Posted on 03/02/2011 12:58:09 PM PST by MalPearce
We know that the ending of the Guardian Unlimited Talkboards on Friday was an abrupt shock for the community that used them, and we are sorry for that. We didn't support them for over a decade lightly or casually, and we didn't close them suddenly in that vein either.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Now before anyone tears me a new one for lamenting the loss of a veteran UK-based, largely unmoderated, predominately left wing talkboard, I should add that there are many people on FR who have been on GUT before, likewise I know many former FR members who joined GUT.
Way back in the mid 90s, long before I'd heard of Free Republic, word got round of a new player in the "talkboard" market: it was Guardian Talk (GU Talk for short, or GUT), and part of the Guardian newspapers website. At first it was a primitive affair, I suspect a hobby job by some Guardian employees. At some point they decided to vamp it up a bit, but for ten years it remained pretty much unaltered.
Imagine FR but with images and HTML formatting disabled, and a "say what you like" ethos, you're pretty much there in terms of technology and ideology.
In the early days, most of the membership were dyed-in-the-wool left wingers (probably Guardian readers!), but it got progressively more conservative (by UK standards, not by JimRob's standards!) over time. The membership increased whenever another discussion forum shut down (I remember lots of people from either end of the political spectrum, coming over from the CNN forums).
Unlike many other boards of its kind, the Guardian editorial policy wasn't applied to its talkboards in any way, shape or form. In reality you had to out yourself as a hardcore neo-Nazi, anti-Semite or serial bully, or post something that was legally actionable to get so much as a warning from the moderators, never mind a ban.
The sudden closure of this veteran talkboard is to be lamented, irrespective of the politics of the Guardian newspaper. In fact, it's quite ironic, that a rag that consistently rails against oppression and censorship and plays holier-than-thou with its "comment is free" ethos, has imposed the most draconian censorship of free speech possible upon the internet community, with no warning.
On September 11th 2001, people in New York, Washington and the Middle East were posting news updates minute by minute, not just describing what was on the TV but what was happening in the streets and in their communities. I’m sure the same kind of thing must’ve happened on a million discussion forums all round the world.
But there was no Twitter, there was no Facebook. There were a handful of “talkboards” that really captured the opinions of millions on a global scale, in real time, that are still around today. Until last Friday, one of them was Guardian Talk.
The GU talkboards were based on similar technology to Free Republic. On that fateful day, GU Talk had UK nationals, American nationals, Europeans, Israelis, and people from all over the Commonwealth, not to mention members who lived and worked in the Middle East, all providing real-time updates of the reaction on their doorsteps.
As it happens, the outpouring of sympathy for America and the desire to bring those responsible to justice, was both spontaneous and genuine - and the nature of the GU Talk discussion on that dreadful day, totally transcended national politics.
The shock and anger and grief was tangible and GU Talk didn’t object to profanity so people were free to express their feelings without holding back.
If any American ever dared believe the whole world wasn’t with them sharing their anger and grief on that day, I would’ve said to them: Read that thread.
Really? I said a hell of a lot worse than that and never got so much as a warning.
I did get a private message from one prominent contributor on GU Talk, to tell me that a bunch of people who’d torn shreds out of me for taking a right wing view in an immigration debate had been reported by him, to the mods, for bullying behaviour.
That was really quite surreal - imagine someone here reporting a conservative to the mods for being too nasty when flaming a pro-gay RINO. It’d never happen.
To be fair, there was one person on GU Talk who was always worth listening to: PolicyWatcher could pretty much fix any computer problem anywhere in the world from memory, and he was slating the ID cards proposal on technical, legal and political grounds YEARS before anybody else.
I couldn’t tell you if he was a left-winger or a right-winger; I only know that I look like a ruddy noob compared to that dude and that’s despite working in the same field as him for over a decade.
GU wasn’t without its “celebrities” either. Garrick Alder was notable for being one of the question wranglers on Q.I. He left GU Talk a few years ago though.
