Waltz: What happened?
From Waltz yesterday:
Just dropped by to say farewell - CiF has finally banned me. I put the cat's nine lives to shame there long ago but one day it had to end ... Keep up the good work, Mr. or Ms. Heresiarch.
Has Waltz been banned from CIF? Was it all a mistake, or have the CIF moderators descended to new Stalinist tactics to stifle dissent? They seem to have been busier than usual in the past few days. Threads such as this one from Seumas Milne have been distorted out of all recognition by deletions. Is that just keeping a watch on hate-speech, or is it an attempt to define what is, or is not, a sayable opinion or a thinkable thought?
I'm re-posting all Waltz-related comments to this thread. Feel free to say what you like, about her, about what you think might have happened, and about CIF and net censorship in general. I'm not a moderator.
UPDATE: Waltz wasn't banned after all, say the Mods. It's just a software glitch at her end. Allegedly. (See comment). Still, the Mods should be asking themselves why we believed it.
UPDATE2 (19/7/08) Waltz says:
I don't think it's anything to do with my browser, which has always worked perfectly with CiF until one week ago. Plus I tried posting from my office at work yesterday and couldn't do so from there either. So I think I have in fact been banned, regardless of CiF's claim that I haven't been.
What on earth is going on?
UPDATE3 (21/7/08) Waltz is back!
I'm able to post to CiF again - my brother did a system restore on my laptop and it seems to have solved whatever the problem was.
No conspiracy after all. Still, it was an entertaining thread.
Just dropped by to say farewell - CiF has finally banned me. I put the cat's nine lives to shame there long ago but one day it had to end ... Keep up the good work, Mr. or Ms. Heresiarch.
Has Waltz been banned from CIF? Was it all a mistake, or have the CIF moderators descended to new Stalinist tactics to stifle dissent? They seem to have been busier than usual in the past few days. Threads such as this one from Seumas Milne have been distorted out of all recognition by deletions. Is that just keeping a watch on hate-speech, or is it an attempt to define what is, or is not, a sayable opinion or a thinkable thought?
I'm re-posting all Waltz-related comments to this thread. Feel free to say what you like, about her, about what you think might have happened, and about CIF and net censorship in general. I'm not a moderator.
UPDATE: Waltz wasn't banned after all, say the Mods. It's just a software glitch at her end. Allegedly. (See comment). Still, the Mods should be asking themselves why we believed it.
UPDATE2 (19/7/08) Waltz says:
I don't think it's anything to do with my browser, which has always worked perfectly with CiF until one week ago. Plus I tried posting from my office at work yesterday and couldn't do so from there either. So I think I have in fact been banned, regardless of CiF's claim that I haven't been.
What on earth is going on?
UPDATE3 (21/7/08) Waltz is back!
I'm able to post to CiF again - my brother did a system restore on my laptop and it seems to have solved whatever the problem was.
No conspiracy after all. Still, it was an entertaining thread.
Comments
I'm on the verge of dumping them again - the new Cif is a drag, a drag, and the current Martin Bright thread shows signs of terminal Cif blah Islam blah decay. Should we dissidents all form a Cif in Exile?
Was going to comment on your Obama piece Heresiarch but too annoyed now. I think you're right the cartoon may define him eventually.
Bloody hell.
16 July 2008 07:26
16 July 2008 08:56
I'm too boring to get banned, though my posts are regularly blootered into oblivion.
16 July 2008 09:19
Meanwhile, I shall drop by here every now and again.
Take care, both.
16 July 2008 10:45
16 July 2008 11:09
I voted for you as commentator of the year, incidentally.
I find Cif invaluable for procastination (I too write for a meagre living - only 40 people in Scotland make a living just out of books and I am not one of them) but as I say I am increasingly fed up with Cif - it's becoming almost a chore to post there, and the 'join the debate' shout line is increasingly a bad joke.
Anyway, Heresy Corner is a good place to be, the blog is great, the company is good and the gab is both friendly and intelligent.
16 July 2008 11:22
Well, I can't pretend to have agreed with Waltz on every occasion, but I'm sad to see her booted off....I've more or less given up on what was once a fun place....
