(This will remain on top until the 27th September 2005)
Tuesday Live Chat: Handbook for Bloggers & Cyber-Dissidents
Global Voices will be hosting a live online chat to discuss the book Reporters Without Borders Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents
Tuesday September 27th
23:00 HK/ 11:00 am NewYork /15:00 GMT /18:00 Cairo /23:00 Beijing.
Reporters Without Borders Internet director Julien Pain along with contributers of the handbook will partake in an open forum.
For more infomation and how to get onto IRC Chat: The Global Voices Online
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 
I was disappointed. Couldn’t even download the IRC software! Blah!
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You missed NOTHING, except maybe some pain.
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What happened? Reporting on this? Would love to know. I bet it was a bunch of long winded ignorant fucks.
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For one I felt they were really really rude to Julien from RSF.
They just complained about things like the word “Cyberdissidents” and the design.
I don’t know. We just never got to anything really useful or interesting. A lot of it was semantics.
“Cyber dissidents are not bloggers.” Stuff like that. Who cares? This book is trying to help a free flow of information for people in oppressive regimes and raise the profile of alternative publishing as a tool.
One person kept going on and on about how anonamous bloggers don’t have credibility. I told him that was a “First world Free world luxyury and if someone didn’t need that, they didn’t have to read those chapter.”
There wasn’t anyone to control the crowd. No questions, answers, order. So it was a free for all. In fact some of the other contributors didn’t say a word, I think they were probably a bit horrified. There were a number of conversations going on at once.
I don’t think those people really got the point of the book if they read it at all. There was far too much conversation on the superficial things which made me think they didn’t read a word of it but felt they needed to participate in terms of commenting.
And you know how much I hate that.
I was pretty pissed off and dissapointed. There was a lot of brain power and technological know how in that room and I felt it was completely used for minor bickering.
I mentioned it a few times, but it just kept going on. I really didn’t need to hear the same complaints over and over again. I think there may have been an article published about it that said that, and that’s all what people read and just rote repeated the reviewer as they didn’t really have any opinions or questions, but felt the need to comment. In the end I was really honest and a little bit rude because I felt that if they can’t respect others for all the hard work, well to hell with it.
Really, like within seconds they were just kinda attacking and no one really said thank you until right at the end. I don’t know. I was really quite shocked. Especially in terms of the arrogance of a lot of commentators. It wasn’t even a discussion.
I dunno. I am not even too keen on showing the transcript because it was so awful. It was like. I had this fabulous conversation with a german journalist, and came of this high of being able to maybe talk a little bit more of the cause for people who may not be aware of the issues, and then went into that. It was like, “Okay. There is one way to discuss things, to spread the word, and then there are others which really are negative, and don’t do anything very useful.”
I am never going to go into a chat, or forum or anything without being really clear about the format it will be in, and asking a lot more questions about the direction the organizers decide on.
Lesson learned.
Yan
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You wrote: ”There wasn’t anyone to control the crowd. No questions, answers, order. So it was a free for all. In fact some of the other contributors didn’t say a word, I think they were probably a bit horrified. There were a number of conversations going on at once.”
That’s what they hate about democracy. I always say,within a liberal lover, is a dictator at heart.
That goes for everyone. It’s impossible to find order in a completely open system, the internal dictator in us all wants to make sure it all ends up somewhere ”good.”
I hear ya about onlinne forums. What’s the point, really.
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No.
I just believe in some sort of order so people can all have a chance to speak and not the loudest one and surely not the most repetitive one.
Order doesn’t mean dictatorship it means being polite.
Liberal doesn’t mean there are no rules. It just means the base of power is not hedgeomy.
Stuff like “under every liberal is a dictator” is so very reductive. it’s a very conservative way of thinking.
So maybe for you, (I assume you might see yourself as a liberal) you have a dictator in your heart, and you want to include the rest of us.
Don’t.
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No, you don’t hear me on online forums. I think they are a great way to speak and connect with people.
I didn’t like the way this one was handled.
You take one specific and generalize it. it’s not a good habit.
yan
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Of course I’m being reductive.
My point is that this is the corner that arch-conservative reactionaries put pro-democracy people in. I suggest taht online forums are not the best way to organize democratic and self-governing principles for people to follow and agree on.
