Entries Tagged 'incivility' ↓

To our readers, and other bloggers and admins:

As we all know, some people in the world are angry and destructive, and many of those are on the Internet. These angry people exert a negative effect on anyone who has the misfortune to encounter them, even if it is only a feeling of fatigue and disgust. Some angry and destructive persons are genuinely dangerous.

The Internet is a tool that can be used for good or ill. The team at 1389 Blog is working hard to do some good: to use the Internet to confront and curb jihadism and expansionist Islam, and to provide knowledge and tools to others who are working to accomplish the same goals. We will never allow anyone to abuse the comments on this blog for the purpose of undermining this effort.

False accusations, mudslinging, and editorial discretion

We have grown especially weary and disgusted with haters who use blogs, comments, forums, Wikis, social news sites, or email to circulate false allegations against others - whether it be public figures, other bloggers, entire groups of people, or whomever else they hate. Despite claims of “fairness” and “impartiality,” disinformation has been planted throughout Wikipedia and other social media, where it becomes fuel for flame wars, mudslinging, and propaganda.

Typically, one or more responders will put in hours or days of unpaid effort to refute those accusations, but then, the malicious accuser simply goes elsewhere and starts the same process all over again.

We have other things to do besides responding to the same falsehoods again and again. If these miscreants can’t win the argument on facts and logic, they hope to win by shouting us down and wasting our time.

Yes - these haters have the right to post what they want - on their own blogs - and to face whatever consequences accrue. When haters commit libel, their victims may sue. When haters incite violence against the persons or groups that they hate, they have passed the boundaries of protected political speech, and we will do what we can to shut them down.

No one has the right to take advantage of other people’s blogs and websites to spew false accusations, obscenities, and bile in front of the readership that reputable bloggers and admins have worked so hard to earn. No one has the right to spam the comments or forum threads on someone else’s website for the purpose of interfering with that website or harassing its owners and participants.

Excluding malicious comments is not censorship - it is vital editorial discretion. No blog or forum administrator - or for that matter, no publisher or media producer - can, or should, publicize every response that comes in. Bigoted ranting, name-calling, bullying and threats, spam, obscenity, incoherent rambles, libel and slander, and ad hominem attacks, attract a lynch-mob mentality, drive away decent readers and participants, and expose the website or organization to repercussions, legal or otherwise. And the endlessly misused argumentum ad Nazium, a/k/a reductio ad Hitlerum, is a signal to readers that the argument has worn itself out, and that intelligent life has departed from that venue.

Oh, and by the way…

If you want to argue with us, you’d better be loaded for bear. We expect to see verifiable evidence and valid logic, presented in a clear and civil manner. Just for starters:

• Calling us liars, racists, Nazis, or whatever else is evidence only of your incivility. Accusing us of being “racists” or “Holocaust deniers” or “fascists” merely because we do not accept your accusations against Jews, Israelis, Serbs, European conservatives, white Americans, or whomever it is you happen to hate, doesn’t cut it either.
• Hearsay, rumors, innuendo, or unconfirmed urban legends, or something you thought you heard from a “friend of a friend,” does not make for sufficient evidence to back up an allegation.
• Articles in Wikipedia are acceptable only for noncontroversial matters, such as technical background, computer and Internet history, and definitions of words and phrases (as shown here in the previous item). But when it comes to controversial political, religious, or historical issues, Wikipedia is far too vulnerable to vandalism, flame wars, and spin, and we generally cannot accept it as evidence. (See our Reference Material resource page, and Byzantine Sacred Art: Wikipedia, the Source of Disinformation, for more on Wikipedia spin jobs.)
• For that matter, we roundly condemn Wikipedia’s self-righteous pretense of enforcing a neutral point of view. It is senseless to make a virtue out of amorality! When we write or blog, we do our best to gather and publish the whole truth and nothing but. There is no neutral ground between right and wrong, between good and evil, between truth and error. There is no room for diluting the truth by presenting falsehood alongside it, in an effort to appear “fair and balanced.” The devil has too many spokesmen already, and too many spokeswomen too!
• Making patronizing remarks, such as claiming that you “pity” us, is nothing more than mudslinging disguised behind a false sense of moral superiority, and it will get your remarks flushed into the spam bucket without a second thought.
• If you, or any of your sources have a vested interest in the issue that could affect credibility, we expect you to disclose it.
• Just because you saw something in the mainstream media does not automatically mean it is true. Many stories, photos, and videos have appeared in the mainstream media and have later been shown to be planted by untrustworthy sources, staged, mislabeled, Photoshopped, or otherwise falsified. Check it first!

