correctly, that Vauban's fortifications were a noose around the town, acting as a stranglehold on development.

It's fascinating to think that when it was painted, some 138 years ago, the hills behind Gourdon and Grasse were visible. They are now blanked out by the 20th century apartment blocks.

Sometimes pictures that I post to this blog enlarge when one "points and clicks" . Sometimes they don't, and I haven't yet figured out why. If this one enlarges (and I can't tell until I hit the Publish key) then you'll probably find that with this one, there's a real sense of being there.

ed: Glory be, the first one does indeed enlarge ! But not the second. Weird ..... But the second was dragged and dropped. Maybe that's the explanation .... Any ideas, you Blogger techies ?

That's despite the non-designer clothing etc. Some artists just have that knack, would you not agree, of making their pictures forever fresh and immediate ?

There are now at least 5 (and allegedly 6) of these repro' art features in Antibes. There's another just a few feet away which is by Claude Monet (1888, Antibes, effet d'après midi) , and almost identical to the one in my margin display, and from the same series.


Others include the charming and whimsical Raymond Peynet (1985, Les Amoureux aux Remparts), again, strategically sited to reproduce the artist's vantage point, with his behatted delicate-looking shoulder-length hair hero and bride in the foreground. His work, which is perhaps a little dated now ( that clothing again) is displayed in a dedicated museum in the centre of Antibes). And there's a pure town/seascape by Eugène Boudin, 1893, Le Port d'Antibes.

Further along, near where the pétanque is played, there's another by Henri-Edmond Cross , 1908, in pointilliste style, called simply Antibes . I used to be a dab hand myself (literally) in that genre, when marker pens first appeared on the shelves at WH Smith, but my work from that era, done during long and often boring biochemistry lectures, has now been sadly and irrevocably lost.

For the reasons mentioned earlier, I shall hold back from posting all the pictures now. If the present ones "enlarge on demand" then I'll try cautiously adding others later.

All are of the same design: enamelled (?) on to a sturdy lava base. Or maybe the artwork is a modern baked resin. Irrespective, one just hopes it will be spared the attentions of the spray-can vandals, whose handiwork is visible on the neighbouring public safety notices etc. How I wish the media would drop the term "graffiti artist". Anyone who blights the environment does not deserve to be dignified by the term "artist".


How good it is to see this civic pride, in what is admittedly an exceptional location that has captivated artists and vistitors alike for centuries. If Antibes can't get it right, who can ?


One of the things I like about France is the way in which art is integrated into everyday life. One sees it so many different ways - street furniture, such as lamps, fencing, barriers, things that in Britain would be seen as utilitarian, and done in the cheapest way possible.

It's the small details that make all the difference - bevelling an edge here, decorative perforation there, angling instead of boring right angles, out-of-plane alignment of slats, hexagonal setts in retaining walls, and so it goes on. Loving detail, and realization that there's more to life than keeping proletarian noses pressed against grindstones. even if that does ensure a continuing flow of billions into Treasury coffers, occasionally to be spent wisely, but as often as not, squandered upon one misguided pet project after another .

Note a touch of disillusionement with UK politics creeping in there. Beware, there's more of that to come. It 's possibly the imminent coronation of Gordon Brown which has a lot to do with it. I made my views on the brooding hermit of No.11 a while ago in a submission to the Times's debate

I used to think he ought to get out more. Well, now he's out, in Africa, India, promising to underwrite their education and infrastructure problems with UK taxpayers' money.
One hesitates to remind Gordon that charity begins at home. But his munificence with our money will sooner or later rebound on him. How long before we hear the inevitable charges of neocolonialism again ?

Visiting my old haunts in the Home Counties there's a roundabout that's been planted out, but the whole effect is destroyed by a collection of hurdle-like, foot-high advertising signs. They were installed presumably at the behest of the local insurance firm that paid for the so-called enhancement. But why be so crass as to advertise their sponsorship in situ, largely counterproductive in terms of aesthetics ? And why use private money anyway for something so public ? Just to save a miserable fraction of a penny on the rates when vast amounts disappear elsewhere into blackholes, (eg like my index-linked public service pension ) ?

Heathrow Airport is not Britain's greatest national asset, but at least it used to greet one, with a sign over that tunnel entrance (next to where the Concorde mock-up is parked) . The sign "Welcome to Heathrow Airport" disappeared sometime in the aftermath of the Thatcher era, and is now replaced with some smug self-satisfied advertising, again, for some financial services company, like Quickfleece and Partners (Bishopsgate).

Driving up the M1 over Christmas , it was depressing to pass under the same old concrete bridges that were there in my student days, en route to Birmingham on that pre-Honda but nevertheless nippy, BSA motorbike. Except those bridges used to be fresh grey concrete, not pretty, but at least new-looking . Now they are dirty yellow-grey, reminiscent of those wartime pillboxes, some with graffiti old and new. Those mean, penny-pinching bridges, totally devoid of grace or style (unlike the later ones on the M6) , just add to the monotony of having to grind up and down that dreary stretch of highway.

