Anonymouse

.125

That's too funny. :)

You do realize that without another fraction, this actually works as a whole number- right?

H.Derakhshan had the "ability" to delete comments!

Where he blogged that earned him the title Blogfather gave him the option to delete comments if he wanted to.  I think he'd be willing to give the bloggers the benefit of the doubt, give them the choice and trust them to do the right thing.

Here at i.com he didn't have that option but not the other places.

Rea is your vote a no?   

Everything is sacred

Wonder

what would H.Derakhshan say on the issue ?

Give you another 19 years to blog ?  I'd say NO. 

Votes so far; 3 YES and 14.125 NO

Everything is sacred

"Destruction" of IC!

VPK I don't understand why you're using such strong words?  Why are you using a hammer to kill a fly?  Why are you thinking of just yourself, when you say you can take care of yourself?

You don't like the all registered forum because abusers can't go make a comment with one name and then turn around and use another name to say something else?  Hiding behind anonymity and attacking others is good and free speech?

See you accuse others of what you yourself are preaching and may not know about it.  Ability to listen?  Are you listening to others?  On one hand you're saying you're giving your opinion and it is NOT a legal opinion and then you say your opinion is that of freedom of speech which is legally defined.

My suggestion is for blogs not the rest of i.com.  Destruction?! I'm only advocating improvement that each business sooner or later decides for themselves.

I.com has made 3 long and tried steps for comments to become here.  You nonchalantly dismiss it?! Has it been destroyed?  The abusive comments have been reduced and perhaps partially destructed.  You don't like it? What about those who do?  This is the point that you don't get.  You want your "freedom of speech" but not for others who actually do know what it is.

Everything is sacred

Anonymous

I do not misunderstand you. Just disagree with you. If we implement what you want we destroy IC. My argument is not a legal one.

1. I agree that JJ has a right to restrict posts. I just question the wisdom of it.
2. I think requiring registration was a negative move. But I will live with it.
3. I do not want to be protected. I will take care of myself. If people cannot handle a comment they should not do a blog.

One of the problems with our culture is the inability to listen. The unwillingness to not just accept but even to listen to others. The result was a long line of dictators. Do we want more? I dare say some do.

The intent IS to filter but based on individual choices

CoP I do have a few in my circle of friends and family and while they are somewhat different, the common denominator between them is to be annoying, whether here in US or in Iran.

Somehow they equate being annoying with being strong or democratic or even taking their anger and shortcomings on others. I think most people can't really talk to them in person. Their leader's moto is to deny, deny, deny and this is their formula for "success".

The same argument can be used here.  Is the intent to be annoying and obnoxious under the guise of freedom of speech?  I also believe no one is paying attention that all these free speech arguments are being used against others and not themselves which is a big a part of freedom of speech.

You can't deny others freedom of speech because you think they might abuse it or in this case they might delete "too much".

As far as hypocrisy it is nothing new and not the monopoly of any ideology or entity. The main issue at hand here is whether we who have lived for decades in western democracies have learned enough to understand there are laws to define and protect free speech and laws by definition mean restrictions or in your case the "intent to filter" as long as you have a safe and free access to express your views.

Everything is sacred

anonymouse

Actually, I don't have anyone pro-An in my immediate cricle, at least none that I can tell.

I understand your point, but then again, if the intent is not to filter, then why have it to begin with?

A comment rating system is great though, I will support that. 

Those who open their big condescending mouth and speak of freedom of speech, must realize that the entity they support in iran affords no such thing to our countrymen and women. So it is highly hypocritical to yell out freedom of speech when his turbanned masters are repressive 7th century arab wannabe anti-Iran occupiers.

____________

IRAN FIRST

____________

این هم ترجمه کامنت آقای جاوید.