In particular, we will not post comments that contain racist or bigoted ranting, especially the anti-Semitic ranting and the Serb-bashing that seems to be plaguing the blogosphere these days. We don’t care how many times you have seen or heard the same piece of Serb-bashing or Jew-bashing or Israel-bashing in the blogosphere or even in the mainstream media. As we have just pointed out, this does NOT make it true, nor does it give you any right to repeat it here.

What’s a blogger or admin to do?

1389 Blog posts a comments policy and we enforce it consistently. Anyone with a modicum of common sense should already be aware of what is acceptable on this and most other blogs. But if you have any doubts, read it before you send us email or comment on this, or any other, post on this blog.

We encourage people to post comments or use the Contact Us form in our blog to expose injustice or other wrongdoing. We have no objection to leveling verifiable accusations against public officials or other culpable individuals, organizations, or governments. We have no objection to polemics or to strong opinions. We encourage readers to engage in vigorous debate and to point out any factual errors that we or other commenters might make. We also encourage readers to investigate and report suspicious incidents and criminal or terrorist activity, and to keep us up to date with that information. But if the accusations cannot be substantiated, the communication in question will be either refuted or deleted.

It is up to us, as bloggers and admins, to maintain civility in our part of the blogosphere. If we fail to make this effort, the better part (in both senses of the word) of our audience will leave. I suggest that it is time for each of us to set up and enforce our comment policies to stop that from happening. And when it comes to dealing with haters, I suggest that we take care neither to let malicious commenters spew their bile until everyone else gives up and lets the haters have the last word, nor to allow false accusations to stand unanswered in any of our comment or forum threads.

Also see:

• There’s an angry fire in cyberspace
• Foehammer’s Anvil: Words of Warning to Commenters
• The definitive guide to Trolls - Ubuntu Forums
• Flame Warriors Home
• Attacking genuine evil in the blogosphere

Technorati : Israel, Nazism, Serbia, anti-Semitism, blogging, comment policy, forum, hate, incivility, injustice, spam, troll, wikis

Who are the REAL racists in the blogosphere?

Leftists, that’s who!

The blogosphere has become a mighty ugly place lately, and I am about to clear up and dispose of some of the filth and lies that are being flung about. This mess must be cleaned up, for many reasons - just for starters, the failure to deny and refute false accusations is all too often taken to be a tacit admission of wrongdoing.

In the comments associated with Fjordman’s recent article published at Gates of Vienna, this recent GOV article about the Celtic cross, and WRONG ON SERBIA at Atlas Shrugs, the lizardoid hate squad once again reveals, among other things, their own rabid racism against Serbs.

As shown by their own words, THEY, and only they, are the real racists. Not the Serbs, not the Israelis, not the European anti-immigration parties - but the leftists who spread their lies in the MSM and the blogosphere, and their jihadist allies - those are the racists and the real neo-Nazis of our era.

No need to rely on tenuous chains of guilt by association, or dubious interpretations of ambiguous symbols in photos on the Web, or even on mainstream media spin and taqiyya. If your stomach can handle it, just look at the words the perpetrators themselves use.

Using blood libel to incite real genocide

Let me remind Nodrog (a/k/a “the poster formerly known as Gordon,” often accused of being one of Charles Johnson’s sockpuppets/multiple personalities) and everyone else currently or formerly associated with Leftist Green Footballs, that false accusations of genocide have been used, and are still being used, to incite real genocide against those falsely accused - in this case, the Serbs. This, in itself, is a war crime - on your part - and it has not gone unnoticed.

Oh, I’m not done yet - I have many other points to make!

No, it is NOT too late to remove militant Islam from Kosovo!

Some commenters insist that the proposed turnover of Kosovo to the local al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadist/narcoterrorist gang is a fait accompli, simply because of demographics. I say that’s just plain wrong.

The Albanians who have infiltrated Kosovo over the past century do have a place to which they can, and must, return: Albania. The fact that their own relatives and countrymen have made Albania unfit to live in matters not. They must return there. To allow them to remain in Kosovo would be to reward a century of genocide against Serbs. That is intolerable.

What’s wrong with Serb nationalism? Nothing!

Milosevic was no Serb nationalist, but a hapless appeaser who was repeatedly hoodwinked by the US and NATO, and ultimately disposed of. See Emperor’s Clothes for background. That site has the whole history of MSM pro-jihadist taqiyya!

If you want to know what a Serb nationalist is all about, I am a Serb nationalist. I am not ashamed of being a Serb nationalist, nor should anyone ever be!

