I shall be attending a conference next month run by Slugger O'Tool. More about that next week, but check out, http://www.politicalinnovation.org/ and you can find out what it is about. They want new ideas to change politics. Over to you. I shall endeavour to present your ideas to the conference if they appeal to me and there is an opportunity to do so.
This article by Andrew Regan struck a chord with me. In it he calls for a new kind of scrutiny for bloggers:
the spreading of false beliefs – without the evidence to support them – is bad for all of us, as is the displacement of informed argument by mere rhetoric..
We need a solution that allows writers to write and thinkers to get their thoughts into print, but that gives the ultimate power of scrutiny over blogs, online newspapers, and think-tanks – whether they like it or not – to their millions of readers..
Read his solution and tell me what you think.
5 comments:
It could be something along the lines of wikipedia. Other bloggers could be allowed to flag up or rectify errors in bloggers comments.
I know I've made comments on blogs that I subsequently found to be untrue or half true but either couldn't remember where I'd written the comment. Couldn't access the comment to rectify it or I just couldn't be bothered changing what I'd written since no one seemed to have noticed it was wrong anyway so why bother.
If I log on with my blogger address I can rectify the comment but there's nothing I can do if I'm not logged in as a blogger or openID etc.
"... ultimate power of scrutiny ..."
"... whether they like it or not ..."
"... may be held to account ..."
"... Not responding would give out a less desirable signal ..."
It's the language of control and repression, and we should have nothing to do with it. Any decent blogger will always publish retractions and apologies if he/she gets it wrong. If we allow this system, how soon before 'voluntary' becomes 'compulsory'? We need less regulation, not more. The blogosphere is probably the only place left where expression is truly free and unregulated, or at least as far as the law of the land allows. I'd like it to stay that way.
Richard is right. If you disagree with what a blogger says then you can say so on the blog. If you can't then it's not a blog. You can diasgree with another commenter on a blog thread. Neither WW nor Richard will have noticed that I exercise this self-accorded right myself, but the time may come when I do.
We shall not be policed, censored, or organised. As that nasal-voiced Essex-twanged self-aggrandising twat Old Holborn says (one of life's failed costermongers) you cannot herd cats.
Jim, you are both noticed and welcomed.
Don't worry gentlemen. As long as this blog exists, comment will be free and unmoderated.
The only comments that are trashed are obvious spam and gibberish.
The pleasure for me is reading them and thinking about them. For the moment, I prefer to let the inmates run the lunatic asylum, but be assured, every comment is read.
As for posts, I already apply rigorous standards to factual content, which is what I thought Andrew Regan was getting at.
Post a Comment