Cal here.A lot of the mail at RYS was about the great conspiracy that I and other moderators perpetrated. We were shutting down freedom, making a mockery, stopping the brilliant voices from getting space on our page.
Since the birth of College Misery, and the wide open commenting, that sort of bullshit hasn't been as prevalent. But in my occasional stints behind the CM Cruiser, I get to view or respond to a handful of emails or comments that tell us how we're censoring folks.
A post from 2 days ago garnered this comment:
Wow! you censor my response? Typical... academic freedom, and all that. rollseyes
I replied on that comment thread with someone I thought I'd share here:
Posts older than 2 days usually get snagged by the Blogger spam filter. It's been our experience that advertising and phishing comments often appear on older posts as bots search terms and create comments with ads, etc.Yours was NOT 2 days old when you posted your comment, but as noted on this page before, the spam "blocker" is a little capricious in how it weeds comments out. Usually a moderator finds 3-5 every day that shouldn't have been blocked. As soon as we see them, like yours above, which Cal viewed at about 3:55 am Pacific time, we post them. Sorry if there was a delay.
We also don't know what response of yours we censored. Not the one above, right, from 11:27 pm? Did you post earlier under another name?
We did take down some comments that came in from one of the non-name accounts. Was that you? (It's against the rules of the blog to post anonymously or with any of the non-names people try out: "No one." "Unknown." "Anonymous guy." It's in our "Rules of Misery" from the sidebar, and it's been addressed on the page a few times, even quite recently.)
As always, we like to remind readers, there's no conspiracy against anyone. Nobody, except that tool from Oregon, is on our permanent shit list. If a comment gets snagged by the spam blocker, it gets reviewed by a moderator. In 90% of those cases, it gets posted as soon as we see it.
I, Leslie, and Fab are always happy to reply to specific problems and concerns. Just hit us here.
So many folks play the victim card first. It's their one gambit. "Oh poor me; the world is after me."
ReplyDeleteSlim, the world doesn't give a shit about you.
Students act like this all the time. "My rights! My entitlement."
Your commenter sounds like another tool.
Hey! You've never censored me. I feel cheated.
ReplyDeleteFurther proof that academia contains a larger than normal amount of paranoid, hypersensitive assholes.
ReplyDeleteI just know you're talking about me...oh the pain, the pain.
DeleteI am not! Much.
DeleteAll of this is bullshit. It would not surprise me if Cal and Hiram were not the same person. Look at how close Hiram's POSITIVE and SUPPORTIVE comment followed the whiny post.
ReplyDeleteI'm a longtime and well known member of this page, but I'm not one of the in crowd. I've been made fun of, cursed at, dismissed many times. But nobody every does a thing about it.
I changed my screen name recently to try to get a fresh start, but I'm convinced that the inner circle truely does want this page to be off limits for contrary views.
You're getting what you want. Do you see how few posts and comments there are? You've wasted such a good forum with your petty conspiracies.
Futz, it took such a short period of time to sully your new screen name with inanity. What's your next screen name going to be?
DeleteOh the inner circle. The inner, inner circle of popular people whose mission it is to bully the nonconforming. Yes, we call each other on our secret spy phones and arrange to all wear blue on Thursdays, and then we meet at an exclusive lunch table to roll spitballs and plan our missions against you.
ReplyDeleteFrog, you need to cackle evilly to get the full effect. 8-)
DeleteOf course now I'm envisioning Fab in a white suit, shaved head, stroking a white cat sitting in his lap....
All in the abundant free time left over after our 60-70-80-hour workweeks.
DeleteI'm rubbing my hands together, menacingly.
DeleteSo, we're all wearing brown today, right? I did read that memo correctly? Oh, and making fun of Futz up there? Or is that not on our bully agenda today?
DeleteOops. I've got on blue (my nightgown, in fact. Some of the stereotypes of online teaching do hold true.) Will look for brown when I dress.
DeleteWait--so Fab is really Cee Lo?! Damn; I've GOT to make it into the cool kids' group.
DeleteI'm not wearing anything. I thought we all agreed that Wednesay is naked day.
DeleteThe Cee Lo thing and naked Stella and NONE of it caught by the filter!!! Gadzooks!
DeleteDoes it have to be a white cat even on brown day? Because, cat hair. Also, NO cats on naked day, right? Because, claws.
DeleteMerely, you can't rule the world unless you're willing to make sacrifices. But you will be issued a small lap blanket on Naked Day...