1. I claim that the Serbian people has a right to exist.
2. I claim that those of us who are of Serbian ancestry have the right to be known and identified as Serbs (or as Serbian-Americans, Serbian-Canadians, Serbian-Australians, as the case may be), without anyone else thinking that this gives them the right to attack us.
3. I claim that Orthodox Christian Serbs have the right to continue practicing our religion, wherever in the world we may happen to be.
4. I claim that we as Serbs have the same right to defend ourselves against attack that anyone else has - and that this includes the right to cooperate among ourselves for mutual protection.

Anybody out there who disagrees with me?

I’ve already thrown the glove down - if you pick it up, you’d better be loaded for bear. Be advised that I expect valid logic supported with provable factual information. I expect the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Anything else will be met with the most thorough takedown imaginable.

Some commenters have truly evil motives

There are some truly evil people in the world, and entirely too many of them are on the Internet. (Just for starters, see Fast-growing al Qaeda presence on the Web.) As one might expect, the blogosphere has become a primary target.

Conservatives have been too patient with liars and deceivers on the Web

The conservative blogosphere is being MUCH too patient with crypto-jihadist leftists such as Nodrog, who serve the cause of expansionist Islam by persistently uttering blood libels against Serbs, Jews, and European conservatives. In particular, I have seen no evidence that any of these LGF stooges are arguing in good faith. Any leftist who argues in good faith will soon find no alternative but to abandon leftism.

Leftist ideology is always and everywhere harmful and wrong, and is especially harmful to those it purports to help. The same is true, unfortunately, of Islam. Thus, leftists and jihadists are natural allies.

The only way leftists and jihadists can peddle their poison with any degree of success is by committing evil:

• Lying
• Cheating
• Stealing
• Libeling and slandering innocent people
• Using violence whenever they don’t get their way.

The only difference between leftists like Charles Johnson and his minions, and ordinary jihadists, is that some of the leftists are so deluded by their own sense of self-importance that they actually believe their own taqiyya.

Many people have pointed out that these leftists keep repeating the same lies even after they are soundly refuted. They are deaf and blind to any evidence that contradicts the gutter racist propaganda that they spew forth. This is an object lesson in identifying those who are not presenting their arguments in good faith.

Charles Johnson and Little Green Footballs have never led the counter-jihad

I contend that Charles Johnson has never been a member of the counterjihad, much less a leader of it. He is a greedy blogger who uses terrorism stories to get page views, while at the same time serving the interests of the jihadists by exerting a chilling effect on all attempts to counteract jihadism. CJ and his followers must be, and are being, discredited with the utmost thoroughness and finality, so that none of them will ever again be able to do any further damage to the counterjihadist cause.

Aid and comfort to the enemy

The Bosnian Muslim mujahideen and the Kosovo Albanian Muslim KLA (under whatever false name they are calling themselves this week) are the local branches of al Qaeda in the Balkans.

By continuing to spread enemy propaganda on behalf of al Qaeda, under the guise of being counter-jihadist bloggers, Charles Johnson and his stooges from Leftist Green Footballs are HELPING THE ENEMY.

Last I checked, the US is at war with AQ. If nothing else, as long as OBL’s fatwa against the US remains in effect, AQ is at war with the US. That makes them enemies. That makes these “lizardoids” traitors.

You DO have to choose sides in these conflicts. There is no middle ground between good and evil, between truth and error, between supporting your country and supporting its enemies. Attempting to remain neutral means evading one’s duties.

Throughout history, giving aid and comfort to the enemy of one’s homeland has been a capital offense, not only in the US but just about everywhere else. This is because a traitor does far more damage than any legitimate enemy combatant. At least in the US, those laws have not been changed, and when things get bad enough - and they will - the US will begin enforcing those laws again.

Rope, tree, US Constitutional definition of treason, lizards…

Understanding the turncoat mindset at LGF

• Chronicles: Kosovo as a Symbol of Anti-Postmodernism
• Crisis du Mois

Before you comment on this or any other article:

Please read the 1389 Blog Comment Policy.

For more discussion of what blogging and blog commenting is all about, see:

• Foehammer’s Anvil: Words of Warning to Commenters
• The definitive guide to Trolls - Ubuntu Forums
• Flame Warriors Home
• Haters and Spammers and Trolls, oh my!

