Of censorship in the stop-plagiarism comm

[herumtreiber]

Today, going through my flist, I came upon this post:

http://stop-plagiarism.livejournal.com/150238.html

I was intrigued that the moderator seemed to take at face value this Audrey's explanations and so I made a post  in this tenor (it isn't exactly the same because the post was deleted, I assume by the moderator)

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Where are the links to the offensive comments?

You write about this but don't provide the links.

Allow me to hold my my doubts, after all, in this day and age, when men can pretend to be lesbian bloggers in Syria and elsewhere I tend to be leery of unsupported claims, and I'd like to have a judgement as Salomonic as yours.

After all, Audrey may end up getting an important job, like the German Defense Minister

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I don't think there was anything in the post that merited its deletion. So, my question to the stop_plagiarism  mods and hoppytoad79 is this: if you don't want different opinions, why don't you flock your posts?

The post was titled:

The Unacceptable Behavior Stops NOW!


And didn't you write this?




Members of this community are expected to be courteous at all times, though not necessarily pleasant.


I will expand on the reasoning for my post.

The mod didn't provide links. To me, the post seemed hearsay. Someone, probably Audrey, told the mod about the harassment and the mod took it at face value. The thing is, if the mod had provided links, the readers could have read the offensive comments and made up their minds as to their provenance.

Another thing, the mod appears quite authoritarian in the post, to wit: Unless you are one of those people, the only place you should be giving your comments and thoughts is here in this community. 

So I'm to accept that the mod, in her infinite wisdom, has judged the situation perfectly and I'm supposed to be outraged. Sorry but that doesn't cut it.

The Guardian article I linked to? Turns out that a lesbian blogger said she was arrested in Syria. She had been blogging for months, if not years, and people were very worried about her safety. But the Syrian woman was really a man writing from Edinburgh.

I think it's important to see these comments and judge them by ourselves, not take the divinely inspired word of the mod and follow like automatons, as she earnestly seems to want.

And the deleting part? The mod didn't want to engage in dialogue, which agrees with the authoritarian tone of the post. She could've explained her reasons but chose not to.

Comments

[morwenofrohan.livejournal.com]

If you're so against censorship, then why did you block my main account, hoppytoad79, from posting a reply to your rant here? Here's the explanation you claim to have wanted so badly:

Dialogue on the issue of plagiarism, yes. Dialogue on harassment, yes. Comparing Audrey to well-known bloggers faking their gender and sexuality and the German Minister of defense and demanding explanation for why I didn't give access to everything I know about Audrey being harassed? I refuse to feed into emotionalism. There is nothing about the alleged plagiarism that is even remotely on par with either of those, and the last thing the group needs right now are people being further inflamed by someone making a bigger deal out of this than it is. Also, my reasons for not sharing everything I've learned about Audrey's harassment are between me and the other mods.

[herumtreiber.livejournal.com]

The reason why I blocked you is this: this is a private journal.

I don't purport to speak for a community.

I don't pretend to advocate something. Since this affects only me, I feel a certain liberty to do certain things I would not do as a moderator of a community - a group of people with different opinions who are bound to disagree.

You will note I won't delete your post.

You could have explained these things in your original post, but instead you deleted mine.

My original reasoning still stands, people need to make up their minds, and claiming some sort of secrecy? The harassment posts are on the web, they could be googled by anyone.

Have you read the post on Mibba about someone pretending to be enchanted_jae? Have you researched this?

The 'lesbian' bloggers pretended to be something they weren't, and they kept this pretense for a long time. I think it's a germane comparison.

[morwenofrohan.livejournal.com]

Have you read the post on Mibba about someone pretending to be enchanted_jae? Have you researched this?

Of course I have. It's a no-brainer that I'd research the accusations and allegations because only a fool takes things at face value without question, and you have to investigate and get the facts if you're going to make an informed, fair decision.

[herumtreiber.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

But you're not giving the readers information to make up their own minds.

Now if you don't want to pronounce the judgment until you've weighed the facts, fine. But then you should keep your silence.

[herumtreiber.livejournal.com]

I'm closing comments for this thread because I've spent enough energy on it as it is.