Fixing the Have Your Say fault
Post categories: BBC News website
| 16:08 UK time, Friday, 1 May 2009
The BBC's Have Your Say messageboards are unfortunately not quite living up to their name at the moment, for which I'd like to apologise.
A technical fault has meant that the boards have been down since Wednesday evening and despite the best efforts of our software engineers it's likely that the problem isn't going to be fixed for a few more days.
It's doubly unfortunate that we've been hit with the problem in the middle of the outbreak of swine flu - between Monday and Wednesday this week Have Your Say had around 500,000 hits and provided our audience with a valuable insight into the experiences of people around the world and what they were thinking about the story.
We're working hard to fix the fault, as we recognise that for many Have Your Say is an extremely important platform that allows them to voice their views and opinions on the most important issues of the day. And for the BBC it is a highly valued way to listen to what matters to our audience and to find out what they are thinking about key stories, which we then feed into our journalism.
As a result, while we continue to investigate the issues, we will still offer an opportunity for you to Have Your Say on one or two of the big stories of the day. You'll be able to email in your views and experiences on those subjects and the HYS moderators will publish a selection of them. We'll be able to publish far fewer comments that we usually do and it will take longer for us to do that. But we hope that it will provide you with a least a flavour of what everyone is thinking and we will publish as many comments as we possibly can. So please bear with us and please continue to contribute your views.
We'll provide an update on the issue early next week.
UPDATE, 10:40, Wednesday, 6 May: I want to give you an update on the current problems with Have Your Say. We have been using the existing software since October 2005 and in that time it has hosted more than 6,000 debates - which has meant the publication, without fear or favour, of about six million comments across a wide range of topics and political perspectives.
But like all systems it's not infallible. The engineers are still working on the problems - it is proving very tough to isolate the cause of the outage, but we expect to have much clearer info about the situation soon, and I will obviously update you on that as soon as I can.
I'd also like to thank you for the comments about the functionality Have Your Say offers and the moderation processes we use - they have been extremely interesting to read and reflect much of what HYS users have already told us directly about the system.
Matthew Eltringham is the assistant editor of Interactivity
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~59~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
HYS going down for a few days is probably the best thing that could have happened in the over-hyped climate of swine flu reporting. Perhaps some people will take the 'enforced' spare time to get a sense of proportion.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Have your engineers considered the possibility that an overdose of bile had clogged up the system?
Complain about this comment
Matthew:
I am hopeful, that the engineers (will be able to restore) HAVE YOUR SAY service....
I am also, sending my wishes for a speedy recovery!
-Dennis Junior-
Complain about this comment
Matthew:
I am here to accept your apologise, but; This is a technical problem that will be work on.....
Thanks to you and the BBC for the informative information...
-Dennis Junior-
Complain about this comment
Ref Spiderjon #2, its a shame therefore that the BBC 'journalists' can't 'go down' as well.
Complain about this comment
Has HYS caught a cold ???
Complain about this comment
'...for the BBC it is a highly valued way to listen to what matters to our audience and to find out what they are thinking about key stories, which we then feed into our journalism.
...we will still offer an opportunity for you to Have Your Say on one or two of the big stories of the day. You'll be able to email in your views and experiences on those subjects and the HYS moderators will publish a selection of them.... But we hope that it will provide you with a least a flavour of what everyone is thinking...
Bless. I'll have to add 'a flavour of what everyone is thinking' to 'enhancing the narrative', 'interpreting events' and other gems.
4. At 10:11pm on 01 May 2009, dotconnect wrote:
That'll be it.
Also worth checking the one way/non return valves.
Feel the love. Only.
Complain about this comment
Only a change of its management will permit WHYS to validly reflect audience opinion.
It is an interesting vehicle, especially for bringing in southern African participation. However its mission is corrupted in everything concerning Israel.
Thus, a large segment of World opinion is excluded and has been turned off by this bias.
This concern should transcend any technical problems.
Complain about this comment
I suspect your engineers are looking at an acute case of Q's disease.
This little known illness was originally discovered by Doctor Whys who is not believed to be related to Doctor Who. In moderation, it causes immediate rejection of any input belonging to another person. At its severest, symptoms are known to produce total paralysis of movement for anything up to twenty four hours a day when faced with foreign input.
Treatment is best applied through psychoanalysis but the prognosis is generally poor.
Complain about this comment
I expect that your moderator filters have become clogged to the point they won't pass anything.
Have you thought of running without?
I don't think it would cause damage, and you could always sift reactively.
Complain about this comment
Whatever will Tory Central Office do to pass the time now?
By the way, have you tried reversing the polarity of the trilenium crystals in the core?
Complain about this comment
...all together now..................................................''Can you fix it...??''
Complain about this comment
who do you think you're kidding?
you must have the software etc backed up
and comissioning a new server wouldn't take more than 1/2 a day at most
so, what's the real reason it's offline?
too many anti government posts?
Complain about this comment
...or too many cynical, paranoid ones?
Complain about this comment
I wonder if this sudden fault with HYS has anything to do with the forthcoming election season?
It'd be a shame if HYS members who prove thorns in the side of certain political ideologies and organisations were to have thier accounts "lost" wouldn't it?
I wouldn't put anything past labour or the BEEB
Complain about this comment
While you are fixing it why don't you sort out some kind of 'search' facility? HYS really does need one.
Complain about this comment
Given that almost every time I check in on HYS, it seems dominated by page after page of right-wing views (what I would term 'reactionary, swivel-eyed, ill-informed spite', but what the posters themselves would no doubt term 'common sense') and given that the publication of these views has certainly dominated throughout previous election cycles - it seems somewhat paranoid to suddenly start speculating about the BEEB's commitment to airing right wing views, don't you think?
But hey, perhaps you're right, it's all a conspiracy and the BBC engineers are in on it too. Quick, someone call Mike Rudin! (Then again, a 2,864-post blog is probably not what your engineers need right now... )
Complain about this comment
you write: "A technical fault has meant that the boards have been down.."
that much we can see for ourselves, it would have been appreciated if you could have shed some light on the nature of the fault(s).
this sort of blog entry highlights all that's wrong with the media really -- copious amounts of mealy-mouthedness but no real information.
sad.
Complain about this comment
I think there should be a radical change of design for HYS. One thing that strikes me is, that you are unable to comment on what someone else has written. That way there could be a debate, and where better. Please do so.
Complain about this comment
I think the problem is that you are trying to find un-biased moderators and this is proving to be nigh impossible.
Complain about this comment
Does the BBC out-source HYS to Pakistan or Iraq,I ask this as it seems to me the moderators dont like to print anything that criticises Muslims,it is ok to criticise Christians,on this they have no problems printing the vilest of comments.
Complain about this comment
Swine flu is just another smoke screen to keep our eyes and minds away from more sharp practices by HMG, so i am glad that HYS is down, and we can all look for more cracks appearing in the old "New Labour" edifice!
Complain about this comment
I've seen plenty of vile comments on HYS made about "these Muslims". Plenty.
Complain about this comment
Whilst your engineers are on the job perhaps they could install a few more moderators, so reply queues don't become as stagnant as they have recently.
Complain about this comment
I see #1 has been moderated out, but #2 hits the nail firmly on the head.
"HYS going down for a few days is probably the best thing that could have happened in the over-hyped climate of swine flu reporting."
This is yet another media panic, to keep the public in a state of hysteria (no, hysteria, not lysteria - remember that one?) and to stop them from thinking about the damage those merchant bankers have done to the economy.
Just a thought, but maybe some public-spirited techie has pulled the plug on HYS?
Complain about this comment
Am i missing something here? BBC right wing conspiracies? Bias to certain religious views? Why is that some people are too cynical? The BBC editor gave us this post to inform us that HYS has some technical difficulties, thats all. Can you not trust that the moderators are neutral? They can't control the fact that perhaps in one topic most comments are centred towards the right, or left. I mean do you want them to ensure that there is an equal amount of each political persuasion. Please, have some common sense.
Complain about this comment
A little more fuel for the "conspiracy" bonfire.
How long does it take to write, test and install an "alternative" email based HYS system when the notion that "engineers are working on the problem" indicates that they may solve the problem "at any moment". Given that computer failures do not "take a system down" for more than a day or so I think we should be told exactly what has gone wrong. It is probably nothing more than a manager giving all moderation staff leave at the same time or trying to cope with an outbreak of swine flu in his/her office but it would be nice if the BBC told us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (for a change maybe).
Complain about this comment
#28. "Can you not trust that the moderators are neutral?"
No. Because they're not - read the definition of unacceptable posts. Some viewpoints are automatically moderated out.
Now, this may well be the right thing to do, but let's have no nonsense about neutrality. When one can't mention S*d's Law (homophobic), M*rphy's Law (racist) or c*ck-up (obscene), no one can deny that there's censorship going on.
Complain about this comment
#30
When has the BBC ever claimed that S*d's Law can't be used because it's homophobic, or M*rphy's Law can't be used because it's racist?
Or is that your own interpretation of why those phrases have been censored (if indeed they have been) or the poster's comments removed?
I would be interested to know the original context.
Complain about this comment
There is a very obvious fault in the system.
If your comment is moderator queued when the relevant discussion is closed then all outstanding non-rejected items should have their status changed to "Unpublished". Now check your comment list and see how many "old" items are still marked as "moderator queued", or, in other words, in "no man's land". Obviously the software is not very clever.
Personally I'd like to see the BBC return to the threaded discussion boards with or without heavy moderation. At least they worked and didn't contain so many banal items at the expense of things people really would like to discuss.
Complain about this comment
Biggest problem with HYS is the lack of a ficility to 'recommend against' and entry, that would provide a much more balanced view.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Posts 28 & 30 "Can you not trust that the moderators are neutral?
Having never had problems with HYS I can't really say, but there is no doubt in my mind that the moderation system leaves much to be desired. It is by its very nature subjective so a measure of apparent 'unfairness' will always cause grief to someone.
And there is a difference. Some newspapers will cheerfully censor columns,
subject matter, even individual posters in exchange for a handout of tidbits from government and other powerful organisations ... or even the threat of withdrawal of such a privilege. But I am confident the BBC is above that and not just on moral grounds. Why? Because the BBC is sought out as the preferred source for such information whereas the newspaper has a need to be able to cry 'exclusive'.
I would advise all posters to relate their experiences with the moderators directly to that part of the media they contributed to. Don't be fooled by the odd crude anti-government comment or the hysterical anti-Arab or anti-Jewish diatribe; these are often plants to give an impression of even handedness. It's the informed, intelligent comment that has to match the politics, particularly of newspapers.
