NEW COMMENTS POLICY
Sun. September 5, 2004Categories: Abstract Dynamics
Please note:
feminazis, cult studs guilt mongers, passive consumer-whingers, ‘friends’ who occupy the moral high ground, misanthropes, gliberals, stoner pacifists, therapy-pushers….
Whilst I disagree with Luke’s idea that comments boxes should be closed entirely, I have decided to institute a new policy on comments.
Only comments deemed to be positive by the Kollektive will be left up. The purpose of the site is to build the Kollektive, so comments by those intrinsically hostile to the notion of collectivity or those hostile to the k-punk project per se will be deleted as soon as possible, so as not to waste the energy of the collective on distracting, egocratic nonsense.
Clearly, I am at work throughout the day, and unlike some UK public service managers, my job does not allow me to spend all day in front of the computer. I am hoping though that, when I am not available to delete comments, others in the kollektive can be deputed to take over.
Maybe another solution would be to only allow registered users to comment.
Commenting here is a privilege that has been abused.
k-punk is not a ‘liberal’ or ‘democratic’ ‘free for all’ (cf the prisoner). There are plenty of other ill-disciplined forums where people can air their resentments, ill-thought bile, and tedious ego-defence opinionism.
Or of course you can say what you like on your own blog. They really are very easy to set up.
What could be easier than sitting on the sidelines and carping? I know some people get a nice warm feeling in the stomachs from their sense of innate superiority to all ‘groups’ and ‘gangs’. Perhaps what those people should do is follow the logic of their position to its logical conclusion and utterly withdraw from public forums and indeed public life altogether.
Perhaps even more egregious though is the passive-consumer whinger. Think, really, how outrageous it is for the likes of ‘Roger’ to appear in the comments box and assure me that I am ‘coming off like a prick.’ On my own site. I don’t say that k-punk is my site in a possessive sense. I just mean it is space that has taken me a great deal of time, stress and anguish to build. It really is like inviting someone into your own house and having them abuse you. If anything makes me a ‘prick’, it is accepting a situation like that.
After all, Roger, and others, you have paid absolutely NOTHING for access to this site. Nor, naturally, have I received any financial remuneration for producing it. That isn’t to say that I haven’t received massive positive affect from doing it — what could be better than being part of a collective network? But it really has reached the point where I dread coming to k-punk to see what irrational spleen or spoilt boy/girl moodiness I will have to waste energy on dealing with next.
if i were you i’d just close them. i cant understand how you’ve the moral stamina and patience to deal with them! it’s like being possesed, all these voices from nowhere crowding in on you. some nice voices for sure.
the line between the comments box auto-spammers selling levitra/vicodin and 12% of comments you get is slender. if people want to talk to you they can email you can’t they!
also if people want to make a public spectacle by disagreeing with you in the most repugnant and violent way possible they shouldnt be encouraged. let them set up their own blogs (ie do something constructive and creative) or they should just bugger off and let off steam on ilm.
close em up if i were you.
I like comments boxes (you may have noticed!) so I don’t think you should close them. Just delete stuff that pisses you off, without acknowledgement. In my experience, people rarely come back for another dig if they don’t get a bite the first time.
Can somebody please enlighten me as to what and where ilm is?
hi john
the problem with comments is often the sheer volume of them. even people who see themselves as die-hard mates of the blogger in question can be just that teensy eensy weensy bit irritating. take 70 or so people regularily being a bit of a fucking nuisance and then add to that a random selection of complete and utter berks and you have the comments box experience for the hapless blogger.
also once the amount regularily reaches a certain scale you start to get more freaks and ingrates, its a strictly a percentage thing and the problem is that the silent benign majority are usually happy to lurk.
ilm is at: http://ilx.p3r.net/newquestions.php?board=2
and to get yourself a blogspot you go here:
http://www.typepad.com/
As an inveterate k-punk lurker who has never felt the need to sound off previously but enjoys the vicarious intellectual roughage, I’d be mortified if you gagged potential pontificators. The comments section is where things *really* get fiery.
Macello (mention of whom seems oddly verboten under the circumstances) took that stance and we saw what a shrill cul-de-sac he ended up boxing himself into. Surely you’re above that.
