Goodbye Blogcritics

My husband is a very occasional contibutor (and more regular commenter) there, and was involved from day one, like you. I've never gotten involved because of the politics section, which I have always disliked. I'd rather post my own reviews to my own blog than deal with the some of the folks the Blogcritics politics section attracts.

I'm appalled to hear things have gotten that bad, and I'm really sorry that my instinctive distrust of the politics section was right.

Yeah I hear ya. I joined lately, because of other sections, mainly the Video, culture sections. And yes politics. My first book review got so much strife, I quickly got disinterested by the whole blog. I'm loking on to see what happens but your post here sorta gives me more incentive not to post. Who needs continuous vicious condescending attacks from top-posters and mods.

I'll keep your opinion in mind for the near future.

Funny this post has attracted a comment recently; the last couple of days I've had one of the section editors (I won't say who) trying to persuade me to rejoin, saying the Politics section isn't as bad as it was.

I don't know if the Norwegian neo-Nazi is still around.

Don't get me started on those bloody top-posters! It confirms every internet old hand's stereotype about bloggers's technical cluelessness (and as for the gentleman who replies to list postings by forwarding them with the original as a bloody attachment! Argh!

I too have decided to avoid the Blogcritics political forums. Yes, it's packed with pro-war, pro-Bush and neocon posters, many of whom cross the line in making personal attacks on posters with opposing views.

In addition, there�s something fishy going on that site. For a few weeks, I had been debunking many false and misleading pro-war posts, and had been receiving compliments on my postings. Suddenly one day I could not publish my comments, no matter how many times I pressed the publish/post button. The next day I found out that, instead of being published, my comments were being re-directed to a pro-Bush, pro-war poster. Interestingly, this poster had decided to publish one of my posts he had received, but only after making some changes to my comments. And he mentioned that he had been receiving my comments. I tried using other computers to get through, but I couldn't publish when I used the name David but could publish when I used a different name.

This poster, Dave Nalle, had been using a standard tactic to avoid addressing the issues � he slimed my posts as: "extreme left partisan propaganda", "propaganda from lunatics", "quotes directly from extremist international socialist groups", "do you just parrot things you read on socialist front-group websites" or �You � are pushing the 'big lie fanatically� or "you gain from such naked, twisted hatred. Is there no distortion and attack from the extreme left which you don't accept at face value?" and so on

Bottom line, Blogcritics does not appear to be a fair political forum. It appears that the Blogcritics editors may be censoring and manipulating posts which discredit the pro-war, pro-Bush, right wing and neocon posters. Are Blogcritics protecting the right wing ranters? Is Blogcritics slanted to a certain viewpoint?

I'd guessed you were referring to Dave Nalle before I read his name, and for me the beginning of the end was when that unpleasant little troll joined the site. He's a serial killer of online communities; he was a notorious troll on Usenet back in the 1990s. Eric Olsen, who like too many 'uber bloggers' has only been on the internet five minutes, clearly has no clue about the little turd's past.

Right-wing, pro-war political trolls such as David Nalle have been flooding and polluting many political discussion sites over the last few years, possibly attempting to drown out alternative news sources. In addition, some of the most ardent pro-war posters on invading Iraq, Iran and Syria appear to be writing from Israel. Whether they are doing it out of personal motivation or directed to do this hack job (e.g., David Nalle has boasted he knows the RNC�s Ken Mehlmen), your observation is dead on � they are serial killers of online communities.

Finally, it is highly likely that it was a Blogcritics editor who deliberately blocked my comments from being published and instead redirected them to David Nalle. Thus the possibility exists that Eric Olsen had been deliberately protecting David Nalle, and that Oslen knows of that �little turd�s past�. David Nalle posts a lot and I�m not the only person on the receiving end of his nonsense, so Oslen must be aware of Nalle's behavior. Before my posts were blocked I had dissected and debunked, using facts, about 10 of Nalle's ridiculous posts in the preceeding days. I can give you an example if you want. Had Blogcritics not blocked me, I would have completely discredited Nalle. There was no legitimate reason for Blogcritics to block my postings � I wasn�t stupid enough to take his amateurish baits and personally attack him back.

Tim -- Just wandered across this post.

I think if you check out politics now, you'll see it's a rather different place. Editorial standards are much higher, and personal attacks are forbidden in comments as much as passionate speech is encouraged.

Phillip Winn and I have been co-writing a column called In the Middle for several months, where we discuss issues from multiple sides with the goal of expressing our opinions civilly and gaining some level of understanding from the opposite viewpoint. It's become rather popular and many express how it's drawn them back into the Blogcritics political section.

In any event, we're still around (and stronger than ever!) if you want to head back to check us out.

Eric Berlin

Weird. I found blogcritics from a link on dave nalles personal blog and was pleased to find so many writers there of similar quality, though the comments are dominated by strident lefties.

If people there didn't agree with you why not stick around and set them straight?