Technorati : Albania, Atlas Shrugs, Gates of Vienna, Kosovo, Serbia, U.S. Constitution, U.S. law, enemy propaganda, fraud, incivility, jihadism, leftist-jihadist convergence, littlegreenfootballs
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Ice Rocket : Albania, Atlas Shrugs, Gates of Vienna, Kosovo, Serbia, U.S. Constitution, U.S. law, enemy propaganda, fraud, incivility, jihadism, leftist-jihadist convergence, littlegreenfootballs

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Why do some people look askance at Wikis in general, and at Wikipedia, the 800-pound gorilla of the Wiki world, in particular? This project page, entitled Wikipedia: Lamest edit wars, reveals the human frailties that tend to weaken the credibility of what should be a valuable social media tool.

Free and open debate is a vital part of the search for truth, but is that what we’re seeing here? When it comes to certain hot-button issues, the search for truth among the Wikipedia community (such as it is) degenerates into a welter of animosity, politicking, ego-tripping, spin-doctoring, and ad hominem arguments. Evidently, the Wikipedians who wrote this project page saw no alternative but to give up on the possibility of making any further progress toward resolving these issues. Instead, they labeled these edit wars “lame,” characterized all of the participants as equally unreasonable and contemptible, and held the entire process up to ridicule.

The character flaws that give rise to such ugly disputes are, sadly, part of the human condition. All too often, they are encountered not only among independent researchers, but also among those in academia, government, and the corporate world. But it’s a matter of degree. In cyberspace, without traditions or established systems in place for resolving such things in a civil manner, incivility often runs rampant under cover of anonymity, and the interaction readily devolves into a flame war.

The problem is that incivility erodes credibility. Discussion and debate have a vital place in the process of building and supporting a wiki. But honest debate has nothing to do with bullying, manipulation, or spin-doctoring. Nor is there any room for the mistaken concept that truth can be arrived at simply by putting the matter up to a vote! For the wiki to earn the respect of the public, this debate must be conducted with respect for the other participants, for the readership, and, most of all, for the truth.

Technorati tags:
flame war
forum
incivility
politics
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Web 2.0
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If you aren’t familiar with William A. Whittle and the Eject!Eject!Eject! website, you’re missing one of the best writers on current trends from an historical perspective. His understanding of the issues of war and defense is spot on.

You Are Not Alone, Part 1 and Part 2 is a long article, but so thought-provoking, and, dare I say, inspiring, that it is worth dropping whatever else you are doing to take the time to read it now.

Read it, think about it for awhile, and read some of the other articles on Whittle’s site. He has an intriguing, and I believe correct, comprehension of the real purpose behind, and need for, those efforts and struggles that so often seem lonely and futile.

Comments are open, both here and on Whittle’s site.

Technorati tags:
1389
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counterterrorism
incivility
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jihadism
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NOTE: The original article shown below reflects our position as of May 17, 2007, when that article was written.

Our opinion of Daily Kos remains the same; we continue to despise it and everything it stands for.

Little Green Footballs (LGF) has changed; we can no longer endorse it or recommend it in any way.

LGF was once a site that offered counter-jihadist news clips, together with a certain level of open debate and camaraderie. This helped to alert the public to the dangers that we all face from expansionist Islam. In this article, we praised LGF for helping to reveal covert neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism on the leftist site, Daily Kos.

Unfortunately, since that time, things have changed with LGF and with Charles Johnson, its proprietor. Instead of alerting people to genuine and very clear instances of anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism on the part of jihadists and their leftist fellow-travelers, as in the article cited below, sometime during the fall of 2007, Charles Johnson began finding examples of neo-Nazism, fascism, and white supremacy where it clearly did not exist. Without anything resembling adequate evidence for such serious allegations, he began slandering other conservative and counterjihadist bloggers and political activists in Europe and the US, banning people from his blog, telling lies about people who formerly posted there, and sowing dissention throughout the counterjihadist community.

As if all that were not enough, after banning 1389 from LGF to make it impossible to reply in that forum, Charles Johnson uttered a racist blood libel against the entire Serbian people - an act that serves the interests of jihadists affiliated with al Qaeda in the Balkans. As with Benedict Arnold, his misdeeds after he turned traitor far outweighed anything he had accomplished on the good side in the past.

For more on this topic, see:

• It is time to punt Little Green Footballs
• Little Green Footballs - Hitting New Lows One After Another
• Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day, Nor Was Modern Anti-Serbian Racism
• No questions about any Serbian responsibility for Yugoslav civil war allowed at 1389 blog?
• Conservative Swede Blog
• EuropeNews
• Gates of Vienna: An Open Letter to Our European Readers
• Gates of Vienna: Charles Johnson’s Obsession
• Gates of Vienna: My Farewell to Little Green Footballs
• Gates of Vienna: Little Green Footballs and Racism in the United States
• Atlas Shrugs: LGF and CAIR

Original article begins here:

For those who have the courage to face a few uncomfortable facts, this article on littlegreenfootballs (LGF) highlights some very disturbing passages in comments posted on Daily Kos.

