Moderator

[mods-cm-org]

Yes, Craig did say he would keep the “BBC War Porn” page open permanently for comments; however, the page settings weren’t changed from the default timeout (which closes the thread 8 days after the last comment). The last comment was on 24 July, so the thread closed on 01 August. Clearly interest waned and commenters moved on.

I’ve reopened the thread and set a longer timeout to see whether interest picks up. Unfortunately, we know from experience with other perpetual threads that leaving them open permanently tends to invite accelerating quantities of spam, causing a nuisance for the moderators who have to wade through multiple screens in the spam list to check whether any genuine comments were caught in error.

We’ll see how it goes.

Regards,
Mods.

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

Hi Mods, Sorry about that, I had no idea the volume of junk you are required to filter out, but it is greatly appreciated. I do not know why I thought you did’t catch this; possibly due to my body clock so out of whack I lose all track of time.

Today I tried to post a comment and it is being blocked by a warning message. I sent a brief test comment that just posted OK, so It is not blocking all postings from me. The error message says get in touch with the site. It says: “A potentially unsafe operation has been detected in your request to this site
Your access to this service has been limited. (HTTP response code 403)” This is a test to see if all posts are blocked. Please help.

It does contain one link to a Canary article and two valuable links to the Daily GasLamp, that I have used previously without them being blocked. I tried removing the Links, but still no joy, not sure what to do. The previous post was a little accusatory and I was eager to diplomatically deescalate as I appreciate the respect shown by most on this site.

[mods-cm-org]

Hello Kim

There is no record of the 403 incident in our activity logs (although the site admin may have access to lower level information). A 403 error is generally indicative of an illicit HTTP request (i.e. a bad URL or script data), though it can have other causes – see the Wikipedia entry for HTTP 403. The problem is unlikely to be due to a server misconfiguration, as we haven’t had any similar reports from other people; anyway, as you’ve been able to post other messages without incident it appears there must have been something peculiarly amiss with the data being transmitted to the server – or perhaps with the SSL connection (if you spent a long time composing it). To eliminate other factors, you could try posting the same message via a different browser; if that method isn’t successful, you can try resetting your internet connection. If all else fails, kindly send us the message via email for further investigation.

Thank you for drawing our attention to developments in the “Elections Aftermath” thread. I see that a recent interjection from another commenter sidetracked the main political theme of the thread, and was quite discourteous. Accordingly it flouted existing commenting guidelines, rendering it eligible for suspension and redirection, or deletion without explanation. I’ve suspended it for now, though I appreciate you’ve already composed a response. The author is welcome to repost those thoughts as a new topic, with a more respectful attitude.

The tangential issues raised in that interjection have already proved highly controversial and disruptive in the BTL comments section of the main article threads. As with other perennial controversies (such as 9/11 and climate change), distracting comments are routinely suspended and redirected towards the discussion forum, with advice to create a new topic to avoid derailing ongoing discussions. In this case, the controversial points should have been raised as a separate discussion topic to which the commenter could then refer, to keep the “Elections Aftermath” thread focused on the electoral legitimacy of the current government and its abuse of power. In the BTL comments section, we would normally suspend the troublesome comment and append this general advice as a private moderation message visible only to the comment author – but unfortunately we’ve discovered that when forum replies are suspended for moderation, they are no longer visible to the author. We may need to develop a different strategy for moderating forum discussions.

Regards,
Mod.

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

Hi Mods,

I have tried several ways to get my latest comment to post, like removing the Links and then removing all formatting. but nothing works. The block appears to indicate that you can remove the block from your end so is that possible? I am dyslexic and it takes ages to write a post so I was disappointed it got blocked and do not know if future attempts to post will also fail.

I notice that the comment I was trying to diplomatically respond to has gone; it was only obliquely on topic anyway. I have removed the reply portion and rewritten sections of the new post, but it is still blocked. Can you help? Sorry I was impatient the other day as I did not fully understand the process of keeping this site junk free. I have gained a new appreciation of what you all do; Many thanks for putting up with me, Kim.

[mods-cm-org]

Hi Kim. To recap:

The 403 message means that the data sent from your browser was rejected because the server could not process it for some reason (e.g. the URL tried to access a protected folder, or the syntax was incorrectly formed). It wasn’t blocked by moderation rules, and it isn’t sitting in a list somewhere waiting for our approval. There is no ‘block’ for us to remove.

Did you try submitting it via a different browser (Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc.)? Did you reset your connection to pick up a new IP address? If so and it still doesn’t work, then email it to us. (You have the email address from previous correspondence.)

The (undiplomatic) comment to which you were trying to respond diplomatically was removed for being off-topic and rude. A version of it may appear in a separate discussion in future.

Regards,
Mod.

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

Hi Mods, I just want to say a big thank you for your tireless efforts here on this Blog. I was just thinking the other day that the Elections Aftermath thread was getting close to needing to start a new page. When I wrote my recent post on SLAPPS I regretted the fact that it would not head up the new page 8 as it was mostly original work that drew upon a number of sources and highlighted those who are still fighting back. Blow me if you didn’t read my mind and bounce the SLAPP Post to the top of page 8 where it might get most noticed; I am really grateful for that. Of course I say that in the fantasy notion that the Elections Aftermath thread actually gets viewed and read by more than the odd occasional one or two people every so often, as I don’t know what the stats are on visits to this thread.

I feel compelled to soldier on regardless. Right now it is depressing that there is so little hope for anything ahead, but a dystopian nightmare future, especially after crash-out Brexit. My writing on this Blog is cathartic and detracts from the gloom that descended like a dark cloak over me on the 13th of December last year. I am trying to lend a megaphone to the passionate writers on the marginalized progressive Left in alternative news outlets as they are so seriously drowned out by the BBC and alt-right press. I still cling onto the hope that we will eventually expose the Covid 2019 Rigged Election and oust this wretched Government, but we must still demand a full investigation into the vote as it would expose critical flaws that desperately require fixing either way.

I am very supportive of most of the issues Craig brings to light, but I feel we will continue slamming into a concrete wall until we are able to remove this Government from office which is why I am fighting so hard to achieve that goal. I’m glad Craig had the patience to wade through the Russian report and distil the most important nuggets on our behalf. As I had suspected the myopic focus on Russia misses the point that the real danger is far closer to home and is in fact our own UK Government. Such a good reason to oust the Tories, but Starmer is now following the same corrupt path to the right which I intend to highlight.

I want to write a post on Whistleblowing and feature my own experiences, not that there can be any resolution for me personally, but the loophole that failed to protect me as a student should be exposed, reviewed and closed. My protest outside the High Court in London demonstrates the impression a lone protester cam make with a shit-load of signage. I rarely want to include a photo, but this one tells a thousand words if I only knew how to embed it. The Birdcage protest got press attention; we need to get creative to combat the right-wing media. My similar experience in the US is a cautionary tale of where American Corporations will seek to change UK laws to create the ‘business friendly’ model of greed and exploitation.

I really appreciate the quality of the comments here on Craig Murray’s blog and I have now come to realize that this exceptionally high standard has been accomplished with vigilant moderation to remove the junk that is so pervasive elsewhere on the Internet. All I meant to say was thank you because I really appreciate your hard work… then I started rambling on… it must be cabin fever!

Many Thanks, your “Peaceful Patriot of the Planet,” Kim.

[Author]

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