While I take your point about people showing a lack of respect for the platform you’re providing, don’t you think they condemn themselves out of their own mouths? Scrolling past their idiocies isn’t such a bind in the grander scheme of things, especially when the alternative option involves foreclosing the heat generated by genuinely productive debate.
>The comments section is where things *really* get fiery.
sure it may be entertaining to see twattishness and twatishness vanquished but (speaking for myself here) its appallingly draining being in the middle of it. i’m sure mark’s new policy is very sensible, but if i was him i’d shut them down.
if you are serious about forming a Kollective you should be aware that the strongest bonds are formed through resistance and argument. Any kollective that if formed around mutual sharing of ideas has to have the odd spanner in the works in order to build and develop these ideas and that includes listening to ideas you don’t agree with and even to people who are simply idiotic, if that’s your opinion. either close them completely or allow it to be a free for all. editing them out reeks of the worst kind of paranoia. For all their faults you must agree that people like Marcello helped to develop and strengthen the bonds within your kommunity and provided opportunities for growth through a kind or resistance or even ridicule!
Exactly! That’s the point I was trying to make in my own fumbling opaque fashion. Allowing ideas to be tested through rebuttal or constructively developed is part of the glorious interactivity that the web unleashes. One of the beauties of the Net is the way cyberspace unleashes a form of accelerated-evolution when it comes to exchanging ideas. The fact that the Rogers of this world abuse this potential and appear to have nothing sensible to contribute in no way impairs your project. His ejaculations are no more than damaged sperm.
To unilaterally terminate that sort of cut and thrust (or alternatively to restrict it to people who’ve passed rigorous exams) seems a horrible waste to me.
But what do *I* know? I really miss Marcello.
you weren’t joking about the Bolshevik thing, then?
I’d prefer to see the comments stay – enlarges the dialogue, prevents stagnation of Kollektiv thought etc. I wouldn’t hesistate to delete anything that was just idle abuse though. As soon as a few people start shouting, the level of discourse drops like a stone.
Be consistent: if k-punk isnt a democracy and you only want to read comments which agree with what youve already said you or are in some sense positive as a whole, then whats the point in having the comments box in the first place? Get rid of it.
ridiculous of course. which is the reason why i think they should be closed. by far the most repellent thing about the boxes is not the personal attacks (although they’re disspiriting. call me a stoner-pacifist if you like but i think all argument is a waste of time and ends up making everyone look foolish. eg me and oliver shouting at each other about iraq. a place neither of us know anything about.) but the naueating sycophancy.
Luke, you’re talking nonsense, bouncing from one extreme to another; first the problem was that the comments boxes only produced rancour, now it’s that they are sycophantic.. make your mind up … btw where is the sycophancy? Surely you don’t mean people engaging in reasoned discussion, listening to each other’s point of view etc. That isn’t sycophancy.
I am consistent. The policy is people who are interested in the collectivity may comment. Those who want to carp from the outside may not. Especially dangerous of those who take two steps in and then two steps back, who win trust then abuse it by retreating into the assumed yowling superiority of privatized subjectivity.
There’s plenty of space on the internet to be a subjectivized misery or Tortured Monkey in Hell. Just not here, is all.
Of course disagreement is welcomed. Who could think that I don’t welcome it, given the amount of time I’ve spent responding to it. But it’s the motive that’s important: is the person trying to engage in one-upmanship and defence of their own embedded subjectivity? Or is the person genuinely interested and requires clarification of key points, or simply thinks that the argument as stated is incomplete of in some other way inadequate? In other words, are they interested in the collective (even if such interest is only potential) or do they just what to stop it happening, condemn it from outside?
It’s the difference between debate (i.e. parliamentary model: yaw-yawing Oxbridge fucks engaging in dick-swinging one-upmanship) and discussion/ argument (an impersonal exploration of how certain propositions fit together).
Or argument versus opinion.
I don’t want to be ‘right’. I don’t feel a need to prove myself capable of winning arguments. All of that is too easy. Something else can hapen in the space.
As for people condemning themselves out of their own mouths; yeh, I agree. But it would be nice if lurkers who DO agree with us made such agreement vocal now and again. It does make a difference.
And, no, Marcello wasn’t who I was thinking about. If I’d have banned him, I would have missed some of the funniest moments of my life. 🙂 As I said, it’s smug passive-consumers like Roger walking in off the street and offering us the benefit of their therapeutic wisdom who are the problem. And also those even closer to home, who turn into reactive raving moralists at the drop of a hat.