Complain about this comment
I work in IT and I find this downtime extremely hard to believe, somehow. Will the technical details of the fault itself be made available? There shouldn't be any issue in immediately restoring from a backup (which I assume you actually have...) and HYS would have been down for at most a few hours; at this rate it's looking more like a week.
I go with those who says there's more to this than meets the eye.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#35 is fair comment, but there is some flawed logic.
To check out the "neutrality and objectivity" of the BBC moderators (and editors who can pressure for comment removal) who directly or indirectly pays the wages and controls the selection of the staff concerned? Try posting a rejected or removed BBC comment on a site (as an example see Channel Four) and see if it is removed (in most cases it will not be). Okay we can all put up with occasional lapses from high standards and are intelligent enough to recognise when that happens, but the persistent removal of posts that do not break rules should not be allowed or tolerated. There is no excuse for subjectivity other than censorship including the delicate matter of what items are listed for discussion in the first place.
We are all "editors" and "moderators" in the great scheme of things and we are entitled to expect professionalism from those who get paid for doing the job.
Complain about this comment
In the meantime you could direct visitors to the BBC World Have Your Say blogs at http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/, couldn't you?
Personally I'm not sure why you need a separate radio have your say and the website have your say. Wouldn't it make sense to merge HYS with WHYS and also deliver it on television as well perhaps once a month or so?
Complain about this comment
The list of 'Topical posts on this blog' is v. interesting. Recent subjects missing from list are particularly interesting. Why was real name and e-mail address asked for and published when site first went down?
Who do you think you are kidding?
Complain about this comment
P.S. to No.40 and points therein.
Explanation please.
Complain about this comment
Why don't you just replace HYS with a tried and tested forum?
Oh and stop the 'selective moderation' of posts that don't break house rules yet don't happen to match the moderator's (or the BBC's) favoured views.
Complain about this comment
18. L A Odicean wrote:
While you are fixing it why don't you sort out some kind of 'search' facility? HYS really does need one.
HYS used to have a search facility a year or two back. If you could recall the topic title fairly precisely, you could find it again when it was off the page. For some reason the search was done away with.
HYS also has a peculiar habit of shutting topics down abruptly after a day or so when they are popular and attracting many comments. There can only be one reason for this - disagreement with the political direction the comments are taking, especially as indicated by numerous recommendations of right-wing comments.
Most irritating is the tactic of letting hundreds of comments back up in the "Moderation Queue" while publishing a thrifty handful. This effectively shuts down the debate. Is HYS there to facilitate public debate or thwart it? If the latter, why bother?
HYS has also become more and more stingy over the past year with the number of topics open for debate at any one time. The International version and the UK version of HYS now have a total of four or five topics on the page. There used to be between fifteen and twenty.
Those who have followed HYS from the beginning will know that a number of improvements were made over the years, for example the "Comments Recommended" facility was introduced at a later stage and vastly improved the openness of HYS with the ability of registered members of the public to express their opinions by recommending comments even when their own comments were not published.
Now this open trend appears to be going into reverse. Dotconnect and others can scoff at conspiracy theories, but HYS definitely has recently shut down debate to a large extent.
On the plus side, the BBC blogs are moderated in a fairly open fashion. That said, there will always be a left-wing bias to these BBC forums. It can't be otherwise since this is the BBC we are talking about.
Those who are frustrated by the length of time the "technical" problems are taking to resolve should note that BBC blogs like this one and World Have Your Say were recently almost inaccessible to comments for months on end. I didn't buy the excuse then that it was a "technical" problem. The obvious explanation was that enabling people to have their say wasn't high on the list of BBC priorities at the time. I think we should give the BBC a bit of time to resolve this glitch before assuming that the same thing is happening now.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#31. There's a simple test, dotconnect.
Next time you post to HYS, try including a reference to S*d's Law and see what happens. I was gobsmacked to have the post, a perfectly innocent comment about cricket, rejected,.
Complain about this comment
Why do we mistrust explanations for convenient occurances?
Perhaps its because politicians and large organisations, such as the BBC, have been caught many times telling lies. If we accept the things we are told at face value, it makes us feel naive.
Complain about this comment
#46 - will try it, but still there's no way you can be sure that your post wasn't removed (a) mistakenly, (b) because it was considered off-topic, (c) some other reason for which it broke the guidelines and which you're unaware. I don't mean to doubt your sincerity, but the point is, claiming that "one can't mention s*d's law" may not be an entirely fair representation of the BBC.
It's quite possible that the word s*d (or for that matter, c*ck) was automatically flagged up by the system, and the post was then not reinstated, whether through backlog or whatever - that's certainly a common slip-up with automated moderation settings in forum software and may well be the same on messageboards.
Complain about this comment
I have never had a problem with the HYS moderators, presumably because I always keep my comments civil, with minimal frothing at the mouth.
Perhaps some people who have issues should take a look at the way they conduct their views?
Complain about this comment
#46 I have had a comment referred for inclusion of "offensive slang". On formal protest that the word is defined in the OED without reference to being either "offensive" or "slang" the post was restored.
#47 Excellent post. And just in case people do not believe this kind of action I made a formal complaint to the BBC following unexplained withdrawal of comments and biased activity by a BBC contributor to these blogs. The original explanation for removal was "technical problems" (the withdrawn comments reappeared) which I refused to accept. The complaint has been referred on and is still being dealt with.
I am sick and tired of the BBC believing the general public are a stupid bunch of idiots, a view I assume they believe because of how easily we cough up our license fees.
Complain about this comment
Note that comments #45 and #48 have been "referred to the moderators" at
10:54 and at 11:46 on 3 May, respectively.
Let us follow their fate and inquire whether weekend moderation is accomplished by the same personnel as daily moderation.
The key to clean up is responsibility and avoidance of annonymity.
Complain about this comment
50. At 12:14pm on 03 May 2009, fillandfrowpist wrote:
I am sick and tired of the BBC believing the general public are a stupid bunch of idiots, a view I assume they believe because of how easily we cough up our license fees.
----
Ever consider the possibility that "the general public are" indeed "a stupid bunch of idiots"?
You don't have to take any pleasure in that fact to recognise that it might be true.
Complain about this comment
Re. my post that's been "referred to the moderators" - two points.
(a) I'm actually less interested in whether or not it ultimately gets removed than I am in the fact that someone here decided to refer it. Is it possible that some of those here who complain the loudest about the lack of free speech on HYS only value it up to the point at which it accords with their own right-wing views?
(b) I don't envy the moderators having to moderate this thread!
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
43. At 09:31am on 03 May 2009, TrueToo wrote:
"..
Those who have followed HYS from the beginning will know that a number of improvements were made over the years, for example the "Comments Recommended" facility was introduced at a later stage and vastly improved the openness of HYS with the ability of registered members of the public to express their opinions by recommending comments even when their own comments were not published."
The "recommendation" is, indeed, a useful facility for the organized clique to exploit, with the connivance of the WHYS management. A particular number of posters, the number scarcely varying, will "recommend" a post- one that is invariably very pro-Israel. These two characteristics: the constant number and the pro-Israel issue, identify the block.
Naturally, one who "knows WHYS pretty well" will be well aware of and in favor of this ploy.
Again, such practices are so entrenched in WHYS that only a change in management or a dissolution of the program can remedy the situation, before the rest of the BBC is tarnished by it.
Complain about this comment
In reply to No. 50 Fillandfrowpist who wrote:
[i]"I am sick and tired of the BBC believing the general public are a stupid bunch of idiots, a view I assume they believe because of how easily we cough up our license fees"[/i]
When you look at the majority of contributions to HYS, it's not surprising that the BBC might believe that the general public are stupid. However most output is pretty much dumbed-down simply because of the BBC's policy of making it 'accessable'. Personally, I am appalled by that policy for a number of reasons, but unfortunately they are quite right: if you want to increase 'audience share' (or whatever it's called) you have to dumb it down. It's even apparent on some of the programming on the oasis of sanity that is BBC4, although whether or not those programmes were originally made for BBC4, I must confess I don't know.
Complain about this comment
BBC - Speciality - Broadcasting.
Your lack of software skills is not a good advert for your ability to lead the world in Broadcasting.
Complain about this comment
So in conclusion:
Ability of BBC software engineers to maintain HYS messageboard = FAIL
Ability of commenters to maintain a sense of proportion = EPIC FAIL
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Thanks to Matthew Eltringham for the update, although I was amused at his comment " .. for the BBC it is a highly valued way to listen to what matters to our audience and to find out what they are thinking about key stories, which we then feed into our journalism ".
Feed into your journalism! Surely the opposite. I have yet to see ANY BBC News programme, either online or elsewhere, refer specifically to the depth and strength of comment on HYS. Perhaps Matthew could provide some examples, or is it, as I suspect, that we are simply blowing into the wind.
Complain about this comment
To No 60 the-designer
I suppose we should be grateful that we're merely 'blowing in the wind' - not 'swinging in the wind', as we might well be if we openly expressed our thoughts in certain totalitarian states.
Complain about this comment
@52
"Ever consider the possibility that "the general public are" indeed "a stupid bunch of idiots"?"
No, I do not regard anyone as being a "bunch" of anything - every person is an individual. Unlike those who work for the public service and have been "cloned for management" I am still able to think for myself and I will fight to a very bitter end to retain the right to be regarded and respected as an individual. I regard the current dumbing down (which is what treating people as anything other than individuals is) as the most despicable act of betrayal any human being can do to another person.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Your lack of software skills is not a good advert for your ability to lead the world in Broadcasting.
--------
Err, actually programming and broadcasting have nothing to dow ith one another. I would hate to think that as a professional programmer, my clear lack of broadcasting talent would somehow tarnish my day to day work.
--------
62. At 6:04pm on 03 May 2009, fillandfrowpist wrote:
@52
"Ever consider the possibility that "the general public are" indeed "a stupid bunch of idiots"?"
No, I do not regard anyone as being a "bunch" of anything - every person is an individual. Unlike those who work for the public service and have been "cloned for management"
--------
Everyone is an individual except...
Sound like a racist claiming, we are all equal except...
In my opinion we are all idiots about most things in this world, only a small percentage are qualified to give views on HYS or any other forum on a particular topic yet so many uninformed people go ahead anyway. That is a clear sign of an idiot.