کی‌ آدم میشین؟ از فحش و‌ تهمت خسته نمیشین؟ بقیه چه گناهی کردن که باید به دعوای زشته شما نگاه کنن؟ 

Everything is sacred

شراب قرمز جان رأی شما چیست؟

به نظر شما از زمانی‌ که همه باید ثبت نام کنند تا کامنت بذارند "مشگلاتی" بوجود آماده؟  به نظر من بعد از این جریان ثبت نام اجباری اینجا خیلی‌ خیلی‌ بهتر شده.  خداوند یک در این دنیا و صد در آخرت به آقای جاوید نعمت فراوان بدهد.

اینجا ما فقط می‌خواهیم بهترش کنیم، مثل آهنگ شماعی زده یادتان هست؟  بیشتر، بیشتر؟! ما بهتر میخوایم بیشتر بشتر!

من خیلی‌ بلاگ‌ها را می‌خوانم جیغ و داد هواست و نمیدانم اگر افسار بلاگ را به دست صاحب بلاگ بذاریم شاید بهتر بشود.

خود آقای جاوید که از این کشمکش‌ها کلافست! 

Everything is sacred

Very well said Red wine, best comment on this blog.

اکثرا دوستان که از مُباشرین سایت مینالند ..خود مُقصّرند چرا که خود باعث و بانی‌ ایجاد جنگ و دعوا و دشنام،نِفرین در بلاگ‌ها هستند ! اگر کسی‌ به دنبال احترام هست،خود احترام به دیگران و عقاید دیگران میگذارد،بقیه جریانات به سادگی‌ قابل حل شُدَنند.

خدا آخر و عاقبت ما را از شر دوست نمایان حفظ کند.

...

با عرضِ سلام به خدمات تمام دوستانْ و دوستْ نمایانِ عزیز و همینطورْ زبانْ انگلیسیْ پَرستانْ و مُرّوجانِ آن.

قصد نداشتیم در اینجا مطلبی انتشار دهیم اما جملاتی خواندیم که به نظرمان درست نیامد و خدا وکیلی به ندرت نوشته یی خواندیم که طرحی نو باشد و ماشا الله.. کیلو کیلو تکراری و خروار خروار بُ...

تجربه در این ۳ سال ثابت کرده است که هر گاه در این سایت وَزین تغییراتی صورت گرفته ؛دوباره مشکلاتی دیگر را ایجاد کرده است،حال چرا باید دوباره دست در قالبِی‌ برد که تا به حال دُرست کار کرده است ؟! همه ما به جناب آقای جاوید احترام می‌گذاریم و به ایشان اِعتماد داریم،پس دیگر مُشکل چیست ؟ اکثرا دوستان که از مُباشرین سایت مینالند ..خود مُقصّرند چرا که خود باعث و بانی‌ ایجاد جنگ و دعوا و دشنام،نِفرین در بلاگ‌ها هستند ! اگر کسی‌ به دنبال احترام هست،خود احترام به دیگران و عقاید دیگران میگذارد،بقیه جریانات به سادگی‌ قابل حل شُدَنند.

خدا آخر و عاقبت ما را از شر دوست نمایان حفظ کند.

خدا مملکت ما را از دست روشنفکران دینی و غیر دینی نجات دهد.

از صاحب بلاگ کمال تشکر را داریم.

Reasonably is the key word

 "the California Constitution protects speech and petitioning, reasonably exercised, in shopping centers even when the center is privately owned, and that such result does not infringe appellants' property rights protected by the Federal Constitution."

Same arguements are made for the gun laws that was recently denied in Supreme Court in the case of DC gun law which denied its citizens the right to carry arms.  However, the court noted again the City can impose reasonable restrictions.

In the case of shopping center you mentioned it was about people distributing hand bills/leaflets. If they were to do an unreasonable gesture they'd be denied.

As for online, there are cases being decided or settled all the time.  Most notable the porn industry that years ago they had lawsuits about not having porn online because of children watching it and the opposing argument that it is free speech.  The free speech argument won yet reasonable restrictions made, like clicking you're 18, albeit no restrictions really.  The Napster case of shared music titles, Craiglist online prostitution and Microsoft infringement cases are just a few regarding the internet issues.  I don't know which have been settled by the Supreme Court, it's just academic but the reasonable argument can always be used.