16 July 2008 17:02
I've just had an email from someone at CiF informing me that I am neither suspended nor banned.
If that's the case, I'm not sure what has happened. I can't post to CiF anymore - comment box opens but post comment buttons are dead. Using same browser and laptop as before, no new software installed or anything.
Big mystery but if CiF says I'm not banned then I guess I'm not.
Will get my brother on the case over the weekend and see if he can figure it out.
Thanks everyone for your support.
But generally, I too am fed up with the new version and suspect that it could be a deliberate ploy to steer web traffic away from CiF.
Any views anyone on that conspiracy theory?
I've had no problems at all with the new CiF format and I haven't changed my browser, laptop, or anything on my laptop. On Friday I could post on CiF and on Saturday I couldn't and I haven't been able to since. At first I thought it might be a glitch on CiF itself but other people are evidently still able to post there, just not me. So I assumed I'd finally been banned but the CiF gods say I'm not so .... I'm mystified.
I'll try logging in on my partner's laptop and network over the weekend and see what happens. I mean, dear Berchmanns must be crying his eyes out. And how will Inayat cope?
I've been tempted to post messages, but it would largely just agreeing with most that ahs been written.
Also check in daily to CIF, but am largely put off by a number of the posters. I remember the Masroor article poor form around the Christmas period.
I was once banned for saying I agreed with a headline in the New Statesman on a Madeline Bunting thread. OK, the headline was, "Silly Bunt", but as I didn't quote it, link to it, or even specify which headline I was referring to, I thought being banned was a tad harsh.
The moderation there is....shall we say peculiar....it's a tricky job, which needs doing, but doing better....on the GU books blog today there was a bizarre situation where a comment was moderated....for "plot spoiling"....on my (rather silly) blog, GU books blog articles & their subsequent comments & moderation are a recurring theme....
We need robust debate - and insults, sharp put-downs and close-to-the-edge language are always going to play their part....trolling doesn't contribute: this is where current Cif moderation fails IMO....the Piranha brothers ("harsh, but fair") would have made excellent moderators....
Now: I've been here before, but need to read some more heresy....
'As to Donge's disappearance I suspect it could be something to do with the browser he is using. I find that on some versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer the comment section does not work although you can read the articles. I use Mozilla Firefox. Crap design by whoever wrote the code as despite IE being awful it is the market leader due.'
I have no idea what this means - like some Muslim fundies I just assume it's all wee demons handknitting down in the vaults.
Also, Donge disappeared before and I remember asking him where he'd been and he said he was on his final warning from Cif - which sounds fairly definite.
Yes, there is a techy thing going on, but they are also at it, is my gut feeling. Seamus Milne used to run Cif, and he is of course a son of a BBC director general, and was educated at Winchester, and that sort, like modern-day Vicars of Bray, just gravitate to the power and fill any available space with their own kind. The problem at Cif is a cultural one - the Cif rulers allow some of us above the line, like Cath (how good she is), but the bottom line is that they are expensively educated people, and however the dice roll they will be the other side of the baize from us smirking and on the high roll - we can be sure of that.
From Donge to Waltz - now there's a spectrum, and I want both back on Cif (for different reasons of course).
[Deleted by moderator - and if you do it again we'll break your legs, son]
Evidently the joke went miles over someone's head and they thought I was threatening another poster...
What has skiergolfer regenerated as then?
All I can say is that I don't know whether or not you've been banned from CiF waltz but I do note that even seraching The Guardian website under 'waltz' NONE of your previous comments are found! So, I guess you haven't been banned after all, you're simply an 'unperson'. After all, if you don't exist, you can't have been banned, can you? (Stalinism 101)
Frankly I can't remember all the exchanges we've had, I have a vague memory we've disagreed several times (LOL!), but so what? Hope we see you again soon,
Regards,
'peitha'
PS, A set of blog comments about commenting on blogs, guess we're all equally sad then ;-)
PPS Posting this as 'anonymous' because I can't be arsed to register for yet another thread etc ...
Stop Press on Waltz
According to Berchmans, Waltz may well have been banned. Here's a cut and paste:
## what the hell has happened with Waltz ##
.
