(Well, have they? I don’t know. I’m asking).
Recently there have been two lengthy and productive blogs on moderation. Because they were also somewhat tiring due to their energy and touched deep nerves, I thought it prudent to allow some time for the participants and readers, including the publisher, to digest them. Thus, I had no intention of writing yet another blog on moderation. However I feel compelled to tonight.
It was the Gaza situation that prompted my actually quite sudden decision to return to this website community as a regular member on Jan. 1, because I was very distressed not only about the situation itself but about how it seemed to be tearing this website to shreds in a way I hadn’t seen since the Wild Wild West. And so I’ve been following it very closely here. I haven’t spoken on too many blogs but I’ve been reading. Fortunately it seems to be calming down a bit but something in particular still remains that troubles me.
My views as a non-Zionist, pacifist, and anti-colonialist are well-known and require no further articulation. However several times including today I’ve seen people I know quite well and respect who differ wi,th my views on this issue, to greater or lesser extent, voice omplaints that they or others with similar views have been subject to abusive posts which have not been deleted, while no more greatly and sometimes less abusive ones directed at the other “side” (not by them in particular but in general) have been.
In fact I myself flagged a post directed at one of the most highly regarded members of this community that I found attrociously abusive, and yet it remained. What irked me perhaps the most was that this post was written by a cowardly goldfish (not to accuse most of the goldfish of being cowardly by any means), abusing his/her PRIVILEGE of anonimity, towards one of the few people onsite who actually uses their real name. It wasn’t this incident that prompted me to write this, though. n fact I’d decided not to. It was the culmination of the other accounts.
Perhaps these are merely isolated incidents, oversights on the part of the moderation team who work so dilligently without compensation, or even recognition, to be fair and to make this website the very best it can be. Perhaps my friends who are upset are over-reacting, I don’t know. I’m not them and tensions are rstill unning high.
But I AM, me, and I’m not feeling tense at all, and I do know about the one I flagged. Oversight? I hope so.
Have deletions on this website regarding the Gaza situation been unbalanced? I’m raising the question. That’s all.
Peace Now.
Roxane