Matt’s right of course that people can email me… but that would mean that all discussion on the site had to come through me, whereas one of things I most enjoy on the site is being to see other people engage with one another.
So I won’t be closing the boxes. But I WILL delete what I deem to be negative.
I’ve never seen any nauseating sycophancy here. However I do feel for Mark, some of the simple-minded assaults here could only be the work of social retard nerds hiding behind a keyboard; it’s a lot of pressure and hassle [though Mark is a lot tougher than Matt :-)].
But I support K-Punk’s doctrine of non-democracy, of not giving just anyone a voice: it’s not about trying to reach anyone and everyone (first rule of customer management: choose your customers wisely…). Even so the comments boxes are great and it would be a shame to lose them. If you don’t like what some bell end has written, just delete it. No compassion, no remorse.
‘Course, K-Punk now is nowhere near as vitriolic as UK-Dance used to be (on Wednesdays anyway) — The Arena as it used to be known. Back then the motto was, if you don’t like it, use the scroll button… it’s different if it’s YOUR place being soiled by fools, and YOUR name being called… but fuck it. These comments boxes are bigger than the haters. You don’t get this sort of discussion anywhere else on the net. I’d miss it a lot.
Think of it as your present to me and the new baby, Mark!
>but the naueating sycophancy
ha ha ha davis you fucking fruitcake
slightly off topic i do confess that i wonder how much collectivisation is really needed? isnt that what the blogs are, a loose collective? even though the posts here by smunk, infinite thought, john effay and meme (wink, when he can be arsed) have been excellent, i do miss rocking up to k-punk and it being just fisher holding court.
There is certainly an argument for fisher-monomania, I think K Punk has the potential to be enriched and expanded using the Kollective tactic — though that in itself is not necessarily an argument in favour of keeping the comments boxes.
Hmmmm…..
You’ll have to excuse a guy who only stumbled across this blog a couple of days ago from butting in, but this is meant to be a positive contribution.
‘Edited Comments’ seems a bad compromise – I think I’d rather read no comments than something that ‘appeared’ interactive.
The ‘sycophancy’ thing – isn’t sycophancy when we pander to those who who have greater power / prestige than ourselves in order to gain personal advancement? Does this really apply to a seemingly more democratic / levelling process like blogging ? What does one get out of making positive comments on another blog ? A link ? A bit of attention? Is this really what we mean by sycophancy? I prefer a more charitable explanation – if someone puts a little bit of love and soul into something for others to read for free, then, hey, drop by, tell ’em you were there and you liked it…..big deal….
The ‘personal load’ carried by the creator is an issue and individuals and their work should be given respect, as in any other walk of life (having said that, I’m just about to slag off Vin Diesel on my blog, so there goes my argument) – Maybe we can address this by kinda counter-commenting when work we enjoy is disparaged…
This is all new stuff – the etiquette is evolving.
Anyway – sycophancy or not – I’ve enjoyed this little debate so far……I’d like to know more about what ‘the K-Punk project’ is about – sorry if that’s cos I’ve been too lazy to read your archives.
Anyhow….thanks
oh dear. I feel like this is all my fault.
But I feel like that about everything.
Ok, I confess. I invented Marcello Carlin.
> if you are serious about forming a Kollective you should…
It rather depends on what you are wanting to Kollect. “Magick: the Gathering Gatheredness” can be played in countless variant forms.
Disagreement in good faith on the one hand, and facile baiting on the other hand, are actually pretty easy to tell apart most of the time. If anyone doesn’t trust Mark to spot the difference, they don’t have to post comments here, it’s that simple. I think Mark should do whatever he feels he has to to keep k-punk the kind of space it is and to devote most of his energy to actual thinking (which is the reason we come here).
Er, OK, that was admittedly a bit sycophantic…
I hear you , who has time to deal with all …
It’s yer thing
Best
I really hope the comments boxes stay, surely they are intrinsic to this whole thing? Any kind of editing might prove counterproductive, tho obv Mark can’t (and shouldn’t have to) keep on top of things. People just need to try thier best. This is a really nice post by Simon Reynolds on the subject of striking a balance when debating on-line:
It seems like an almost structural thing inherent to online forums and discussion groups. I noticed it first with a mailing list I used to contribute to occasionally, ukdance. The most pugnacious voices inevitably tended to dominate, and debates were always escalating into acrimonious slanging matches; the “winners” were those with the stamina and thick skin to outlast everybody else.