Complain about this comment
62. At 6:04pm on 03 May 2009, fillandfrowpist wrote:
"No, I do not regard anyone as being a "bunch" of anything - every person is an individual."
Hmm, yes. It's just a shame the average HYS commenter doesn't appear to share that view when it comes to Muslims, blacks, gays, politicians, etc.
The fact that such posts tend to shoot up the "most recommended" list is what leads me to question if perhaps large swathes of the general public - possibly even the majority - might actually be comprised of ignorant and bigoted 'individuals'?
It is, after all, only a less-publicised version of political correctness that prevents us from daring to suggest such a thing.
Or does the charge of political correctness magically transform itself into "common decency" when the majority (rather than the minority) is concerned?
Complain about this comment
HYS has become totally Removed from it's own guidelines by Moderators to Political preference by Censors, most of whom censor stuff they are not knowledgeable about. Result is "Loss of Credibility".
Other source of contention is many are forced to endure this censorship while others are allowed to flood the HYS site with repetitive propaganda to shut-out constructive dialogue especially on matters pertinent to mid-east.
All boils down to What is Objective of HYS:- If Constructive dialogue, then changes need to be made. If propaganda, then status-quo will suffice.
Complain about this comment
@65
"(Your) average HYS commenter... etc". Excuse me but just what is an average human being - the legendary Joe Public on the Clapham Omnibus? An average is a statistical mean not a human being with a personality and a soul!
If you have a bee in your bonnet about bigoted people then direct it at them not at just anybody who happens to fit your definition of a "bunch" of whatever it is that you are angry about. You are a pretty sad individual if you do not see a lot of very respectable and honest people on this planet most of whom are pretty decent and respectful of others. Bigotry does not end with Muslims, Blacks, Gays, politicians etc, although it often starts from individuals within those groups.
Complain about this comment
#64
If you are trying to make sensible comments quote the whole of my sentences and I will respond accordingly. Otherwise don't bother.
Complain about this comment
@67
When a system includes a facility to reflect popularity - as HYS does - it becomes perfectly possible to gauge a general impression of popular opinion, at least insofar as the system reflects it.
Does the system reflect it? Well HYS is aimed at a fairly mainstream user base. It's not an editors blog, it's not a specialist comment area, it's not the forum of a high-brow (or low-brow) newspaper. Rather it's the principle messageboard on the website of the country's largest and most popular news organisation, serving (I should think) several million a day. In other words, it's likely to be fairly representative. Not completely of course (it will always attract certain 'types' - those with an internet connection and the time to contribute, for a start), but it's probably safe to say it's more representative than just about any other internet-based opinion platform currently out there.
Where do I get the word 'average' from? Contrary to what you might think, not from some desire to treat everyone as faceless idiots lacking individual personality or circumstance. Rather from a recognition of the types of comment and opinion that are deemed 'popular' and are prevalent on this opinion platform.
You say I'm a sad individual if I "don't see a lot of very respectable and honest people on this planet". The truth, which surely can't have escaped your attention, is that people can be both respectable/honest AND ignorant. People can also be those things AND prone to spitefulness, mean-spiritedness, ungenerous and more. There's nothing sad about recognising that, or of showing intolerance towards intolerance itself.
You say "Bigotry does not end with Muslims, blacks, gays, politicians etc, although it often starts with individuals from those groups" - I would suggest that we all suffer the results of bigotry and ignorance to some degree - but as a non-Muslim, non-black, etc, I can at least acknowledge that those minority groups suffer a greater share of it, at least if platforms like HYS are anything to go by.
Complain about this comment
60. the_designer wrote:
I have yet to see ANY BBC News programme, either online or elsewhere, refer specifically to the depth and strength of comment on HYS. Perhaps Matthew could provide some examples, or is it, as I suspect, that we are simply blowing into the wind.
Precisely. The BBC carries on in its own fashion no matter what happens on its public forums. Peter Horrocks discussed this very issue in reaction to an outpouring of anger against Islam on HYS after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Those comments criticizing Islam in unambiguous terms shot to the top of the "Recommended Comments" list. He made the startling admission on this very blog that the BBC was considering disabling the Recommended Comments facility in the light of the unprecedented public response. (The leeway given by the moderators to allow that response was most strange; usually such comments would be rejected or backed up in the "Moderation Queue," never to see the light of day.)
Peter Horrocks' response is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/01/value_of_citizen_journalism.html
After considering it carefully I concluded that it falls into line with the general attitude at the BBC. The last thing the BBC will do is take public opinion into account in its editorial decisions, especially since so much of that opinion differs sharply from that of the BBC's stance on any number of issues.
53. At 1:21pm on 03 May 2009, dotconnect wrote:
Re. my post that's been "referred to the moderators" - two points.
I'm actually less interested in whether or not it ultimately gets removed than I am in the fact that someone here decided to refer it.
And you know that how? It's highly likely that the moderators themselves also refer posts while considering whether they should be removed.
For the record, and to put your insinuations to rest, I don't refer comments since I believe in free speech - even that of Xie Ming, though I sometimes think there should be a limit.
55. Xie_Ming/coololdiconoclast,
You prove that you don't know what you are talking about by claiming people can recommend comments on WHYS. They can't. There is no such facility on World Have Your Say.
Complain about this comment
I note there have been several references to the 'recommended list'. I have to say I can't see any useful purpose served by this facility as the 'most recommended' usually feature in the initial response to the subject; that is posts 1 to 25, after which the replies generally repeat one another.
Now, if the moderators, in their neutral capacity, were to give credit to a well argued point, that would add value to the facility. After all, if the posts are all pre-moderated that means they have to be read and understood.
Complain about this comment
@TrueToo (#70) - there was no such insinuation, I assure you. Not quite sure why 'coololdiconoclast' queried my reported post and suggested we should follow its fate.... :-/
Complain about this comment
there also seems to be a fualt which stops teh bbc reporting any corruption by female Labour peers. Particularly when they are ethnic monorities too.
Complain about this comment
71. impassive wrote:
Yes, what usually happens is that a few of the early comments that strike a chord get onto the first page of the "Readers' Recommended" comments where they attract more recommendations because of their visibility. As the debate moves on, later comments which are perhaps better argued tend not to make it onto that first page. Still, recommended comments are a fairly good indication of the strength of feeling and the nature of public opinion on any given topic.
Recommending comments also allows people to express their opinions when they have been denied by moderators who publish very few comments and allow the vast majority to stew in the "Moderation Queue" and simply be deleted without ever being published at the end of the "debate." (This is shabby treatment of people who have taken the trouble to comment. Moderators also hinder the debate when they suddenly publish a huge batch of backed up comments having let the debate stagnate for days. Few people will have the time or inclination to go back and sift through those comments and most of them will therefore attract zero recommendations.)
Only those who have registered with the BBC and supplied their personal info are allowed to recommend comments and these recommendations should therefore be taken seriously since they don't come from anonymous sources. (Conspiracy theorists should note that people are only allowed to recommend each comment once.)
72. dotconnect,
Go back and read your 53 and you will see the insinuation. We see this kind of thing popping up with monotonous regularity on HYS: A topic that attracts comments with majority recommendations from the right of the political spectrum is immediately labelled as suspect by the left. It's as if the left simply cannot concede that so many people can hold contrary opinions to their own without the debate somehow having been fiddled with and distorted.
Complain about this comment
From the bulk of the foregoing comments, it should be clear that HYS and WHYS share common problems.
If it is genuinely desired to tabulate "public opinion", then the format is grossly unsuitable.
If it is desired to channel and filter what is purported to be "public opinion", then the present system seems well designed for that purpose.
By imagining how a Communist cell might operate in management with certain collaborators in the "public", one can see how susceptible the present system is that sort of manipulation.
A possible course of corrective action would be to dissolve both HYS and WHYS and to establish a "Letters" function. Meaningful letters could be featured.
For those who think tabulation of response is meaningful, then the response to selected letters could be tabulated. Real print journalists are well-acquainted with the ethics of such editorial journalism and the management could be selected from those with such editorial page experience.
Complain about this comment
In my humble oppionion for what its worth,The bbc should install coloums of comments to differant afairs of the day in say four to five sections,IE two sections to the brain of britains you know them that think they are better than anyone else on certain subjects?Three coloums to the general joe who are quite content to quietly disscuss the political arena, and two coloums two the old codgers like my good self to pass on imformation to the likes of h harmen and gorden what they can do with there policies etc in this way amoderator can be alloted to each group an moniter as the comments come in rejecting the ones that are an infringment on common decencey .Ps please put a spelling checker on my computer as i do make a few mistakes ,Good morning all,
Complain about this comment
@69
You do not have to have mechanisms for "popularity" in order to measure the success or failure of designs, schemes to brainwash, schemes to confound or confuse, schemes to suggest you are right and others wrong, or even to justify your own bigotry, open mindedness, faith, hope, or charity.
All you need to make you what you are is within. Popularity tests are the poor person's gauge of his own weaknesses. You expose personal flaws by suggesting that popularity is a valid measure of anything other than elitism, the ego massage, the need to be one of a crowd - call it what you will. "Better a book be read by one poor modest soul than by a multitude of scavengers".
Complain about this comment
@70
I agree wholeheartedly with your critique on the BBC and its exposed bias on many subjects. There are many things we disagree about but we both wish for freedom of speech for only through that can we ever engage in discussion to study and understand those differences.
It has become apparent that the ruling generation simply do not know what they are doing in trying to make "accountability" appear like a measuring cylinder of public feelings. It isn't and never can be. We are all accountable in our hearts, souls and consciences - the only places where it truly matters to both ourselves and others.
Complain about this comment
#74 truetoo
I agree with a lot of that, but would point out that the last paragraph works equally well if you transpose 'left' and 'right', or if you replace 'left' and 'right' by 'Israeli' and 'Arab' or vice versa.
However, "Conspiracy theorists should note that people are only allowed to recommend each comment once" is, alas, untrue. Certainly, one identity has just one recommendation, but there is no mechanism to avoid multiple identities linked to one e-mail address.
To get one's comment in the Most Recommended slot, post early and vote often. Given three or four colleagues, it's easy to build up thirty or forty votes.
Once it's there it'll probably stay there. The Right (particularly in the USA) and the Left have both cottoned on to this. There's a tendency for both sides in a debate to recognise and decry it when it comes from the Other Lot, but to see it as democratic enthusiasm when it comes from the Good Guys.
As to censorship, this seems to be based on the most cursory inspection of the *words*, not the meaning. The most vile racism and religious thuggery can be slipped past the moderators, with a little care...