She could have been banned ..she implied INAYAT was SADDAM ...SPIKE PARIS was banned for likening SHARON to a WW2 figure so its possible.
Lets not hear it for WALTZ.
B
This is from Matt Seaton's blog about CIF Moderation, page 3 - I'll post the link separately just in case your spambot eats it :)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/18/blogging?commentpage=3
I wrote back sympathetically warning him to be careful he didn't break a leg and my post was deleted.
Of course, it could have been because it was off topic.
I also had problems with posting on CIF. I suggest that you download 'Flock' from www.flock.com
It is a browser - light. It seems to work much faster than Internet Explorer and has much less crashes. Seems to integrate to CIF very easily with no problems. Suggest you try it. If only to annoy Berchams who I ignore studiously. Not that we have always seen eye to eye. But at least you oppose the 'Guardian World View'.
" comment box opens but post comment buttons are dead. "
If you are pasting text in to the box (from notepad, wordpad etc) the submit button will remain dead (greyed out) until you type in a couple of characters directly - these can be spaces.
This is the institution which used a single word in the margin of a Foreign Office draft to try to imply Jewish control of the British government.
People of goodwill should recognise the Guardian as a throughly depraved, degenerate, Stalinist institution wholely devoted to the propagation of leftist authoritarianism, anti-Semitism, and Islamism.
Matt Seaton is there at present waffling on about among other things - that CiF is "avowedly liberal"; that the moderators are "educated" about moderation, and that CiF is not anti-Israel.
I just saw a pig flying by...
You have joined the ranks of the mighty who have dared to expose the duplicity of CiF.
Good luck for the future. Keep on speaking out.
exArmy, there's another I enjoyed reading immensely who has disappeared.
On the bright side, at least it reminds me why I will never give the Guardian a penny of my hardearned cash (and remember folks, *never* click on the ads)
Andy.
You know what this refers to? The odious little creep was grovelling to Inayat and I mocked him (Berchmanns) with Galloway's "I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability ...".
@ yeractual - the non-responsive post comment box is unchanging no matter what I do. I don't think it's anything to do with my browser, which has always worked perfectly with CiF until one week ago. Plus I tried posting from my office at work yesterday and couldn't do so from there either. So I think I have in fact been banned, regardless of CiF's claim that I haven't been.
@ hammer - thanks, I might do that but I'm changing my ISP and laptop next month (long story involving the rubbishness of BT Broadband) so I'll take a CiF break for a while, go on holiday early August, and see if the new set-up works when I get back.
Thanks everyone for your support and advice.
I simply scroll past their posts without glancing at the content. When you return, I suggest that you do the same.
neil(at)yeractual.com
and I will set one up for you with forwarding to your own email address (so that you are able to receive confirmation mail from the Guardian) and try that after deleting your guardian cookies.
Come to that have you tried setting up a new HotMail email address?
You do realise that people from the Guardian come here and read this, don't you?
If you can't post with a new email address, then it isn't the G that is stopping you . . .
If you want to email me I could give you a login email and p/w to try Just to see if it is the email login that is ballsing things up.
Waltz, I wish you well with the book. Enjoy the break :)
Now that the steam has dissipated from Waltzgate, I've started the rumblings of a new conspiracy: that AdamRutherford and AllyF are holding billplasterer hostage.
Forgot to mention - great blog site - v glad to have found it!
Regards.
I'll be back some time in the second half of August, hopefully under my "Waltz" nick. I think it must be some browser/CiF interface problem, though I've no idea why it suddenly started 8 days ago.
And now I have to go take a contingent of raucous old ladies for a day out. I just know they are all going to get drunk and start throwing cake around. Pray for me.
'And now I have to go take a contingent of raucous old ladies for a day out. I just know they are all going to get drunk and start throwing cake around. '
You only want to be reminded of Cif!
I too am taking time off Heresiarch will try to log on from Portree library - you get 30 mins with a librarian glaring at you with 'I-know-you-are-looking at porn-presbyterian eyes.
Now I feel guilty about suspecting the CiF squad of summarily banning me. I'll have to send them some chocolate or something.