The cases of online restrictions are "reasonable".  This case of "comment control on blogs" is not denial of free speech.  Free speech does not mean you can say whatever you want whenever you want wherever you want.  You scream "bomb" in an airplane they'll arrest you and the Supreme Court will pad the Officers in the back!

Everything is sacred

Anonymouse & Q,

First, to affirm my vote, it is a "NO."

Next, I don't think the possible existance of constitutionally-protected speech on publicly-accessable online blogs and networking sites is as black and white, so to speak, as you perceive it to be.

Regarding particularly online blogs and networking sites, the case history in the US is very, very limited...if not non-existent entirely.  (If you can point to specific online speech-related cases that have been settled by the US Supreme Court, they could shed some light on this topic.)

This being said, however, free speech has been ruled to be constitutionally protected, even in cases in which that speech has occurred in private-yet, open to the general public-establishments, such as shopping malls.  One case that affirms this conclusion is the Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins case which was decided by the US Supreme Court in 1980.  In that case, the US Supreme Court ruled that "the California Constitution protects speech and petitioning, reasonably exercised, in shopping centers even when the center is privately owned, and that such result does not infringe appellants' property rights protected by the Federal Constitution."

(Source: //www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0447_0074_ZS.html)

So, if free speech is protected, at the federal level, with regards to a private-yet, open to the general public-shopping mall, then I cannot envision why a similar ruling wouldn't apply to online social networking websites and blogs which are open to the general public, particularly when those online site's only apparent purpose is for communication amongst the general public.

Like I said earlier, this really is uncharted legal waters here...particularly since, as far as I can tell, this free speech question relating to online social networking websites and blogs which are open to the general public hasn't been settled by the US Supreme Court. 

(Anonymouse: You pointed to an opinion piece on the matter rather than an actual Supreme Court ruling.  Thus, that article is not really evidence that my assertions are unfounded.)

With all this being said, however, I think this is a great website.  So, my compliments go out to all of the people involved in its creation and maintenance.  And, I will add that, although some forms of abuse might be apparent in some poster's comments, the observation that there is abuse at all affirms, at least for me, that you have moderated it in a way that assures, to some degree at least, the liberty of free speech.  And I leave you, the moderators, with the following quote that you can refer to whenever there is a difficult decision to make when deciding if a particular comment should be censored in any way:

"The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other people think to be wrong. There is no point in demanding freedom to do that which all will applaud. All the so-called liberties or rights are things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if such things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their own liberties threatened. This is always true, even when we speak of the freedom to worship, of the right of free speech or association, or of public assembly. If we are to allow freedoms at all there will constantly be complaints that either the liberty itself or the way in which it is exercised is being abused, and, if it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will often be justified. There is no way of having a free society in which there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty." - Lord Hailsham, former Chief Justice, "The Dilemma of Democracy"

So the control freaks will be exposed.

Anahid jaan first of all people have to leave comments for a blogger to delete.  If there are no comments there will be nothing to delete.  If there is a blog where the blogger is deleting too much and getting carried away then that'd be his/her signature and people won't engage him/her anymore.

On the other hand s/he may use good judgement and delete off topic and personal attack comments and more would join the discussion knowing there is a semblance of normalcy, moderation, direction.

Currently there are blogs that no one comments on them.  It is a choice made by individuals.  No one is forcing anyone to make a comment and no one is preventing anyone from writing their opinion in their own blog.

We are in election season these days and personal attacks by politicians are everywhere.  This is freedom of speech.  But do they go on opponents website and buy the same ads they buy on TV commercials?  Is any of their rights censored?

Everything is sacred

CoP you're assuming bloggers will delete all opposing comments

If you had a choice, would you delete all opposing comments?  Would you delete any comment?  The opposing comments, if they are deleted, can be turned into a separate blog which is not censorship.