Complain about this comment
"The BBC's Have Your Say messageboards are unfortunately not quite living up to their name at the moment, for which I'd like to apologise."
They've never lived up to their name due to the levels of censorship employed by the BBC thought pol... sorry - moderators. I've lost count of the posts I've had rejected that don't break any "house rules" they do however directly disagree with the BBC's world view.
I have three suggestions that I think would make HYS much better.
1. Moderation should be turned off and a system of peer moderation installed so that other users can flag messages as offensive etc.
2. The ability to create threads so we can reply to comments and have a proper debate. You can do this on free open source software - why the BBC with all its resources can't do this is beyond me. I suspect it's because the BBC is having trouble embracing the new paradigm of users creating content - it prefers to maintain its old broadcasting model were we have to passively listen to the BBC's news agenda. Nation shall speak unto nation maybe but the BBC has no interest in taxpayer speaking unto taxpayer.
3. HYS should also be rolled out to every single news story - why shouldn't license fee payers be able to comment on each and every story? Especially when the actual contents of BBC news stories are often far from objective.
It's about time the BBC recognised the value of freedom of speech and made HYS do what it says on the tin.
Complain about this comment
#80 englandrise
Can't say I like your politics very much ;) but you're dead right about HYS.
If the Bristol Evening Post can meet at least two of your points, then so can the BBC.
Complain about this comment
"3. HYS should also be rolled out to every single news story - why shouldn't license fee payers be able to comment on each and every story? Especially when the actual contents of BBC news stories are often far from objective."
Please god no! The last thing I want is to scroll down and have every single news story followed by 1000's of complaints which include excruciatingly painful contrived spellings of "New Labour".
If the BBC are censoring, they're doing a very poor job of it as the majority of comments are complaining about censorship!
Complain about this comment
82. TimDave
No one would be forcing you to read the comments but we should have the right to comment. To stop massive page loads comments could be linked out to a specific comments page for each story. Or there should perhaps be a global preference to show or hide comments.
Freedom of speech above all as far as I'm concerned.
Complain about this comment
Hi there just to let you know that your nightmare still lives. Perhaps when you fix the damn thing perhaps you can overcome the issue of posts that are not moderated until the issue is closed or held back so that readers can't comment. I have a sneaky feeling that there is not a lot wrong with the site except the fact that the BBC has reocgnised that the post Gilligan PC reforms era may be about to come to an end and its having a rethink on its policy. Come on confess to daddy!!!
Complain about this comment
#74, TrueToo wrote:
"Go back and read your 53 and you will see the insinuation."
Perspective please. There was no insinuation at you or any one person in particular. So your post #70 (..."to put your insinuations to rest, I don't refer comments...") was unnecessarily defensive. Someone here decided to refer my post, be that a poster or a mod. I don't claim to know (hence my words, "is it possible...") but, given the post's harmless content - which I accept only I currently know, and which will be clear to you if it's reinstated - it's quite reasonable for me to wonder if such an irony has taken place.
#74, TrueToo wrote:
... We see this kind of thing popping up with monotonous regularity on HYS: A topic that attracts comments with majority recommendations from the right of the political spectrum is immediately labelled as suspect by the left. It's as if the left simply cannot concede that so many people can hold contrary opinions to their own without the debate somehow having been fiddled with and distorted."
But that's not "this kind of thing". I'm quite happy to accept that HYS comments with majority recommendations from the right of the political spectrum are entirely legitimate representations of public opinion, or at least they reflect the view of a majority of Britons, which is conservative, much as the most popular newspaper the Sun, followed by the Mail, captures the public mood. Now I don't like that, I think much (but not all) of it is ill-informed and ungenerous and plays to the more primitive of human instincts. But I don't ever doubt the representativeness of HYS or claim that it must have been fiddled with. Regretfully.
Pigsty Hill is spot on about your last paragraph, though I would say there are far more accusations about pro-Palestinian fiddling than about pro-Israel fiddling on the BBC comment boards. Additionally, I've come across far more instances of people being accused of working for the BBC or being Labour stooges for failing to join in with the overwhelming sneers and spite than I do of "the left" accusing people of not being who they say they are. For instance, try entering a calm comment in a Nick Robinson blog that doesn't accord with the houding anti-government bearpit atmosphere, and you will be accused immediately by more than one poster of being a civil servant, a BBC stooge, etc. It seems to me the right has rather a bigger problem on this than the left, though it's quite possible that's due to the fact that the right tends to dominate on BBC comment boards and indeed public opinion generally.
#81, Pigsty Hill wrote:
"If the Bristol Evening Post can meet at least two of your points, then so can the BBC."
Ah, suddenly your username makes sense!
Complain about this comment
Now lets think about this, Gordon is in it up to his neck and the HYS has a major problem, coincidence??
Complain about this comment
I am quite enjoying this. It's far above the usual level of debate on the HYS boards.
I agree that the moderators seem to be generally interested in the words rather that the meaning of a message (although I'm sure we've all had one or two that seem to have been rejected for no reason whatever. By mistake?). I disagree that there is no politically organised spamming - I think there clearly is. I'd also like to see a 'Disagree' button.
And I would love to know the real reason why the 'problem' hasn't been fixed.
Complain about this comment
Given the biased nature of most of this country's media at the moment (where a good 80% of the most popular outlets take the 'Rupert Murdoch' Thatcherite, right-wing editorial position) I severely doubt that a well-reasoned and balanced debate is even possible in this country at the moment, on any topic. More seriously, at present I believe this extreme bias is in danger of threatening the way that our democracy itself functions, in that political parties tend to 'pander' to prevailing public opinion, which is itself massively influenced by the contents of the popular media rather than taking a more considered or long-term approach.
The level of vitriol on many HYS debates, against groups and cultures which mere statistical analysis would suggest are only known to the commenters through grossly exaggerated press caricatures and stereotypes passed down through generations, is as sociologically intriguing as it is frightening. Nationals of other countries frequently comment on the base tone of Britain's media and by extension the level and tone of political debate. I wonder if an opinion poll in another country with a more moderate media would reveal the same depth of hatred toward Muslims, immigrants, gay people, fat people, women and the various other scapegoats so beloved of our press.
The depressing thing about many of these extreme right-wing views is that those espousing them no doubt not only believe they're being terribly clever and reasoned in their approach but also that they're some sort of put-upon 'minority' fighting like martyrs against an unfeeling State, when in reality the Establishment has always gravitated toward their viewpoint and generally speaking still does.
And then you have something like the HYS Recommendation system, where those same narrow views are reinforced and gain credence through weight of the number of apparent 'supporters' (even when, as is the case with the BNP, it is well-known that members of groups espousing many of these viewpoints have been specifically instructed to visit message boards such as HYS and the Daily Mail - which allow recommendations - in order to skew the balance of opinion.
Complain about this comment
#82 TimDave
"If the BBC are censoring, they're doing a very poor job of it as the majority of comments are complaining about censorship!"
Yes indeed, but this isn't HYS, it's a blog. The HYS moderators are probably sunning themselves in Cancun as we speak ;)
#85 dotconnect
Curses - sussed...
Complain about this comment
quite a good reflection of whats going on now days Now that i have caught the attention of one or two, This is turning into a debate that even the likes of me a compleat nutter can partake or are you all goinmg two shy away like some of the labour party deflectors,Did you find out about that chaming person whos indian nabours hadn't see in resedents for a number of years yet was claiming allowences for a place of resedency {moderation here]or have i got away with it?still can't find a spell checker on my tool bars?
Complain about this comment
88. richie79
Yet another one-sided post, this time from what pleases itself to be called the "Left" today. Notice what's missing in the list of right-wing targets? Not a word about the working class!
Of course the BNP organises itself to use the recommendation system to push its obnoxious views. If the "Left" doesn't do the same (which I don't believe), then why not?
Complain about this comment
86. TalkativeChap
And when in the last six months has Gordon *not* been in it up to his neck? More silly paranoia, I'm afraid...
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I don't subscribe to a conspiracy theory to remove HYS from the web - the most likely scenario is someone applying a software upgrade without adequate testing. It then became difficult to back out and damaged the HYS databases in the process. Alternatively there were hardware failures and the data was not backed up. Either way it sounds like operational incompetence. If it's a choice between a c0ckup or conspiracy theory, it's invariably the former.
My view on HYS is that I don't detect particular bias - the left have as much to complain about moderation bias as the right. Indeed the latter seem to benefit disproportionately from the bizarre "most recommended" system.
What I find frustrating is the apparently random moderation system:
1) the moderators select a few posts from the initial set. These then get a head start in the recommended system irrespective of their merit compared to later posts.
2) later losts can then wait hours before being posted and then get lost in the many pages
3) the moderators then take another pause and then those on the most recent page start to get recommended whilst those between the first and last page don't
4) at various points they post a few of the most recent whilst keeping large numbers in "awaiting moderation" state - effectivly rejecting them.
The result is that the earliest and most recent posts keep getting recommended (until the most recent get superceded by another set of most recent).
These practises (hardly a policy) undermine the rcommendation system and do not give the impression of a balanced debate.
On some subjects, the most obvious being on subjects involving climate change (indeed anything scientific as the swine flu debates also show), the moderators appear to want to give equal weight to sceptic opinion and so convey the impression that the scientific opinion is balanced when in fact it definitely is not. They continually allow discredited and flawed arguments from the sceptics without posting the rebuttals from some of us who do know what we're talking about. This perpetuates a "cult of the amateur" whereby the opinions of someone with no qualifications or experience in a topic are given equal weight to those who do. Moreover those who do hold contrary views then complain that they are entitled to hold such views (which is true) and be taken as seriously as the mainstream view (which is not true).
The house rule system is highly flawed. The mods reject posts that don't obviously break them and post ones that obviously do (the one against impersonation does not appear to be enforced at all). Perhaps there should be a reason stated for why posts are rejected and why complaints are rejected.
There's also no clear benefit in being a member: given the way moderators manage the backlog, then it's better to post a comment without being signed in than be restricted to two posts an hour by being signed in. Reactively moderated forums are so rare, that having an account purely for them is wasted.
Bottom line is that whilst HYS is a useful way of getting some views from the public, it is not a reliable way of achieving a sensible debate based on facts, nor is it a reliable way of gauging public opinion on a subject. It's a self selecting group contributing (and voting) with a flawed system of selecting which opinion to post and having them recommended.
