News, Local history and Thanet issues from Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate see www.michaelsbookshop.com I publish over 200 books about the history of this area click here to look at them.
Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.
If her name had been, Jimmy or Roger she would have got an OBE!
ReplyDeleteWhat has she got to do with fanit?
DeleteShe was born in croydon !!
Plenty of others in Thanet that could have been made dames.
DeleteOh dear, touchy aren't we Michael removing a comment about JW. It was not offensive, named no-one and left options as to conclusion. If that is how it is going to be in future I shall not bother again.
DeleteDoubt I will miss you either, Pervo.
DeletePeter, I seem to recall you making a terrible fuss and mentioning it on sundry other blogs when Simon saw fit to ban you from Thanet Life, yet you applaud it when someone gets their comment deleted by Michael on this site. Hypocrisy seems to fit easily with you.
DeleteI thought I made the position very clear in my Boxing Day post, I will try again.
DeleteI am now getting over 300 spam comments a day, these are all made by people with their own agenda, what they lack is any internet ranking, so no one reads what they write on their own sites or elsewhere. What they do about this is to comment on sites like this, where people do read the comments.
Now in this instance I could have set up a blog for people to make childish innuendo about councillor’s sexuality, but I didn’t, if you think that people would enjoy reading this sort of thing and you want, then just set up a blog about it.
As I said on Boxing Day, I am now managing the anonymous comment through the spam management controls, people like Peter Cheksfield and Tom Clarke who are commenting signed on with their Goole accounts are unaffected.
The rest well if the comment fits in with the post, isn’t offensive or has some other merit it stays, if not it goes the way of gentlemen enlargement and pleas for me to call the police and ask them to arrest senior members of local government.
The bottom line being that it just isn’t interesting.
Michael, I also sign in with my google account and use my real name. Am I ok too?
DeleteMy only reservation would be about the source of judgement. Accepting that this is Michael's site then he makes the decision, albeit that it may well be based on his view or agenda. Is that true democracy?
DeleteAs to a councillor's sexuality, if said councillor himself makes such a public issue and constantly accuses others of isms and phobias, then does he not set himself up as fair game for counter allegation?
Finally, where would such sites be but for the contributions by anonymous followers. I would suggest they would be poorer for the lack of diversity of comment.
Tom,
DeleteI agree. If the person wishes to continually make much of their sexuality, or indeed anything else, then they are fair game. He who lives by the sword, etc. Matt Lucas makes a cogent observation in his 'the only gay in the village sketches'.
But I respect the fact that this is Michael's blog, and that the decision is his.
Though I shall miss the p*n*s enlargement spam. Without which I will have to revert to the ancient method of a strong horse and a length of rope.
Peter, you asked what I thought and I responded. You, in return, display your usual lack of good manners by attempting to reduce my opinion to one of boredom. The only person you really put down by such behaviour is yourself. Sad!
DeleteThanks, John, as ever the voice of sound sense.
Deleted comments usually relate to some real person being named in some way that is identifiable by someone who is anonymous. My guess is that most of it doesn’t fall into the libellous bracket, but I am erring on the side of caution. Obviously Tom if you want to set up a blog where people can anonymously get at real people and put up with the associated flack, it is the click of a button away from you, but this isn’t for me.
DeleteI guess the underlying difficulty is the massive volume of spam comments meaning that I have had to divert my email notifications. Up until Christmas, when I got a comment my phone made an unpleasant noise and I just checked the comment, essentially it was much easier to keep an eye on the blog. I could run things much tighter which I can’t do now.
You also have to appreciate that this blog isn’t externally funded in some way, just something I write when I have a spare moment, having to spend time on Christmas Day dealing with 0%’s peculiar agenda was very nearly enough to put me off altogether.