This may be the worst comments section(Disqus administered)I've ever seen on this site

19 posts / 0 new

Mon, 2016-10-17 20:49

Ken Burch

https://disqus.com/home/discussion/rabbleca/how_free_speech_was_used_as_...

This was a discussion of what happened at a Halifax Pride meeting, in which straight people took over the meeting to prevent the adoption of an anti-"pinkwashing" motion proposed by a LGBTQ Arab group.

In reaction to it, a Holocaust denier and a supposed "class struggle" supporter have tried to tie the question of dissenting about Israeli treatment of Palestinians to their revisionist(denialist) views on the Holocaust.

I've tried to stand up to them, but they won't stop.

Could really use some anti-fascist reinforcements here.

Mon, 2016-10-17 23:16

sherpa-finn

Having looked quickly through the thread, I will admit that I am impressed by your stamina Ken. But there is not enough time in this life to deal with Holocaust deniers - this is a case for quick and incisive moderator intervention, IMHO.

Or are there different rules of behaviour in the comments sections of Babble blogs?

Mon, 2016-10-17 23:19

6079_Smith_W

Do you have a link to the actual article? I read it a few days ago, but can't find it again, as it is off the main page.

Mon, 2016-10-17 23:46

sherpa-finn

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/nora-loreto/2016/10/how-free-speech-was-...

Tue, 2016-10-18 02:29

Ken Burch

sherpa-finn wrote:

Having looked quickly through the thread, I will admit that I am impressed by your stamina Ken. But there is not enough time in this life to deal with Holocaust deniers - this is a case for quick and incisive moderator intervention, IMHO.

Or are there different rules of behaviour in the comments sections of Babble blogs?

There do indeed seem to be different policies, or at least different people enforcing or failing to enforce any rules at all...for some reason, they've turned thr blog comments sections over to Disqus, and Disqus is notorious for not enforcing any particular rules over posts on the weekend.

As to my "stamina"...I have three grown stepchildren of Jewish ancestry. So I have to make sure this shit isn't left unchallenged. And I'm astonished that the mods haven't stepped in as of yet.

Tue, 2016-10-18 04:47

lagatta

It is important to contact the mods about this, if not they have their hands full with stuff on this board. Turning the comments over to Disqus was a disaster - there are people banned here who are active over there, including rightwingers who are against medicare (though they are careful about how they frame that) and climate change deniers, among other things such as antisemites and other racists, homophobes, garden-variety misogynists etc.

Tue, 2016-10-18 06:14

Ken Burch

I flagged every post, have pm'd one of our Babble mods, contacted the Rabble site admins.

Will now contact Disqus directly.

BTW, lagatta, I tried to send you a pm about this. Did you get it?

Tue, 2016-10-18 08:55

lagatta

No, for some reason it wasn't flagged, so I didn't know I had a new message. I have it now, and certainly agree. The troll at Karl Nerenberg's blog about Trump's lies about the Canadian healthcare system was BOASTING about he had already been banned here (he was also a climate denier, a poor-basher and perhaps other nasty things). I flagged him all over the place as counter to rabble policy - one post where he called me a "communist" seems to have been deleted. At least he used a small c - I don't give a shit whether I'm called a socialist or a communist, but of course he is is not referring to the "commons" or even the Communist Manifesto but insinuating support to totalitarian régimes such as North Korea of all places... Ecosocialism draws on various strains of socialism, antistalinist communism and anarchism, somehow I don't think that is what he meant.

Lots of things are "socialised" or put in common in capitalist states anyway - roads, schools (at least to some extent) police and military, sewers, fire departments... I've never heard those people complaining about highways.

Tue, 2016-10-18 12:20

MegB

The issue is being dealt with. Thanks for the heads up Ken!

Tue, 2016-10-18 12:44

#10

lagatta

Thanks Meg. We know that the mods have a lot of work just with us babblers - without others who are wilfully flouting Rabble's Rules of Order...

Tue, 2016-10-18 13:34

#11

bagkitty

Thanks for fighting the good fight Ken. I had read the original posting when it first went up and there was only a single, non-denial, comment below. Didn't realize we had sewage leaking in.

Tue, 2016-10-18 19:46

#12

Ken Burch

MegB wrote:

The issue is being dealt with. Thanks for the heads up Ken!

You're welcome, Meg. I just hope this leads to the Rabblearchy beginning to reconsider the decision to have Disqus run the blog comment threads.

Sat, 2017-06-17 21:05

#13

radiorahim radiorahim's picture

When rabble.ca decided to adopt Disqus, somebody wrote that it wasn't a great idea.

Sat, 2017-06-17 21:34

#14

Unionist

I notice there were no Disqus comments on "somebody"'s op-ed.

Sat, 2017-06-17 23:06

#15

quizzical

i'm on Chapter 6. it's different reading our story instead of "hearing" it.

there's a family crisis going on so i'm distracted reading and only doing so and being here to try and keep my mind from freaking.

Sat, 2017-08-19 18:28

#16

progressive17 progressive17's picture

As a new user I found it kind of weird that I could not use my rabble account to comment on a rabble blog.

Mon, 2017-08-21 13:41

#17

Boze

Wtf is "pinkwashing"?

Oh, I see. It's about silencing people.

I am no fan of the Israeli state, but it should really be possible for both pro- and anti-Israeli left forces to fucking get along, shouldn't it?

NO purity tests.

Mon, 2017-08-21 13:48

#18

progressive17 progressive17's picture

If people form a protest group, they are going to want to hang on to power. Others with a different viewpoint and the same general enemy are bigger enemies than the general enemy. They could cause the original protest group to break up, or even worse the people in charge of that protest group could lose power. There are very few who are willing to die or resign for the betterment of the group as a whole.

Tue, 2017-11-14 17:57

#19

lagatta4

Boze, "pinkwashing" means using Israel's supposed tolerance of LGBT+ people as a means of deflecting criticism of their mistreatment of the Indigenous population. I'm sure that LGBT+ people do fare better in Tel Aviv than either in the Palestinian Territories or in the more religious parts of Israel. But far-right fundie Israelis have also stabbed people for being either LGBT+ or allies.

But back to the core question here: I've been attacked very recently by TWO identities on different subjects: Catalonia and the Projet Montréal election victory. I have no idea whether Anon (one of many Anons...) and "Lawrence" are actually different trolls, a tag-team or one shithead who has it in for me for whatever reason. I have flagged both of them but to no avail. Is there anywhere to repatriate commenting on rabble and babble content? I don't want to waste my time arguing against filth that thinks it is ok for the Spanish police to beat and jail peaceful advocates of Catalan independence (as I recall, I didn't express an opinion on the latter in that subject) or who think the utterly necessary plan for a new métro line is "imaginary", along with other extremely bizarre stuff he said about "opiod addicts".

All of this has been flagged, to no avail. It is obvious intimidation.