Posting Policy

Ed Moloney with a witty response to some troll hiding behind a moniker. It featured in The Broken Elbow on 20 May 2014.


I have just had a complaint from someone who tried to post under a false name that I was a coward for not publishing what he had to say. Imagine that? Someone who didn’t have the guts to put his own name to a comment says I am a coward for not publishing it. Enough said.
And anyway, there is nothing in the practice of publishing a blog that obliges the blogger, that is me in this case, to publish offensive, abusive material about the person doing the blogging. That I will not do. So tough luck to all the half-brains who have nothing to deliver but garbage and insults. Ain’t gonna happen.

15 comments:

  1. Eamon, I would take the approach that Mackers does, unless it is outragiously bad, put it up to those who read this blogg, to point out thier own particular afront, to the point,so that they may ask for it s removal.

    My own experience is that this blog is as fair and open as any. I get freedom to speak about my own, deep, reservations about the way the two most senior republican leaders took Republicism to an English auction and sold it for a bag of magic beans.

    Big Mackers, I would like to say to you, dont spend one second worrying about those charletons. People like Bobby Storey. I seen him standing there, holding the restaints of his slavering minions, who at that point, were nothing more than attack dogs. How easy it was for him, to call them off. One day, them young men and women, that are running around supporting the Bobby Stoeys, Gerry Adams, both of who not only support upholding the Brittish administration of this counrty of Ireland, they are trying to have other rebel groups arround this world to surrender.

    If god could only punnish these prospectors, rather than let them adorn themselves with a cloak that is dripping blood. Representing you with nothing more than a ride to hell, with all your hopes, dreams, nothing less than feeling like, you were cheated. YOU can be sure of that.

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  2. I've shut a few up on various sites by asking them to say what they were saying without using a fake name.

    They tend to fuck off for a while before they come back barking like those cowardly dogs who run with their tails between their legs when you stamp your foot.

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  3. Don't know why people don't just use their own names. Unless of course for malicious purposes.

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  4. Why use your own name? The internet never forgets. I took the decision in the mid-90s to never use my name online. (In fact, there are only a few references to it, and one was on The Blanket, as Carrie asked me to not use a psuedonym. Others are obscure conferences and papers and the like.)

    Consequently I have a very small google footprint, which is what I want.

    (an aside) People give away way too much information about themselves online, and they shouldn't.

    I never understood why it is cowardly for not using you own name, given there is no legal basis for a _real_ name. What does that even mean? At the weekends, you can call me Amanda...

    Well, that is a *bit* faceitious, but I see no need to reveal myself. Never again anyhow, m'lud, not after that last unpleasantness.

    Sock puppets and multi-accounts to back your own point up, sure, that is a bit...off. Bad form, indeed.

    Having said all that, I am not overly fond of any of my real names anyhow.

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  5. my real name is gerry adams

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  6. At the weekends, you can call me Amanda...

    Are you a tranny Stray??? That sounds gay. As for my digital footprint. I couldn't care less about it. I reckon it's bigger than my size 11's. If anyone wants to steal my id and they make money from it, can you give me 20%....

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  7. Hahaha, no, my name is Brian, and so's my wife.

    And to mangle another film quote:

    No, *I'M* Gerry Adams.

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  8. Stray,
    Tonight It is possible to steal your ID and sniff your foot print no matter how quietly, how gently you tip toe through Google. I figured that out when you said you used your real name on The Blanket. Then simply tie it to papers you've wrote that have been published online and backtrack.

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  9. Yup, I said I had a small google footprint, not I didn't have one :)

    And I amn't as greedy as you, I'll settle for 15% of the proceeds :D

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  10. Stray

    I think you'll find if you over step the mark the powers that be will know exactly who and where you are. All you do here without identifying yourself is hide from the other posters.

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  11. Larry: I don't think I consider myself 'hiding'. I understand why people might think that.

    I use this moniker all the time, so I guess it is my de facto name online. What difference do you think it would make if you knew the name my mother gave me?

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  12. Stray,

    I think the issue is less anonymity which some people use to push and exchange ideas. It is when anonymity is used as shield behind which a person hides in order to smear or abuse someone who is out in the open not using a shield. What possible reason other than cowardice is there for that? I am not talking about a moniker challenging a bone fide ID's position, but smearing and abusing.

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  13. Stray

    I just find it difficult if not impossible to give the same weight to fake names that I do to people I can identify. Perhaps a bit like a book backed in brown paper, you don't know what's in it.

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  14. Larry,

    that is one reason to stand over what you have to say. It helps you get listened to. I think unconsciously we tend to switch off when the moniker appears unless we know the person behind the name and then there is an interest in taking their views on board.

    There is a view on the net that invisible people have invisible rights. If people want to use it for exchanging ideas, it is fine but if they want to use it for abuse that it something else. Even then, the ideas tend not to get treated as serious for the reasons you outlined.

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