BLOGGING ABOUT BLOGGING
The Guardian's Comment is Free blog seems to have got off to a good start. Contrary to expectations, they've managed to assemble a truly broad range of Leftist viewpoints, from the odious (Galloway and Tamimi) to the less-so (Harry of HP, Norman Geras, Linda Grant, David Hirsh and Jon Pike of Engage, John Lloyd), even providing some space for The Meme Machine's Susan Blackmore.Indeed, the most popular post so far is David Hirsh's "Livingstone and the ayatollahs". Perhaps unsurprisingly, after all of one reply debate on the thread soon descended into arguing about Israel and Palestine. I wonder if the Guardian will have to employ moderators to prevent people going off-topic, or whether the blog will simply become like the BBC messageboards - full of those who intend to talk only about Israel and Palestine with everybody else left rather frustrated at the thread derailments.
Speaking of which, there's an argument of sorts going on here between two people I don't know from Adam (Steven and Rashid) taking it in turns to post their ideas on the very subject. It would seem that they've decided to use Blogger to continue an argument that must have started on another messageboard. Now if everybody was as polite as that, rather than going off-topic and hijacking threads about totally separate issues, I'm sure most of the blogging world would be very happy!
Finally, despite the Guardian getting top marks for its new uber-blog, Hugo Rifkind made me chuckle at the paper's expense today:
“We might have had snow in March,” said a little box at the bottom of The Guardian’s TV page on Saturday, “but officially it’s now summertime, Clocks back!” Actually, British clocks went forward for summertime. They have done almost every year since 1916. The clocks go back in winter. Which it isn’t. All those people in your office who were two hours late for work yesterday must be Guardian readers. But you’d probably have suspected that, anyway.Ouch!
posted by Dan @ 11:50 am
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