I know you must know supporters of Ahmadi in your circles of friends and family, right?  How do you communicate with them?  Do you (per se) go and fight them tooth and nail like some do here?  Do you go and insult them as much as they'd get insulted here?

My guess is no, you're just leaving them alone and not engaging them because they're blinded anyway.  Yet here everyone is taking their spite on whatever or whoever and unload like there is no tomorrow!  Like a stress vent.  And many get carried away.

The brown basmati is great!  If you wanta give it a try, go to an Indian store. 

Everything is sacred

Dear Anonymouse, I wish I had more time to debate this now.

Dear Anonymouse, unfortunately, I don't know how much I will be able to contribute to this thread, maybe I will get a chance later today. In any case, thanks for this blog which has genertaed some good discussion. As far as balatarin, I mentioned that since some other commentators were critical of number of favorable comments one gets and favorable comments, now we are trying to police why people like somebody's blog and write about it. So as you see once you open the door to controlling and rating comments, there will be no end to what we want to rate and control. How about rating the ratings that others have given to comments and how about rating that rating and you see my point.

Hey you found Brown Basmati

Life's good, ay?

I say NO too, I agree with other posters that if we censor things we don't want to see or hear, it'll take away the learning aspect of the whole exchange.

Besides, it is good to see some people make an arse of themselves by beating their chests and their stance on some issues.

____________

IRAN FIRST

____________

So far; 12.125 NO and 3 YES

Everything is sacred

Anahid jaan what is too much?

You know people keep talking about free speech and connecting it to this comment issue.  Part of free speech is to be able to trust others with other thoughts with their "rights".  For example, no one is admitting that given this choice they'd delete any comments but are worried about others doing it and now you mention "too much".

If certain blogs or articles get rankings in Balatarin (which I don't know what it is :-) it is the voters choice.  If they give preferential treatment so be it, it's their vote. 

Everything is sacred

LOL

Too funny, Anon.

But hey, that's 1/8 more than you! 

Sargord I'll apply Islamic Republic's rule 4 u & ur vote = 1/8 !

Everything is sacred

Too much rating and control will not achieve much

We do not have total control over our lives and in the same manner, we have to accept that 100% control of comments to our blogs is not possible. I am not crying wolf if i say that I have been target of some of the most abusive comments myself. However some of the ideas proposed in this thread achieve nothing. Also complaining about everything will not achieve much. For instance, there are users on IC who share IC blogs on Balatarin site but they only share blogs from very limited number of writers and it appears that they play favoritism in whose blogs they share on balatarin.  So one could suggest a system to rate fairness of blogs which get shared on other sites. Do you see how far we can take this business of control and rating?

Pendar nik, Khar, loveofliberty, what r ur votes? DK jaan you?!

Everything is sacred

Aynak a separate tab is good too but not necessary

I'm not proposing the blogger the ability to "edit" other comments, just delete or keep them.

You mention DK jaan, while he hasn't voted here yet I think he has made statement that he does not wish to engage Q or who was that other fellow (Opera guy?) in his blog, so given that opportunity he'd delete certain comments.

This is just a choice.  People are quick to jump on the bandwagon of free speech and then reluctant to accept the freedom of choice.

Abuse is free speech too, why curb it then?  You're right about Payvand and I'd like to add persianmirror.com  I remember sending email to the editor there and she mentioned that they had comments section too but it got abusive and they didn't have resources to monitor it so they closed it.

This is why I give credit to Mr. Javid because he has stayed with it and provided us this forum despite his constant complaints about abuse.     

Everything is sacred

Nazy jaan let me try explaining

Doesn't look like I'm having much luck getting the main point across.  Once again this is NOT about free speech because it will NOT be curbed.

More than 2 years ago Mr. Javid got tired of the abuse (and same arguments were made for "free speech" back then) wrote a blog What should I do? complaining about the abuse and went to a moderated comment section which was later replaced by the all registered forum.