Some liberal politicians, and this includes Bill “We love you Bill” Clinton, say all the time that democracy proponents can not be stuck on political agendas and that they must follow a discourse of self-rule out of an organized set of principles. Conservatives have a set agenda, and they have succeeded in many countries in articulating that their principles are actually the moral foundation of governance.
That’s why it’s so easy to criticize liberals and put them in a reductionist camp. Liberals speak about the ideology of anti-conservative freedom. When they take on the need for order and civil society, they have to fight the further battle of reclaiming what is naturally a democratic agenda, order, peace and the formulation of a moral imperative.
Thomas Jefferson said that a patriot’s obligation is to question the government. Kind of a strange that a government official would lay claim to that idea.
Why is it that this message doesn’t make it into conservative discussion? Prolly because conservatism isn’t governance. And neither is democratic liberalism.
It overstates a cause that is natural without a political agenda.
I prefer no government, but community leadership. Perhaps I’m a true communist at heart?
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Arch-conservative reactionaries? Who are they?
Sounds like Metternich at the Congress of Vienna.
So by analogy, traffic lights are a sign of a liberal dictatorship?
I think the whole use of the words liberal, conservative etc. are confusing. Conservatives are not necessarily reactionary, certainly the conservatives in the US weren’t reactionary in dismantling the welfare state.
Here’s a test to take if you are interested, both of you. I’d be interested in your scores.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
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Heh, the good old political compass. IIRC, I came out somewhere left of Ghandi, with fascist tendencies. I can see where Baswizzle is coming from, the call for controlled discussion is a bit anti-democratic, even if it is good manners. I’d like to have no leaders (or just me).
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traffic lights are not a symbol of a liberal dicatorship.
you are not a good writer. stop, rob, before you hurt someone.
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I said sign, not symbol, or don’t you know the difference? I think you missed the point of my question.
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that’s because you’re not a good writer. geesh.
sign means symbol.
sign is an identifier, an indication of what is real, it provides meaning.
just like a symbol.
let’s move on, then.
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baswizzle,
you’re half right. inside every liberal is a tendency towards authoritarianism….and inside of every conservative too.
i think, it’s an altogether too human desire to subjugate others and exert power over them. but if online discussion fora have no point, what are you doing here writing??
yan,
too bad some people had to be such asses about it. i really think that online discussions can get out of hand quickly without some kind of ground rules. that’s not “dictatorship” any more than rules against trespassing. it is, after all, a private space.
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Re: political compass….
I am moving more and more towards the middle as I age.
In Nov 2003 I was
Economic Left/Right: -5.88
Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.23
Sept 2005
Economic Left/Right: -3.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.77
I feel a little bit miffed that my anarchist credential has dropped below the 50% mark tho..
yan
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Economic Left/Right: -0.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.36
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Ha!
I don’t know why I am talking to you π
Economic Left/Right: 6.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 1.38
I’ve also moved to the right, a year ago I was
Economic Left/Right: 5.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.51 but that is maybe statistical anomaly.
I found it a bit of a shock when I first did the test, I mean how can you be in favour of legalising drugs and laissez faire economics and be authoritarian? I also have problems with a few of the questions as they are open to interpretation. Perhaps it’s down to growing up in a semi-fascist state.
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I don’t know why I am talking to you either.
You’re practically a neo-con!
Actually I probably am much more right economically than this test suggests, but i answer all the art questions “strongly” as in “Do you think the government should put money in art when no one gives a damn.”
As well as some of the questions I as you say are pretty open to intepretation… as well as sometimes I sway between what I really think and what is practical or achievable. Probably two years ago I went with my gut more than I went with my head.
y
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Can’t really argue with that, I am what I am. I do however have a logically constructed view of the world, which is more than I can say for anyone on the Left. “A liberal mugged by reality” is one description of a neoconservative I’ve heard, and it’s a good one. Just don’t confuse me with the incompetent fools in the White House.
But, maybe it demonstrates why we can’t really connect over some issues, as we’re probably arguing from different implicit viewpoints.
As you kind of point out though, as you get older, you tend to move to the right and get more conservative. So in my case, I’ll stop voting when I’m 50 π
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