It is unfortunate that so many people are afraid to look at anything on LGF. The fact is that LGF is making a valid point by highlighting those passages. LGF is doing us a service by keeping this material in public view for the rest of us to evaluate.

These highlighted, and disturbing, comments reveal that the members of Kos are unconcerned about the intrinsic evil of neo-Nazism on their site. Instead, the Kos members are concerned only about hiding this evil from outside observers. By the way, if you think that these comments represent an isolated instance of anti-Semitism at Daily Kos, you would be mistaken. Anti-Semitism pervades the site. But some people at Kos want to rein in the open expression of anti-Semitism just short of the point of overt neo-Nazism, solely because of the risk of drawing unwanted attention.

It is sad that some people still dare to mislabel LGF as a “hate site” simply because LGF has the courage to confront the hatred that festers elsewhere. The bearers of this hatred obviously want to keep the rest of us unaware of their intentions…at least for the time being.

We should be grateful to LGF for revealing these people at Kos for who they are, and for showing us that Kos is a site that condones covert neo-Nazism.

Technorati : Nazism, anti-Semitism, hate, incivility, littlegreenfootballs, politics, social hatred, social news
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For the second consecutive year, an AutoVantage poll has rated South Florida’s drivers the nation’s rudest. Some people dispute the findings, saying that the poll’s margin for error is too high. But others say the results comport with what they see every day, ranging from ordinary discourtesy to road rage and everything in between: slamming on brakes, running traffic signals, and reading while driving (which 1389 has seen).

Evidently, there is a problem here, and surely not all of it can be blamed on out-of-town drivers with poor driving habits who are unfamiliar with the area. So what’s making people so angry? Are people frustrated or misrouted because of too many road-construction blockages, too few alternative through streets, confusing or missing signage, or faulty highway design? Or is it a cultural issue? Comment here if you have any ideas!

Technorati tags:
current events
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By Orlando

Are Diggers informative, negative, or positive? I wanted to know so I took a recently popular article with the criteria that it must have over 1,000 diggs. My goal was to analyze it using some very powerful text analysis software, SPSS for Text Analysis. I used this article:

VP Cheney, while CEO of Halliburton, was a client of the escort service…

Here’s what I found: 76% of the words used in posts were negative such as impeach, criminal, burn, evil, and so forth. Only 24% used positive words such as excellent, positive, better, and so forth. It was obvious that Diggers are a negative bunch by about 3 to 1. Many diggers could learn from the words of George Washington:

The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.

Technorati tags:
Cheney
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Halliburton
impeach
incivility
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Orlando (author)

By Orlando

Today’s front page political news on Digg has multiple stories lambasting Bush, Cheney, Republicans, Lott, Giuliani, Rove, and any other deemed Conservative by the Digger elitist. The liberal elite who argue that Fox News is “unfair and unbalanced” are the first to throw fairness and balance out the window. But have you ever wondered why they hate so much? Consider the comments in those posts. They speak of “murdering idiots,” “Bush’s daily ass f***ing,” and the denigration goes on and on and on. It is an endless diatribe of insults and, yes, violence. Rarely are the posts thoughtful or supported with facts. They are just petulant.We can find the answer in some research done by Dr. Evan R. Harrington. In his work titled, The Social Psychology of Hatred, he points us to three reason for group hatred to help explain the vitriolic language of liberal Diggers.

The first approach may be thought of as a general model of social influence…The second approach might be termed an interpersonal attitude approach, in the sense that individuals are measured in the degree to which they hold attitudes corresponding to authoritarianism and social dominance, which in turn relate to social hostility and prejudice…The third approach focuses on social cognition or the way in which humans perceive the social world in a biased manner due to limits on the brain’s information processing capacity.

Let me interpret that in laymen’s terms for our liberal friends:

1. You follow like lemmings;

2. You have a bad attitude;

3. You are dumb.

So now we know. How sad they have come to the point that their social status is dependent on posting some diatribe about Bush et al. that few in society will ever notice or care about. Next time you see those hate-filled posts, just understand they are sadly lost. Those liberal haters on Digg are to be pitied.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe says it best: “Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.”

Technorati : Bush, Cheney, Digg, Orlando (author), hate, incivility, liberal, politics, research, social hatred
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