So this problem of abuse exist and the ones doing it are few yes, but also the ones raising the most dust or at least trying to.  How many users have JJJ blocked?  How many have blockage problem? I'd say about a dozen or so. 

So if the policy is to limit abuse and as Admin has stated again and you can see the policy below the comment section, it says personal attacks will not be tolerated.  My proposal is in line to strengthen this policy.

I agree that comments section makes our online community vibrant but I want others to be able to participate as well.  These rules are not new and most website have it.  I'd like to keep the delete option on the blogs because if someone's comment is so important s/he can turn it into a blog later once and if the blog is deleted.

Rating system?  Sure but that does nothing about the abusers.  All it does it confirms to him/her that s/he has received the most points in being the most abusive and annoying and those who do it want nothing more than a confirmation! Right?

Everything is sacred

Yes, Here is my suggestion/proposed solution

If you roll to the top of this page, there is a gap between Persian (Written as Farsi) and "Events" section, under categories.    I suggest to JJ to add a section for a new blog called --Author Moderated Blog--. Normal blogs,  like we have, and moderated blog like Anonymous poster suggests.   That way, a poster can choose where they post their blog comment.(see the end of this post for an enhancement to this suggestion).

In the past I have participated in other on line blogs (payvand.com for instance used to have blogs but  does not even allow this anymore).   JM site also had a section for blogs, which is not available anymore.  Those were all unmoderated and eventually the whole sites became very unuseful as a few 24/7 bloggers took over.

Basically, highjackers get into a particular blog and spam the heck out of it.   Of current user I can think of my best friend Dariush Kadivar, who has a way of putting irrelvant and unrelated links which has very little to do with the subject, all so that everylink finds its way back to his royal highness.

This feature (author moderated blog) in my opinion is absolutely necessary:

1-Someone who has done great research and want to have very focused exchange, must be given the freedom to delete unecessary comment.  (although I do not think the owner of blog should have the ability to edit any of the comments other than his own).

2-The biggest danger is, this can become yet another propaganda tool for Islamic Regime, which will get  a free pass to yet another media outlet.   For that I recommand limiting the number of blogger-moderated entries to 1 or 2 a week per blogger.   No one really can have that much important thing to say, all in one week.

A possible enhancement (which obviously has more overhead for our beloved Jahan Shah) is to have an unmodified version of blog in the current section (including what was deleted) and the modified version under the blogger/author modified blog section as I suggest.   (for those who want nothing to be deleted) this will provide a way for a person who has ample free time :) to track both.   As farther improvment, the Author-Moderated blogs can only create the parallel blog (in the current blog section) only after the author has deleted a comment.

my 2 cents

LoveOfLiberty 'Public' online spaces don't carry speech, rights

Perhaps you may be interested in this article 'Public' online spaces don't carry speech, rights and notice that it is not really uncharted territory and the practice is not new and many public forums are run by rules set arbitarily, case and point i.com

Everything is sacred

no

am with admin on this.

NK's suggestion for rating comments also makes sense. i am for anything that helps to give and obtain feedback from others.

i can also see the utility of the comments 'on' or 'off' option for those who wish to use it on their own blogs, but not to pick and choose who may leave a comment.

Q's definition of free speech is a 'legal' one that is correct in the strict sense of the word, but there is such a thing as personal free speech (like one would have at a dinner table at home for example), and we can choose to have our own approach on IC.

Hey SP!

I agree with you. This is sort of scaring me. Me agreeing with you over something! And not just one thing. I also voted for Obama; got disappointed. 

I like hearing the voice of the other side not matter how far off.  Regarding your assessment of new blogs as a response you are absolutely right. It would be a mess to track it and frankly a waste. So I agree lets be big kids and deal with things. 

In addition Admin on this site has been generally reasonable; but some of the deletions make no sense. Nevertheless I think that is sufficient.

VPK