DeleteAs the only grad here from Ohio University, Athens (Blessed Be Its Name) amidst the swarm (mass? herd? flock?) of Miami weenies, I personally doubt they're up to actually pulling off a conspiracy to silence critics, even after imbibing of too many (i.e. one) wine coolers...
ReplyDeleteI think I remember that name as the person who called me a dipshit and a fucking something for not being sensitive enough to how expensive textbooks are. I was actually going to reply later (life does get in the way) that I thought I was, actually, sensitive to that fact as I put two copies on reserve at the library. Sorry I don't know how to link, but this was on my post about pre summer session e-mail.
ReplyDeleteIf this is, in fact, that same person, I was going to also tell him/her that s(he) should hold off on the righteous anger long enough to try to understand the problem. S(he) represented him/herself as a person who got As all the time using the textbook on reserve at the library. Great. I don't suppose he/she got As by sending the prof an e-mail saying that he/she would not be completing assignments during the first 40% of the class as his/her textbook would not be arriving before that.
Sigh. But the person was on the attack, cursing and angry, so I was not really surpised that she/he got pulled. I was actually kind of touched that you guys cared.....
Hmm. . .I'm beginning to think that CM is, in fact, a conspiracy -- a campaign of distraction to keep people from noticing the real threats to academic freedom (i.e. the death of tenure and the rise of the factory model of higher ed). The problem with this theory is that the nitwits who see threats to academic freedom on CM are not exactly the sort of people I'd want to sit in a committee meeting (or storm the ivory towers) with anyway. The RGMs, on the other hand? I'd happily run a university (or foment a revolution) with them any day.
ReplyDeleteFree expression within mutually-agreed-upon and consented-to boundaries allowing for civil (if occasionally profane) discourse -- sounds like a pretty good definition of academic freedom to me.
Posts like this always make me think of Ice-T's "Freedom of Speech": "Yeah, just watch what you say."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jG-YyxcIJA
Which is not to say that I disagree with the moderation on this board--far from it.
DeleteWait: so "the blogspot system" actually blocks certain comments without the moderators say-so? Does it do that by filtering for key words (buy this product now)? or for advertising lingo (send The CC your credit card information now)???
ReplyDeleteYes, Blogger does it automatically. And we've run ridiculous tests of every kind on it to try and figure it out.
DeleteSometimes it's great at stopping comments with links (often ads). It occasionally seems finicky about "adult" language, but clearly - if you've read this fucking page - not very often. (There was one really great thread months ago where people tried amazing combinations of vulgarities to trip it up. Nothing. They all came through.)
Sometimes the most innocuous comment gets sent to our "moderate" filter and we normally just zap it over so it appears on the regular page.
Fab and I have spent a good deal of time on Blogger forums and this and our blocking problem is not unique.
Cal
Thanks for the explanation. I missed the entry where people were attempting to get their own comments blocked; now I'm sad about missing that.
DeleteThen it's definitely a conspiracy that you and Fab are perpetrating to keep out those not in the "inner circle." I mean, what else could it possibly be? :o)
Can we have another "try to get our comments blocked by the automatic filter" thread? That was fun! And I've got some new ideas!
DeleteHowdy all. Cal, you da man. How can I be da man, when YOU da man.
ReplyDeleteHere's that spam experiment entry, just for grins.
Laughing AGAIN at Darla's comment.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm laughing again at your King of Nigeria.
DeleteSomebody else read Froad's King of Nigeria comment: Today's Lockhorns comic.
DeleteIt's about par for the course: over a year out of date.
You know, whether or not the entire blog is being written by four people, it's pretty damn clear that the trolls are all the same person. They always say the same things, at least.
ReplyDelete2 things I don't understand are the "Give me more acclaim" vibe from this / these commenter(s), and the fact that every such post has an identical tone.
DeleteOne would assume that any contributor worthy of a certain amount of acclaim would have the ability to vary his (I doubt it's a "her") shtick a little.
Greetings, it is I, deposed king of Nigeria. I bless you and family. Please to help me. Give me more acclaim. I give you one million for your troubles. God has sent you to me.
DeleteF&T, it's a day later and I am still giggling at this.
Delete... man, some people don't inhabit a happy mental place and don't do shit about it besides rage into a glowing box.
ReplyDelete(within) Anon! Anon, good nurse!
ReplyDelete