We all know how things written in email sound colder and more bombastic than when said on the phone or in person, and how misunderstandings can develop when utterances arent enhanced and/or softened by facial expressions, gestures, real-world presence. Online forums that happen in near-realtime seem to have all the negative side-effects of email plus some unique defects of their own. You have the rapid-response element (where you might blurt out something youll later regret) but enough of a time-delay such that you can really hone your comment to make it extra-punchy or acerbic or devastating. And the person at the receiving end can of course reread the comment and get more and more offended by it. Then you get the long term syndromes of bad blood and people in fixed adversarial roles.
A good argument is one of the great pleasures in life–for this opinionated fucker anyhow–but its a real delicate thing to pull off without one of the parties getting injured. Even now, in person and in print, Im still got much to learn about the art of arguing hard while still dropping those signals that indicate respect for ones adversary. Its a tricky balancing act, though: too much geniality and agree-to-disagree, and theres no sparks, no energy, no sense of anything at stake. But too much ferocity, and you might win the argument but lose the friendship, or poison the collective pond.
yeah i remember that. that was good.
if it wasn’t for the comments boxes i and many others would probably be inspired to respond to k-punk on my own blog. it’s much better that way i think, cos you say more intellignet things in a more intelligent way. thats how the blogsphere was a year or so back and it worked pretty good though you can end up just constantly responding to others rather than setting your own agenda.
you should read about sufis mark they’re much more spinozist (in your sense of the term) thatn spinoza. i think you might be really startled if you haven’t already looked into it.
and another thing, there is a vacancy at the carpaark. if anyone fancies it go to heronbone for the number.
Luke, this is a good point…
I think the discourse gets too heated up too quickly in the comments boxes sometimes….
however, they are a good place for people (like the lovely Karl there) who don’t have a blog to become involved.
But it is imperative to avoid k-punk further turning into ILM, for my sake and its.
All I’m asking is for ppl to remember: this is not a public forum. It has an agenda and if you don;t accept that agenda, go elsewhere.
Just having a little bit of thought before you post, that’d be nice too.
It’s neither desireable nor acceptable for me to be sick with anxiety about what has been posted in the comments here. I was bullied at school, I don’t need it at my age.
I come here to be stimulated by high-quality discussion, not to be lectured at by dsyfunctional ppl.
It’s about trust and self-discipline really.
btw, thanks Angus, I appreciate it….
Luke, yeh, sufism, know very little about it, but should look into it — there are interesting sections on it in Harold Bloom’s brilliant Omens of Millennium, which suggests that it is Islamic gnosticism… There are incredible parallels between Spinoza and xian gnosticism, for sure… ray’s going to post on the latter soon….
what books would you reccommend luke?
(see everyone, how nice it is DISCUSS things…)
btw psychobloke: k-punk project = propagation of distributed anti-authoritarian processes
LOL
if you’ve got specific questions, I’ll try and answer more specifically lol
also: think we have to distinguish between attacking things on your own blog (surely one of the great things about blogs is that they resist PR-niceness politesse consensus) and attacking someone else’s whole project on THEIR blog
for instance, if the PC Feminazis want to spout the oppressive worthy cultalebanization that I and others spent the early 90s in a psychic war against (in the development of uk cyberfeminism) fine, do so on your own blogs, that way I can ignore it. I don’t see though why I should give a platform here to ideas that I despise and regard as evil.
Tried to post this on Comments on Comments but the facility isn’t there… It was argued most people in this blogosphere tend to be of lower-middle/upper
working backgrounds. Kollektivization (minus any of
its negative implications) acts as a bulwark against
the gliberals and co whose families have been embourgeoisified for generations, people who are absolutely embedded in the BritCrap system and opposed to any progressive opinions. I have just had another day kowtowing to these Mediated idiots who, relatively happy with how life treats them and their role in it, abuse their intelligence for the sake of pointless one-upmanship, examples of which we’ve been seeing on the K-Punk forum…