The Guardian denizens are very anti-Israel and very pro-Palestinian.
The lefties drove off the conservatives and then whined because they only had each other to talk to.
I’m afraid I’m going to have to call you on this one: you’re being just as partisan in your recollections, as the idiots on Democratic Underground who claimed the exact opposite.
The same talkboard you’ve just said was very anti-Israel, complained that, “Freepers have completely taken over the International section”. By that they meant, pro-Zionist.
Every time I looked at that section, it was totally dominated by trolls and troll baiters attacking each other, but some were pro-Palestinian and some were pro-Zionist. Trouble is, when baiters hijack a discussion, the extreme and hostile arguments drown out everything else.
Well over 95% of the GU denizens, myself included, never posted on the Israel/Palestine discussions and actively avoided doing so because it was common knowledge they’d been hijacked by trolls and extremists. Some of the regulars in International were professional bloggers.
Speaking only for myself, I stuck to USA, UK News and IT/Computing.
Half the membership never discussed politics or current affairs at all, and stuck to the media and sports discussions. So it’s a bit unfair to assume they had any view at all on Israel/Palestine, let alone a strong opinion one way or the other.
One of the longest and most prolific posters on the I/P issue, was an uncompromising Zionist. BenSolomon posted there for years without being banned.
Imagine a prolific pro-abortion campaigner escaping the ZOT. It wouldn’t happen. By implication, the Graun didn’t impose an anti-Zionist agenda on the talkboards because there’s no way someone like Ben would’ve been tolerated there if it had.
I posted in the Politics section and they were very pro Muslim and Pro-Palestinian. And, like all lefties, they were smug and self-righteous and a bunch of tattletales.
Now, I haven’t posted there for several years (my choice - I was reincarnated under another user name after my initial banning), but I know what went on there as I was a frequent user.
The place had deteriorated at the end. Too small a cohort saying the same things over and over.
I used to post on the London Standard board. The Islamists had it shut down because we told the truth about their “religion”. I occasionally went to the Guardian but like you said it was full of rabid leftists who had heir talking points and didn’t want a discussion.
I definitely agree with you both on the state of affairs - prior to 2001 there was definitely an orthodoxy. My own experience was posters would flame you but you really had to go way beyond the pale to get a ZOT from a moderator.
The people I do know who got banned for breaching GU Talk policy, were being so overtly and openly racist that they’d be zotted here for committing the same kind of policy infractions if they said the same stuff in the same manner.
I’d be careful about imposing a double standard on the basis of “didn’t want a discussion” though, because even if GU Talk had a clear left wing agenda and “rabid” right wingers weren’t welcome, what makes that any different to Jim Robinson stating, over and over again, that “rabid” anti-conservative talk won’t be tolerated here?
By the time Tony Blair left, it was okay to criticize Islam or be pro-Israel because even the rabid leftists had come to recognize that denial was no longer an option.
I wouldn’t say GU was ever in danger of becoming a stomping ground for the political right, but I certainly remember American posters making the case against Obamacare and not being isolated.
There was one golden rule in that kind of discussion and that was, you’d get treated with far more respect if you took the time to demonstrate the plus points of the thing you believe in.
Case in point was ID cards - a Labour policy supported by the rabid left. PolicyWatcher argued that the system on the table would be open to abuse, rife with false positive identification, data mishandling and data loss, and his trump card was demonstrating time and again why governments can’t be trusted with that kind of power... Result: he almost single-handedly turned the orthodoxy on GU Talk to be against ID cards.
In contrast there were some people who undoubtedly had conservative opinions, but who were almost pathologically opposed to ever explaining why they held those views or how those views could be applied.
GU Talk came up with its own term for someone making a prima facae “this is bad, that is good” argument who then refuses point blank to ever expand on it, relying on repetition alone to win the argument: “clown dancing”.
** Really? I said a hell of a lot worse than that and never got so much as a warning. **
But I was criticizing Rachel Corrie. </sarc
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.