So why don't they replace them ? Where does all the taxpayers' money go, apart from the obvious, like machine-gunning Afghans in their own country. Oh, but one musn't be cynical : you see, they are the wrong kind of Afghans. They're the ones of a traditional mindset who have yet to grasp the subtleties of the western democratic process, like having to be governed by someone you didn't vote for.

But we don't normally go into countries that have what is now referred to in media-talk as an "insurgency campaign" . But this one is special : it's to do with GWB's misdirected and ruinously expensive War on Terror. And it goes without saying that we're expected immediately to spring to America's side. A post-9/11 loyalty test , to stand four square with America, Stars and Stripes fluttering, in her hour, correction, decade (or maybe century ?) of need, because we owe the Americans for coming in on our side in WW2 .

Well, yes, but only after the fall of France and the Low Countries. And only after the Dunkirk evacuation. And only after the Blitz and the Battle of Britain. In fact they waited until after Pearl Harbor, and Japan and Germany's formal declarations of war on the USA. That's when our so-called natural allies suddenly remembered that "special relationship" (if you'll excuse the anachronism, given that the term was not coined until Churchill's post war Fulton speech) .

So Britain became America's springboard for Europe. A kind of offshore aircraft carrier. How convenient. And kindly Uncle Sam gave us long -term loans that allowed us to spread the cost of Anglo-American victory over 60 years (the last instalment having just been paid). No wonder my father had to decline even a few weeks of ruinously expensive home-help in 1951, immediately after my mother died, and my grandmother was subsequently robbed of her retirement. And (back to topic) having to settle for those cheap and nasty bridges on the M1 in 1959.

Special relationship ? The only thing special about it is that we're supposed to be feel privileged and honoured having these back-slapping, arm-twisting , gold-reserve gobbling, long term loan shark -providing , other folks' future-mortgaging cousins as our friends and allies.

Frankly I don't care who wins the next Presidential election. The so-called special relationship will remain what it has always been: a marriage of convenience. America's convenience.

Just think, if we weren't so dewy eyed about the special relationship, we could pull a few battalions out of Afghanistan, and replace all those M1 bridges, and allow the Afghans to decide their own destiny by their own means, even if it meant having the" wrong bunch" in power from time to time.

But from an admittedly hard-nosed military perspective, isn't it a lot easier to let the wrong bunch in, and then target that country's military, all conveniently ensconced in their cosy barracks, than to deal with hit-and-run insurgents, sleeping rough under the stars ?

As for that lost cause called Iraq , well, I just hope the roofs of the US and UK embassies are strong enough to take those helicopters, needed for Saigon style evacuations when the time comes.


Here and there, along the M1, there's been some belated planting of saplings , presumably areas deemed to be environmentally sensitive for one reason or another. It'll be years before a softening effect is achieved, but it will be worth it when it comes. Why is this not more widespread, perhaps as part of a carbon -offsetting project ? But that's a subject on which I have mixed views, certainly different from those voiced on some linked blogs, and one on which I shall be posting shortly. In the mean time, I recommend Anatole Kaletsky's recent tour de force in the Times, which got some backs up, though not mine, as I made clear in some two or three comments.


PS Some may wonder why I have a "meegle" link in the margin, ie Google search for "Dreams and Daemons" . Well, there's some narcissism there , obviously. No sense in denying that. But it's also interesting to observe the new entries, and changes from one day to the next. Thanks to it, I discovered an update in the Guardian's OrganGrinder on Toby Harnden's brush with the wild men of the blogosphere.

More fascinating is the sudden appearance of two posts written weeks ago, one on our "Britannian heritage" the other on the struvite deposit that builds up in loos, often called "limescale" by those keen to sell harsh cleaning agents.

Why those particular posts should have re-surfaced is anyone's guess, but I like to think that at least a handful of folk coming to this blog , following links to my Toby Harnden "scoop" ( in saving to hard drive part of the Telly's blog before they pulled it) roamed around in the archives before moving on.

That was always the intention: to build up some serious content that would always be there, accessible via search engines etc.

I continue to be taunted on Colin Randall's Salut by the intelligent but belligerent citizen/journalist blogger Bill Taylor, a self-confessed wind-up merchant. It's for what he sees as the limited interest in this blog, based on an alleged paucity of comments. Yes, you guessed it. There's history, and it goes way back. And the backbiting continues, despite my abandoning Colin's blog in despair. More about that another day ( if it doesn't stop).

As mentioned before, comments, while generally welcome (provided they are courteous and constructive), are not the be-all and end-all of a blog, certainly not one in its early days.

There is probably no scientific yardstick for measuring the success of a blog, but interlinking with other blogs, as measured by Technorati, is a start. On that criterion, D&D is progressing nicely. Two weeks ago, it had more than a million more highly-ranked (ie linked) blogs. But that is currently down to 340,000, and dipped briefly below 250,000 last week, when the reaction to Toby Harnden's journalist's candour was at its height. Well, thanks Toby ! Your comments may not have done you any favours, given the amount of naivety that's out there about how the dead-tree press operates against deadlines. But you've certainly helped put D&D on the blogosphere map, albeit the equivalent for now of Easter Island. BTW, I know you weren't altogether happy about some of my wording, but the furore seems to have died down now: it's what my grandmother used to call a 9 day wonder.