Persistence of Vision

Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments

Posted by ALP on November 4, 2009, 9:53:50

I think the Guardian's CiF section must get a huge audience. 807 comments in one day for a recent Monbiot piece. My blog got over 1,000 hits from it in the morning alone - from a link in one of the comments (which itself got 280 recommendations). What percentage of people even bother scrolling down to the comments? And out of those, what proportion would click on a link buried in a long (and somewhat off-topic) comment?

In his previous CiF piece Monbiot wrote that Blair is a “mass murderer”, “contemptuous of democracy” who “greases up to wealth and power and lets the poor go to hell”, etc. And I assume that this had a massive web audience - way above the Guardian (newspaper) readership, perhaps. So, let's say that 100,000 or more people saw Monbiot's piece on the web. Many of these readers may live in other countries, perhaps the US. Perhaps some of them are not accustomed to seeing Great Democratic Leaders and Friends of America described as mass murderers? And they could equally have read something from the BBC website about Blair's mission to bring democracy to... or some such bull. So is it a "disaster for progressive change" when Monbiot wrote that Blair was “contemptuous of democracy”, etc, in the Guardian? Would that be an insightful take on the Propaganda Model? Answers on a postcard to Prof Chomsky...

Link: Monbiot Cif piece - comments

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Re: Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments

Posted by Michael Hardiman on November 4, 2009, 10:01:45, in reply to "Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments"

His words would have carried so much more weight if there hadn't been a Ryanair advert on the same page, so insightful yet so fultile...phnar phnar.

Seriously, I'd say I read comments from less than 1% of the articles I read, are others who post here the same? You stat would be a very conservative estimate if I were the norm. Good hint for bloggers who get upset with ony two or three visits a day.

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Re: Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments

Posted by Philip Challinor on November 4, 2009, 12:27:39, in reply to "Re: Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments"

Yes, I'm the same. The few comments I have looked at divide more or less neatly into great atricle i agree coompletley!!!! and this is crap lol, neither of which tends to help either my knowledge of the world or my tolerance of free speech.

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Meanwhile, my FlashForward. Somewhere on the Internet, 2037...

Posted by ALP on November 4, 2009, 12:54:44, in reply to "Re: Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments"

Comment 947
this is crap lol

Comment 948
great atricle i agree coompletley!!!!

Comment 949
"atricle", "coompletley!!!!" LOL. Verisimilitude appreciated. LOL

Comment 950
This comment has been removed by a moderator. Replies may also be deleted.

Comment 951
WTF!!

Comment 952
Oooooooooooooooooooooh bite me! SMOKE MA DOBBER! BITE MA BANGER! BITE IT, BITE IT, GO OAN, YA FOOKING TOTAL HOOR YE...

etc...

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Re: Meanwhile, my FlashForward. Somewhere on the Internet, 2037...

Posted by jimmy on November 4, 2009, 21:15:56, in reply to "Meanwhile, my FlashForward. Somewhere on the Internet, 2037..."

Comment 952
Oooooooooooooooooooooh bite me! SMOKE MA DOBBER! BITE MA BANGER! BITE IT, BITE IT, GO OAN, YA FOOKING TOTAL HOOR YE...

--------------

Another bad day for Scotland.

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Re: Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments

Posted by Kebz on November 4, 2009, 14:30:35, in reply to "Re: Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments"

I gave up about two weeks after Cif started. The whole thing is a waste of space given that certain trolls who dominate the place and regularly post xenophobic crap seemingly without any intervention. Yet the moderators censor any comments that criticise a. the guardian itself or b. Israel for terrorism against Palestinians.

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Re: Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments

Posted by ALP on November 4, 2009, 14:49:43, in reply to "Re: Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments"

Kebz:
>> Yet the moderators censor any comments that criticise
>> a. the guardian itself or b. Israel for terrorism against
>> Palestinians.

"Any" as in "all", or "most" or just "some"?

From what I've seen of it, the moderators seem mostly to do okay (although I may have missed cases typical of what you refer to) - certainly better than several "political" boards I can think of in the non-corporate realm. I agree, though, that the quality of posts is not great in most cases that I've seen.

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Re: Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments

Posted by Kebz on November 4, 2009, 19:48:36, in reply to "Re: Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments"

Speaking from personal experience really. I posted several comments on this type of theme. They were all removed. On one occasion I was actually banned. I don't see anything controversial about criticising Israel when it carries out acts of terror against Palestinian civilians. Calling them terrorist acts, when Israel was the guilty party, was somehow against the rules. It seems that in the Guardian official opinion, the US/UK/Israel do not do 'terrorism', merely 'self-defence' or 'peacekeeping'. Maybe your experience is different, but I don't see it as good moderation when such points are suppressed but posts accusing muslims of being the enemy within are permitted at the same time.

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MORE censorship required at cif?

Posted by theSufi on November 4, 2009, 15:45:08, in reply to "Re: Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments"

as heavily moderated as are the comments threads to monbiot's increasingly shrill rants against those he deems sinful, i enjoy reading them as he still gets regularly slaughtered.

this latest particularly is a ad-hominem classic. according to prof. moonbat (psychiatrist as well as climatologist! is there no end to this man's talents?), in a reversal of the common belief that age begats wisdom, the old (personified in this case by clive james) are in fact mired in "denialism" resulting from psychological problems associated with a fear of impending death. and definitely NOT because, as several respondents pointed out, they have generally benefited from a/ a better education than their juniors and b/ their past experience of numerous prior bogus green alarmist crusades.

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'Spiral of Silence' theory

Posted by ALP on November 4, 2009, 10:25:33, in reply to "Monbiot CiF post -- 807 comments"

Not directly related, but see the section titled: "Spiral of silence on the Internet"

The spiral of silence is a political science and mass communication theory propounded by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. The theory asserts that a person is less likely to voice an opinion on a topic if one feels that one is in the minority for fear of reprisal or isolation from the majority.

[...]

The medium of the Internet has the power to free people from the fear of social isolation, and in doing so, shuts down the spiral of silence. The Internet allows people to find a place where they can find groups of people with like mindsets and similar points of view.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_of_silence

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