Complain about this comment
Can we be sure that whoever controls the HYS moderators reads these posts? In particular, reasoned criticism of the moderation process like that in #94 needs to be taken on board.
One might ask how many of the deficiencies in the system are down to incompetence, and how many to deliberate policy.
Complain about this comment
I could have rewrote your software from scratch in my spare time before now, also, what #80 said.
Complain about this comment
1. Most of us may be unrealistic and naïve concerning HYS and WHYS and this particular thread.
2. If you read the rules carefully, you will see that those who wrote the rules may publish only what they please and may release your personal data to whomever they wish.
3. Specifics of the actions of WHYS management have been suppressed
on this thread. However, almost any action is within the rules of 2 above.
4. The bloc "recommendations" on HYS are evidence of the abuse of a systemic weakness. Perhaps a more responsible level of management may ask why it is continued.
5. The question about continuing WHYS and or HYS and the form and management that any such continuation should have are matters that should be addressed by a higher level of BBC management. If this is not done, the inevitable exposure will redact to the detriment of the BBC.
Complain about this comment
I fear when the service is back up and running we will discover that the BBC had no back up copy; I have an RSS feed on my Firefox toolbar and the other day after Channel4's News Forum closed for good I clicked on Open 'Have Your Say: David Reilly' and for a brief second my log on page read number of comments: 0. I was gutted at the prospect that all my previous posts over the last 5 or so years have now, like their counterparts on the Channel4 forums now become retrievable forever. Fingers crossed the techies employed to resolve this fault were not the same ones contracted for one of the many failed government IT projects. I will be annoyed if someone deleted the wrong bit of code when tasked to upgrade or give HYS a spring upgrade or makeover. If it aint broke don't try to fix it, in future. Just fit a RED DISAGREE BUTTON next to the green recommend button. There could be a conspiracy theory hung on the fact that the top two internet debating forums have closed down simultaneously when we are plotting the spread of a global pandemic or the canceling of the June elections.
Complain about this comment
I too am going to take this opportunity to vent my spleen on the shortcomings of the HYS system.
1) There's no search
2) Newly published comments go onto page 1, and you can't read them in chronological order because if you start from the end (if you can even find the end) the new comments coming in at the top keep pushing things back further and further.
3) The loooong delays in when in pre-moderated mode make it impossible to have a discussion. You make a post and then 6 hours later you see that some comments made later have already been published whilst yours is still in moderation. Even worse is, as has happened to me on numerous occasions, a pre-modded discussion gets flipped over to reactively moderated just minutes after you've posted, and then it sits unmoderated forever.
4) Longer comments should be allowed, have an expansion area if you want to limit post size.
5) Replies to existing posts should be somehow linked to the post to which they are replying
I'm sure there are others I've forgotten as it's been a while since I even bothered posting there since the frustrations of the existing system keep me away.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#88
It is an oversimplification to believe that samples of HYS, media websites, letters pages, or even your contributions to these blogs mean anything other than their intrinsic value to you. People who support the BNP, for example, know outlets to preach to the converted without hassle or to aggravate those who are against them in an irritating manner. None of this is effective at making significant change to their political value in the bigger market place.
What does make a bigger and much more malevolent impact is to try to smother comment that does not accord with PC values, values that are themselves very shortsighted and simplistic attempts to force integration upon the masses. Nobody has to accept minority opinion if they do not want to. There is no law in this country that prevents someone from believing what they want to as long as opinion does not cross legal boundaries. At the present time those boundaries have become much less clear and much less robust, again the fault of those who wish to smother one way or the other.
If your values are so weak and so sensitive that you cannot read an opposing view and laugh then you have the problem not the person exposing your vulnerability. When the world becomes over concerned about protecting minorities then it has lost the will to integrate. Better to have the minority and defend it than allow the whole gradually accept it. Such is the unclear thinking of many intellectuals in the left and right centre of politics. At least those on the extremes have convictions they are prepared to stand up for - is that what irks the centrists and populists?
What I believe in is the right of anyone to hold my respect until they give me cause to doubt they show the same courtesy to me. Even then it is my gift to show patience and tolerance rather than slam the law book down on the table and say "eat that". It is my gift to continue to accept others whatever they may want me to think or feel because that way I know I am in control of me and not them. There is far too much scapegoating going on amongst the so called "liberals" who actually are not liberal at all. They want us all to think and feel like them because they need the company.
Complain about this comment
A convenient loss of have your say, while you spread your own brand of bile by constantly heralding the end of the world through "Swine Flu".
More people die from the normal flu. More people have the cold, more people have AIDS, Cancer, and numerous other communicable diseases.
Stop pedalling your misinformation!
Complain about this comment
I recall reading a comment by one of the editors some time ago which said that they don't want HYS to turn into a debating forum. I think its purpose has changed since its inception, but at that time the amount of interest shown in a subject (presumably judged by the number of comments)helped to determine its position in the news 'line-up'. I can't remember where I read that, but I'm absolutely certain that I read it on a BBC site somewhere.
I don't post as often as I used to - if most of what you've said gets buried in a queue for half a day and then finally surfaces on page 35, there doesn't seem to be much point.
Complain about this comment
As one who has spent a lifetime in IT. I find it hard to understand that any fault can take this long to rectify.If due to software corruption - restore the last good backup, or if hardware - commission a spare server. I suspect therefore that there is more to this than the BBC is prepared to admit. it was very noticable that before the site went down, there had been an inordinate amount of contributers critisising the Government. A conspiracy theorist may say that the BBC secumbed to political pressure from Downing Street. I could not possible comment.
Complain about this comment
Well, look on the bright side, lets hope Sky News gets the same "bug" in it's doom and gloom system! Heaven, O Heaven....
Complain about this comment
This new form thing is a load of tosh.
Maybe taking down HYS while the fault is occuring and giving it a major revamp would be a better idea then some silly form system that allows people to write some utter rubbish on HYS and some comments dont make it.
Maybe BBC, time to take HYS down and fix it without fixing it and messing up the system
Complain about this comment
Perhaps the BBC would like to give the license fee payers a bit more info on this outage?
The data and code has to be backed up. It doesn't take this long to configure a new set of servers - the BBC's not short of cash so it can afford them.
How about a bit of openness? Come on come clean - what's going on?
Complain about this comment
So Pigsty Hill (#91) you're basically saying you agree with the popular press's scapegoating of minority groups for the ills of the world? Doesn't that ever strike you or the others that cling to that worldview as being just the tiniest bit simplistic? I could just as easily argue that the Mail et al will blame anyone they can (including groups such as 'the obese' who have no power or influence in society whatsoever) rather than entertain the idea that their beloved free market capitalism might not only not have all the answers but might just even be responsible for some of the problems.
Besides, if you think I'm a frothing-at-the-mouth Guardianista you've not really been paying attention. For one thing, I don't consider your outdated class divisions helpful (for me the real distinction now is between the benefit classes and the taxpayer; the aspirational versus the Shameless) and I have no time for a 'rehabilitative' model of criminal justice which has entirely and fundamentally failed. Although often categorised as a progressive position in the US, where most of the current dialogue is taking place, all the UK's major political parties take the same position on the issue of single greatest importance to me, and differ only in the degree to which they would intervene.
My previous post was basically invoking the analogy of the chicken or the egg to establish the role of the press and media in British public opinion. If 80% of the general public genuinely are reactionary, xenophobic and afraid of difference, there has to be a reason. Are these traits an inherent part of the British (or human) psyche that were then picked up on by a media responsive to 'the public gets what the public wants'? Or (and in my opinion more likely) were they convinced to think that way by a relatively small cabal of media owners, all drawn from the same part of the traditional Establishment, who saw pockets of this sort of sentiment and decided to legitimise and normalise it through slanted reportage?
OK, so we're drifting a little away from the original topic of why the tenor of comments on HYS tends to be so venomous toward minorities and the powerless in society. But I think it's a question that's relevant to the wider backdrop of political and social debate in this country, of which (along with other comments sites, forums etc) BBC HYS forms an important element.
Complain about this comment
Agreeing with other comments; I am confused as to why it is taking so long to bring the boards back online, especially as this service is funded by the license fee.
I'm at a loss as to why something that worked has suddenly stopped working. Surely there are back ups/duplicate servers etc.? If not why?
In all my experience running a network and designing and coding an intranet, it has never taken more than a couple of hours to reinstate a service.
If the BBC wishes to promote the conspiracy theories, it's doing an amazing job!
Complain about this comment
And fillandfrowpist (#101) no, the general public don't have to accept minorities, but in a civilised society the Government has a duty to look after their interests and if necessary protect them from the 'tyranny of the majority'. When they don't and instead pander to a misguided majority, well, we all learned in school about what happened in the 1930s. Coupled with my earlier post, it's why the idea of being 'tried in the court of public opinion' and 'trial by media' really bother me, and it's why we don't have governance by referendum.
And are you really so intolerant that you believe that anyone who happens to be 'different' has some sort of responsibility to 'integrate' into a gigantic homogenous mass? Human societies are so much more interesting when everyone hasn't been stamped out cookie-cutter style by machine and human diversity in all its forms is reflected and respected instead of being suppressed. I've never understood why the Right take such issue at that. It's just a case of developing the maturity and being comfortable enough as a society to live and let live, something which those currently in charge of most sections of the media seem determined to thwart and undermine at every turn.
Complain about this comment
#105. R.T.Fishall
Wasn't that one of Patrick Moore's pseudonyms when he teased the UFOn(a)uts?
Complain about this comment
78. fillandfrowpist wrote:
"@70
I agree wholeheartedly with your critique on the BBC and its exposed bias on many subjects."
Well, thanks for that.
79. Pigsty Hill wrote:
"#74 truetoo
I agree with a lot of that, but would point out that the last paragraph works equally well if you transpose 'left' and 'right', or if you replace 'left' and 'right' by 'Israeli' and 'Arab' or vice versa."
I take your point. I have seen this suspicion mostly from the left but I'm willing to at least entertain the possibility that I could be wrong.
I didn't know you could recommend a particular comment more than once using the same e-mail address but I doubt that anyone would bother to go to all that trouble just for a HYS topic. And wouldn't they run the risk of this being picked up by the moderators? I follow the recommended comments closely at times and I've never seen one jump by leaps and bounds which is what one would expect if your theory is correct. It's always a steady increase. In any event, if this was being done by both the right and the left they would tend to cancel each other's advantage out.
80. englandrise wrote:
"I've lost count of the posts I've had rejected that don't break any "house rules" they do however directly disagree with the BBC's world view."
I've had the same experience numerous times. And before anyone scoffs at this as a conspiracy theory, note that rejected comments on HYS are a specific category; a moderator should only reject a comment if it has broken the rules. There are moderators who appear to reject comments simply to make a political point.
85. At 12:06pm on 04 May 2009, dotconnect wrote:
"Pigsty Hill is spot on about your last paragraph, though I would say there are far more accusations about pro-Palestinian fiddling than about pro-Israel fiddling on the BBC comment boards."
If you are prepared to sift through over 2000 comments on the Gaza Appeal on this blog, which was about 95% dominated by the left, you'll find quite a few venomously accusing the BBC of being "pro-Israel." This, of course, has become quite the fashionable insult among the left:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2009/01/bbc_and_the_gaza_appeal.html?page=1#comments
"...the right tends to dominate on BBC comment boards and indeed public opinion generally."
You sure about this? I don't access that many BBC blogs but Justin Webb's, as an example, is heavily dominated by the left.
94. UncertainHeisenberg wrote:
"Perhaps there should be a reason stated for why posts are rejected and why complaints are rejected."
On a BBC blog like this one, the moderators will send you one standard explanation (out of a few from their House Rules) if they've removed your comment, though it generally takes quite a long time. Apparently HYS is also obliged to do the same, but I don't recall ever getting an explanation from them as to why a comment of mine was rejected.
A lot of what you say makes a lot of sense. I guess the system is imperfect, but it's an imperfect world.
99. popshed,
You've seen that rare animal HYS calls the reactively moderated topic? I thought it was extinct.
103. Its_an_Outrage wrote:
"I don't post as often as I used to - if most of what you've said gets buried in a queue for half a day and then finally surfaces on page 35, there doesn't seem to be much point."
Too true.
107. englandrise wrote:
"How about a bit of openness? Come on come clean - what's going on?"
I tend to agree. A couple of years back HYS started fiddling with the "Recommended Comments" page. Some (not all) comments started to lose their recommendations and then regain them a day or two later. This happened on a few occasions. I believe they were trying to tweak the page in some fashion but they never did offer an explanation.
There often seems to be a hidden agenda behind the BBC's apparent openness.
Complain about this comment
Tell you what I'd really like to know...
How much of the licence fee payers money has been spent creating and maintaining the HYS forums?
Is this information in the public domain? There must be a cost centre analysis somewhere?
Anyone from the BBC care to enlighten us?
@ritchie79 - try to keep it on topic will you?
Complain about this comment
Sad to see HYS 'down'. I think many of us would be a little interested to know what the problem is. So many Government, Business & now BBC have problems with their 'systems'.
Complain about this comment
To: 103. Its_an_Outrage - re: HYS 'outage':
What annoys me is that many comments seem to be 'held' and then 'published' just prior to the debate being 'closed'. I see no point in this because we can't 'recommend' them and nobody bothers reading them. So pointless excercise.
Complain about this comment
I've been having a problem. I have placed at least 100+ comments, but have yet to SEE a single one published. I have never been able to find any instructions or means for finding them. So far, as far as I can tell (except that I've been contacted on a few of them), they've all been axed, down to the very last one. Am I that disagreeable? Why else would I write?
Another problem is that far too often, the few topics offered on Have Your Say are meaningless fluff, while no comments are requested, or permitted, on far more important issues. Other news sites let us comment on virtually every story. Relatively speaking, the BBC is not a that good a site to voice one's views on...
Complain about this comment
And what's this about "all NEW members [being] pre-moderated INITIALLY?" That is the message I got when posting my last comment. I am being "pre-monitored" now, after having been a member for at least a year...maybe a couple of years. I see another message that reads "all posts are pre-moderated." Which is it, then?
Complain about this comment
To: Matthew Eltringham - BBC EDITOR - (advisedly):
Sir, there are so many comments and questions on here asking for answers to 'HYS' debates etc. In this time of the 'HYS' 'outage', perhaps now would be a good time to enlighten those 'posters' and clear up their many problems/doubts? Sending complaints to BBC about these problems, do not answer the questions adequately.
Complain about this comment
@110
So you think that the "tyrannical majority" do not believe the BBC's explanation for the outage of HYS but the Government have dashed in to save the minority and ordered the BBC to think of a "lie" to defend their honour? Minorities include every damned individual born - that is why your thinking is precisely aligned to the thinking you abhor from the 1930s. You do NOT defend minorities you support them into integration and that takes time - and, integrate they must, or we will really have Armageddon in no time at all. That does not mean they surrender their culture nor their past - it means that they are totally accepted into the mainstream lifestyles of the majority - work, home, education, health, suffrage, opportunity, etc, etc.
The settlers of the USA obliterated the indigenous Native Indian a fate that has befallen many others before them. That wasn't the act of the many - it was the ignorance of the few (ruling class).
You find your scapegoats wherever you can - benefit claimants versus taxpayers huh? And how many of those "shameless" do you think felt good about attending a dole office? Just how many do you think are perpetually unemployable and at what cost to our country as compared to those who evade or avoid taxes? Read the evidence of the "taxpayers alliance" to the Parliamentary Sub Committee on Taxation to understand who the real villains may be.
When you leave your simplistic and riddled with holes theories behind you may come to understand the importance of the individual in all this and why the only true democracy is one that gives that individual real choices instead of "flavour of the ruling classes specials".
Complain about this comment
In the mid-nineties I worked for a leading US software provider. A piece of software was made available to every Windows based PC and failed in a very high proportion of cases, in the worse of them by obliterating the operating system. As a technician trying to deal with the fall out I was instructed by my bosses to "lie" about the fault. I refused and I was threatened with dismissal and worse. I eventually left under my own steam.
Such are the threats to our society now, some thirteen years later. That software company still thrives and still gives headaches to the majority whilst I have never worked in corporate IT again despite my qualifications and background.
Is the BBC telling the truth about HYS? The facts are the system is simple but flawed - poorly written software, lacking in constructive innovation, user flexibility, and dotted 'i's' and crossed 't's'. If it has crashed then it should have been up and running again in a couple of hours maximum. The fact that it isn't means there is a lot more to this than meets the eyes.
Complain about this comment
so we are now at almost a week that the service has been down? If any of my services were down for a day I would be looking for a new job! There is definitely something fishy about this. Should we all refuse to pay our license fee until it is back up? Watch how quick it magically gets sorted then :-)
Agree with previous posters about the moderation. You post a comment, it sits in the moderation queue for a day or so, then they post a few hundred all at once. Whats the point in that?
Complain about this comment
#112. TrueToo wrote:
"I didn't know you could recommend a particular comment more than once using the same e-mail address but I doubt that anyone would bother to go to all that trouble just for a HYS topic. And wouldn't they run the risk of this being picked up by the moderators? I follow the recommended comments closely at times and I've never seen one jump by leaps and bounds which is what one would expect if your theory is correct. It's always a steady increase. In any event, if this was being done by both the right and the left they would tend to cancel each other's advantage out."
I would guess that it would take five or ten seconds to log out, log in as another user and re-recommend a post, so it would appear quite gradual. Also, I suspect that the process would happen in the very early moments of a post, so you'd have to be there and then to see it. Once it's on the Most Recommended page, it's there for good.
One thing that interests me is how a predictable group of right-wing Americans always seem to get in on the ground floor (sorry, first floor) of posts about the conduct of that country.
Could it be that the BBC is launching these in the early hours (UK time) to catch US comments first? Alternatively, is someone tipping them the wink or is someone using clever software to detect new topics?
Complain about this comment
What would be REALLY great, is if the whole user-contibuted/criticise-and-abuse culture would just die a death.
HYS is not a reasoned debate and hasn't been for many years... not since the right-wing Toryboys found it.
Joe Public is, for the large part, uninformed, reactionary and prone to extremist comments. HYS only perpetuates this, and the "recommended" option should not exist at all.
Leave the thing switched off, and give the world some peace!
Complain about this comment
#123. hardylane
"Joe Public is, for the large part, uninformed, reactionary and prone to extremist comments."
Like that one, you mean? In my observation, Joe Public is generally tolerant as long as he isn't faced by gay activists who tell him he's a supressed homosexual, feminsts who tell him he's a defective woman, and religious fanatics who tell him he's going straight to hell and offer to speed the process personally.
Complain about this comment
98. LifeofReilly wrote:
I was gutted at the prospect that all my previous posts over the last 5 or so years have now, like their counterparts on the Channel4 forums now become retrievable forever.
I guess you mean forever irretrievable. I know the feeling. Happened to a blog I debated on a few years ago. The "service provider" managed to wipe out the entire blog. And on a current blog redesign they may or may not wipe out seven years of comment history, only leaving the blog posts.
116. and 117. yankeetwo,
I would guess that you have commented on those many HYS topics that the moderators abuse by allowing hundreds of comments to back up in the "Moderation Queue" and then flushing them, unpublished, down the loo. Happens to me a lot, but it's strange that they've published none of yours.
And what's this about "all NEW members [being] pre-moderated INITIALLY?"
Yes, that's the standard blurb everyone gets on these BBC blogs. It makes no sense at all, since everyone is pre-moderated. They had a reactively- moderated system on Robin Lustig's blog, but they've now changed to pre-moderation though the blurb still says it's reactively moderated:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldtonight/2009/05/democracy_the_arab_world_and_t.html?moduserid=movabletype92_81248&pid=79529781&upm=True&asb=False&pmp=False#dnaacs
Seems like an editorial decision was made to clamp down on comments appearing before moderation, but no technical guy could be found to change the blurb accordingly or else nobody even thought about it.
I have an idea that the BBC has great resistance to employing competent technical people to manage its website. Not sure why. Maybe the good technicians are not leftie enough?
Anyway, it seems like "Reactively moderated" comments will be a thing of the past, in all but the most trivial of topics.
Complain about this comment
FAO: Matthew Eltringham
How about an update Matthew?
Can we at least have an ETA on when HYS will be back online?
Can you give us more info on the nature of the problem?
Can someone from the BBC even acknowledge that they are reading our comments here?
Don't we as license fee payers deserve to be kept in the picture?
Complain about this comment
"dotconnect wrote:
@67
When a system includes a facility to reflect popularity - as HYS does - it becomes perfectly possible to gauge a general impression of popular opinion, at least insofar as the system reflects it."
The problem is that the way of reflecting the popularity is flawed and as a result any conclusions based on it are also flawed.
Some major flaws in the HYS rating systems:
1. It is one user account one vote - but I suspect that many users have multiple accounts (probably more so since the BBC brought in the only two posts an hour limit to topics)
2. The presentation of the posts make it much easier to recommend some then others (there is a "Most recommended" option which makes the recommended posts more easily available)
3. The majority of people don't recommend posts, the most recommended posts might only be recommended by a thousand people but are probably read by millions - does that mean that the rest of the people agree or disagree with the post?
Complain about this comment
#125
The BBC contracted out its IT services in 2004 with estimated savings of £30m. The Public Accounts Committee criticised the BBC for falling well short of these savings. I have tried checking out who are the current providers but the BBC Accounts do not appear to show the detail.
The problem with contracting out is not the provider winning the contract but the sub-contractors who do the bulk of the work. These tend to be in and out jobs, farmed via agencies where incomes of £50k plus per annum are not unusual but value for money poor. Just who handles HYS and what are the details of staffing, moderation rules, and control of the product? The BBC needs much greater transparency and openness about who does what and how.
So whats to make of the opening blog? Perhaps the clues are in the detail. "...we are working hard to correct the problem..." is the kind of throw away state the obvious line that stops you in your tracks. Why wouldn't they be working hard?
Complain about this comment
#128 pongabit
Oh dear! Speaking as a fairly conscientious contract programmer myself, I see that as a recipe for disaster.
There are an awful lot of contractors out there who deserve to be rewarded per anum rather than per annum...
Complain about this comment
Anyone who has worked in IT for any length of time must be open mouthed at the time it is taking to fix this "fault". Any software change should be done via a migration path, and any fault in the live system result in rolling back to the last working version.
Or did someone leave the backup tapes on the train?
Complain about this comment
One of the first questions asked when dealing with computer problems (after "Have you tried turning it off and on again?") is "What has changed recently?"
I would have thought that an organisation the size of the BBC would be able to afford redundant servers that could be rolled into place pretty quickly.
It seems that the BBC is willing to spend millions on the "on-screen" talent but cut costs when it comes to the back-end boys who keep the servers up and running.
Complain about this comment
While the site is down is there any chance you could delete all of the existing user profiles ?
If we could go back to the unlimited posts, or maybe just increase the maximum above the paltry level of 2, then this could be a big improvement too.
HYS seems to have been infiltrated with multiple account users who have been filling the boards with near identical posts & then self-recommending themselves to the top of every debate.
Once its back up if you could adhere to your stated aim of making as many debates as possible "reactively moderated" then that'd be nice too.
Complain about this comment
Matthew Eltringham.
like others (eg. Terry_James, englandrise) on this blog, I find the "deafening silence" from you and your employer very telling.
a number of posts have already pointed out that the "technical problems" you referred to are (a) too vague to be meaningful and (b) given the time it has taken -- not to be believed.
so, earn your money and post a proper explanation here, soon, please.
Complain about this comment
Why can't the BBC's software programmers fix this and other faults? The old Radio player was replaced by iPlayer which is an unmitigated disaster and is still inferior after trying to fix it for a year or more. If the Air Traffic Control centre for SE England broke down it would be fixed double quick. If they can do it why not the BBC? Your reputatuion is in tatters.
Complain about this comment
As an ex IT developer (25 years) and, latterly, Project Manager I have to agree with those who suspect that the problem is not technical. Even I could have fixed it by now.
I have also been wondering if the often seemingly bizzare moderation is caused by the fact that the moderation is outsourced? That perhaps the number of posts moderated and published is derectly related to the contract, and what appears odd to us is simply caused by not many people having to demonstrate that they have processed a certain (large) number of posts? No conspiracy? How disappointing that would be.
Its_an_Outage.
Complain about this comment
Secratariat (132) is right. The biggest problem is that quite often , only a few messages get published at the beginning. This means that they also get the most recomendations. The moderation queue grows and grows. When they are released on mass, it means many messages will not even be read as they are many pages down the list. This is not democracy at work.
More reactive Moderation would be better.
Another idea would be to "outsource" some of this work to a trusted group of volunteers out here. You would then just need one moderator to moderate the moderators over a period of time.
Complain about this comment
come back have your say all is forgiven.
Complain about this comment
Those who would like to see the early demise of HYS in any format will be disappointed to know that the BBC is required by Charter to openly allow its audiences to comment on programme content, news, current affairs, BBC attitudes and perceived bias etc etc. It is measured by formula as to how it achieves this commitment and is required to demonstrate this in its Annual Reports.
One of the many problems the BBC face in HYS is the number of non-license payers who are commenting compared to the numbers of those to whom the Charter directly refers in its original concept. This is a point that the BBC Trust will no doubt be aware of.
Complain about this comment
I was outraged when the security guards at Newsnight tried to stop me bursting in front of Gavin Estler carrying my "Bore-Doom Brown(like poo)and ZaNaziu LazyliarBore are rubbish," banner and wearing nothing but the Union Jack painted on my body. It's the worst kind of censorship!
More constructively, I'm flabberghasted by those individuals who fail to realise how popular the BBC site is, and what strain just "slapping on a forum" would put on its servers.
What I would like to see, though, although I realise it's not practical in all cases, is the Have Your Say question phrased in a binary way, so that people could mark themselves pro, con or undecided. That would enable readers to be able to compare and contrast viewpoints, and let those who just say "yes", "no", or bizarrely "who cares"? to make their views known with a click, rather than a whole post.
Have a look for ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere if you're missing Have Your Say.
Complain about this comment
For a while I've been confused about the complaints about left-wing bias simultaneous with comments about 'Communist' attacks on freedoms. What I've realised is that coverage of Latin America and Southeast Asia is fairly muted in the UK, and those places have had some of the worst right-wing regimes. Maybe Brits and other Europeans think that they cleaned up their act in 1945 and that the only remaining villains carry red flags. To my mind, the only true result was that Hitler and co. pushed the envelope so that Tory-style NoLabour can now claim to be socialist and the US can talk about promoting Democracy with Gitmo and invasions. I've never bought the idea that socialism is dictatorship just because half the world's dictators claim to be socialist.
Complain about this comment
@134 - NETTKNUT
You assume the BBC employs software developers to start with.
The fault could be software, or hardware. It could be a configuration issue, or problems with backup tapes not delivering. We don't need to know this, so long as it starts working again when its fixed!
iPlayer works absolutely fine, as far as I can tell, btw.
Complain about this comment
Ladies and gentlemen, please! Not another pointless left/right slanging match!
There's a serious issue about getting the Beeb to cough up some information about the failure of HYS. There may also be a very small chance of getting the HYS administrators to listen to our criticisms of its operation (when it does).
Punch and Judy routines, although no doubt good fun, are not to the point.
Complain about this comment
I'm with #15, #29, #36, and other similar comments: it's really hard to understand how an organisation with all the resources of the BBC could take this long to fix a computer glitch in a system that has worked fine in the past.
But I'd like to offer an explanation. Have you seen the new design of the Magazine section of the website? It's pretty hideous, isn't it? I suspect it sits on the same server as HYS, and HYS saw it and immediately gave up the will to live.
Complain about this comment
#143. DisgustedOfMitcham2
"Have you seen the new design of the Magazine section of the website? "
I have now - it's vile! No wonder HYS died of shame. I presume it was done by the DG's six-year-old daughter using a free page builder.
Complain about this comment
it's important to backup - isn't it.
Complain about this comment
There is no way this should take days to fix, I have managed the support side of things for signficantly larger web based applications than HYS and if we didnt have the thing back up and running in hours then the costs were extreme 100s K.
This just goes to show the difference between the public and private sectors I guess.
Complain about this comment
It is to be hoped that the Engineers will be taking a serious look at the cogs, whistles and springs in the moderation filter drive too ! Or maybe we are being fed a Red Herring here, maybe the whole thing is working perfectly but the moderation queue finally reached a Million, imploded and they are yet to find enough new politically correct blinkered yes persons to man the barricades. In the mean time I will go play on CBS, they don't waste Licence payers money on this old fashioned moderation nonsense.
Complain about this comment
As for moderation, the Beeb needs a strongly worded policy document which encapsulates in writing its policy with respect to when and how to moderate.
This should in keeping with our countries democratic spirit
- Have a presumptin towards no-moderation
- Where moderation is required this should where possible be reactive
- If deemed economically infeasible due to *evidence* of previous large scale abuse on similiar topics then pre-moderation should be permissible for sensitive topics.
In this way the BBC could honourably discharge its charter in the age of internet blogging. The current nanny-state attitude makes a mockery of the format.
Complain about this comment
OK. If this is a technical hiccup after five days, then it's time to admit you are really in deep doodoo. I think you should swallow your pride and throw open your problems to the IT experts who are contributing/following this blog.
Open a secure forum and invite them to help (you have their email addresses).
You have to admit after this amount of time, it is looking to us to be more political than technical.
Complain about this comment
Ah the joys of software written on the cheap.
Rule number 0 for modern software design: If its going to go wrong it should tell you why its going wrong before it falls over.
Unit tests always help in this case. You may find your provider doesnt like them as they like you to think that computings some form of dark art like accounting!
Complain about this comment
'early next week' is almost over now...
no more updates?
Complain about this comment
151. the_broon
Ah but it's never next week, is it? It's all jam tomorrow, but never jam today. Or, given the BBC's slide towards Yank-speak, we'll get it real soon now...
Complain about this comment
don't bother fixing your bigoted HYS. nobody needs it. i hope it was me broke it down
Complain about this comment
# 94
I agree with much of what you say. Moderators seem to be particularly inclined to reject comments that challenge a factually inaccurate or misleading comment. The house rules explicitly state that if we disagree with a comment we are allowed to post a rebuttal. However, a good proportion of the time these rebuttals are rejected even though they seemingly break no house rule. It is a bizarre comment board that allows an falsehood to be posted, but does not allow a falsehood to be challenged. The rules about impersonating other posters are never enforced, even though this has become particularly common of late.
Complain about this comment
The HYS system has now been down for a week. I work in IT and if any of the servers under my charge were down for this long I would probably get the sack. Could the lack of alacrity in restoring HYS have anything to do with a lack of enthusiasm for the political persuasion of many of the most recommended posts. The most popular posts on HYS are usually very right-wing - I bet a lot of BBC lefties would be happy if HYS is never restored.
Complain about this comment
Could the BBC take the opportunity during the extended downtime to overhaul their user submitted messaging systems throughout the website? HYS, 606 etc are horrible clunky thimgs with little aesthetic quality. Getting a vBulletin or SMF forum system instead would vastly improve the look and functionality of the system for everyone.
Complain about this comment
its more likely to have been taken down on purpose.
you only show comments who agree with yours and governments agenda.
Complain about this comment
Clearly there's a village with an idiot missing if anyone believes that HYS not being available is a major problem when we've got an inept Government, swine flu, and above all else media-hype of almost every minor issue to contend with. It'll be good to see HYS back of course - if they ever manage to fix the problem they caused themselves during a "routine maintenance" outage last Wednesday - although tis almost a week now and not apparently any further forward.
Complain about this comment
Get well soon. Take no notice of the conspiracy theorists - we'll get them all later.
Complain about this comment
I must be the only one here who wants more moderation, not less. Have Your Say is peppered with enough self-indulgent, ill-considered guff masquerading as reasoned thought without taking the shackles off and letting the full orgy of lunatics spout at 20 to the dozen. More moderation, please, BBC.
Complain about this comment
It has now been over 1 WEEK and this is NOT ACCEPTABLE.
As a licence fee payer I expect a better service than this.
I am writing to my MP and suggest that all other users do the same to complain about the inept incompetent way that the BBC is handling this problem.
Now MODERATE THAT.
Complain about this comment
This is starting to get serious. A lot of stand-up comedians rely on HYS for their material. Normal people are going to miss out on that fun to be had laughing at the inane drivel that is posted here.
HYS has always been an intellectual train-wreck, so it is somehow fitting that it is now also an IT train-wreck.
Complain about this comment
dotconnect did you ever stop to think that the reason that so called right wing views dominate is because the misguided swivel eyed lefties are far in the minority and rightly so.
Complain about this comment
#160. Neiliums
"I must be the only one here who wants more moderation, not less."
Who's called for less moderation? What most have posted DO want, and what you would have read if you weren't blinded by prejudice, is consistent, transparent, effective and timely moderation, not the shambles we had before HYS turned up its toes.
Complain about this comment
"I have never had a problem with the HYS moderators, presumably because I always keep my comments civil, with minimal frothing at the mouth.
Perhaps some people who have issues should take a look at the way they conduct their views?"
Damm right, if you want the mods to be more liberal in the way they run this board then perhaps some people need to learn to keep a civilised tongue in their heads while debating.
Complain about this comment
HYS down? DOWN I hear??
Tut tut... it's PC gone mad, it is.
It's them vegetarian immigrants to blame... pinching all our posts... :P
Complain about this comment
Im sure thats happening to HYS because of the mis-maintenace of the site during the rush of SWINE FLU ..the one of us should stop from time to time to put himself together, and to take a deep breath before starting over..
Complain about this comment
Please also bring back the 'Search' Have Your Say function it was so useful. Also find another way of publishing comments one by one as soon as they have been moderated instead of dumping a hundred or so at a time. One minute my latest post status is 'awaiting moderation' the next minute it is on page 77 or something?! This is yet another reason why besides the absence of a red 'disagree' button next to the green recommend one, that the debate loses it's dynamism and stagnates with a polarised opinion. Also members should be blocked by means of IP address from having more than one ID, one particular seaman comes to mind. Also a right to reply function next to a critical post would be helpful for clarification.
Complain about this comment
I feel that there are too many restrictions on what I can have my say on. Almost as if the BBC were censoring comment, or am I just paranoid. (I don't think so).
Complain about this comment
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I miss you so much hurry up and get back to normal, pleaseeeeeeeeee pretty pleaseeeeeee.
Complain about this comment
the technical fault explanation...as an engineer, degree qaulified, umpteen years in software, hardware, systems design I find the explanation proferred somewhat confusing, if not implausible, maybe my brain is just too highly trained :-)
Complain about this comment
I expect you will find that the engineers made the fix a few minutes after the system went down.
But in true HYS queuing, their fix got stuck awaiting moderation, whilst hundreds of fixes made immediately before theirs and right after theirs got moderated and passed straight away.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I am sorry to be highly suspicious of this, but as someone who runs this sort of thing, if they went down - even if the server broke, we would have the whole lot restored from back ups within minutes - a couple of hours at the worst.
So, two things could have happened:
1. Someone has discovered a massive security hole and is having to rewrite portions of the web application.
2. The management have suddenly realised that they way the boards are designed means that they can be hijacked by people like far right extremists, and have ordered a rethink.
The current way you are doing it is better - just list the posts in order of arrival, and forget this hopeless "recommend" system that is so easy to abuse.
Either way, the technical problem as presented does not add up.
Complain about this comment
It's about time you got it fixed, it has been a week now. Maybe you need some new engineers.
Complain about this comment
The silence of the Beeb is deafening. A week down the line and five days after we were promised an update "early in the week" by Matthew Eltringham - and here we are with no news - no real reason why HYS is not working other than an excuse akin to British Rails "leaves on the line" or "wrong kind of snow" - yet "no comment" from the Beeb! Cummon Beeb - what's happening - what is the fault (the real reason) and when will it be back?
Complain about this comment
#174
Of course the "problem" could be something left behind by a disgruntled ex-employee of the HYS providers, perhaps even a proactive moderator who is out to "spill the beans" about BBC bias. Or maybe one of the more virulent contributors has managed to infiltrate the system and is now playing havoc with all those "queued in no man's land" postings by sending them to the DG's inbox.
Complain about this comment
OK, a day I'll forgive, but this is getting silly now. You need some people who can do better. Perhaps some kids out of high school who don't know what they're doing? That might be a start...
Complain about this comment
165. PaulRichard2 wrote:
Damm right, if you want the mods to be more liberal in the way they run this board then perhaps some people need to learn to keep a civilised tongue in their heads while debating.
Being civil wont necessarily assist you in being posted, while being politically correct often does. These BBC blogs are littered with comments that are both abusive and PC in one. And some moderators allow a high level of abuse with people bickering away at one another like a couple going through an acrimonious divorce. There are also moderators who allow cosy little left wing cliques to form within blogs and go into an off-topic chit-chat huddle while pouring scorn on any one who doesn't hold their opinions. Justin Webb's blog has one such clique. And World Have Your Say had another last year when "moderators" could both moderate and contribute. They were almost all left wing and many were highly intolerant of opposing views. This led to the curious situation in which those on the right could be having a heated political debate and suddenly find themselves censored by their lefty opponent who also happened to be a moderator. There were one or two right wing moderators on that particular blog who didn't practice such censorship.
HYS moderators have two ways of censoring political comments they don't like:
*Leave them to stew, never published, in the "Moderation Queue," which would be more appropriately named the "Flush down the loo Queue."
*Reject them.
The first is impossible to prove since vast numbers of comments across the political spectrum fester in that queue, probably mostly because of lazy or overworked moderators.
The second is as clear as daylight since rejection is a specific action that the moderators often take to express their disapproval of a comment that is even-tempered and on-topic and breaks no BBC rules other than the unwritten one of PC. I have frequent personal experience of this phenomenon and it is a frequent complaint about HYS from the right. Iran appears to be a particularly sensitive area for some moderators who will brook no criticism of the regime there. Pakistan is another.
In short, moderators should be obliged to follow the "House Rules" in these debates and need to be trained up in what constitutes fair practice as opposed to PC censorship.
That said, when it comes to allowing the expression of public opinion the BBC and other media have come a long way from the days when an editor used to chuckle over mounds of letters of complaint from members of the public and tear them up and throw them in the bin.
Complain about this comment
174. Gurubear wrote:
The management have suddenly realised that they way the boards are designed means that they can be hijacked by people like far right extremists, and have ordered a rethink.
Far left extremists don't have this ability?
If HYS has been hijacked by the right (and I see no evidence to support this notion) then you could speculate on the possibility of HYS having been hacked into by the far left, to express their opposition to the right.
Complain about this comment
How can it take a whole week to get a system up and running! Whoever the BBC are using to support their ICT infrastructure no doubt will get a good kicking at the next service review but not for wasting our TV licence money....Pull your finger out BBC and get someone in who knows what they are doing.
Complain about this comment
This has lasted far too long now. Come on BBC what is really going on! If the average company couldn't fix this sort of fault quickly they would be out of business!
Complain about this comment
"...We'll provide an update on the issue early next week..."
It's already Wednesday....?
Complain about this comment
I am simply amazes me that any web site and database issues could be so serious these days, so as to remove the functionality for over a week!
I work in IT, and this sort of catastrophic failure wouldn't be allowed in most companies, except under a denial of service attack or a security compromised situation, both of which I presume are not the case for the BBC.
I am sure many of us (in this open source development world), would be interested in what has actually happpened .... maybe we could suggest solutions?
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
174. I wrote:
.... they can be hijacked by people like far right extremists, and have ordered a rethink.
TrueToo wrote:
Far left extremists don't have this ability?
---------
As I said, "Like" far right extremists.
And yes, the far right have managed it several times and have boasted about it in their noxious stormfront forums. They cant get on the boards fast enough to vote if the word "immigration" appears.
As usual, the far left seem less organised!
Complain about this comment
Look no further than the spin machine in No10 for the source of the HYS problem. HYS has been nobbled to prevent any more scurilous remarks about Great Gordon being published.
The spin doctors are have not the imagination to post anything flatering about Gordo so they have crashed the HYS site.
Complain about this comment
So.....BBC....come on...be honest...who did, kick the three pin plug out of the socket and crash the system ?
Complain about this comment
#186. Gurubear
"As usual, the far left seem less organised!"
Demoralised rather than disorganised, I think, Bruin. New Labour seems even more in love with unfettered capitalism than Old Tory. Where it differs from them (and only marginally, at that) is in promoting Newspeak gobblydegook about pretty well all minorities except the white working class.
For this, they get branded 'socialist' by those who wouldn't know a socialist if he got up and nationalised their garden shed.
There isn't a single national daily newspaper which would describe itself as 'socialist'; well, OK, the Morning Star if you want to be pedantic.
Under those circumstances, it's surprising that there are as many 'far left' posts on HYS as there are.
Mind you, if you define 'far left' as 'to the left of Labour', then I suppose that the Lib Dems, SNP, and Plaid Cymru should be included...
Complain about this comment
Just as a thought, Will MP's be able to claim ID cards on their expences ? Or are they going to be exempt ID cards ???
Chris
Complain about this comment
It happens to all of us..get well soon. Have you considered that one of those journalists travelling around the globe to give a two minute - on location - report on the Swine Flu virus..might have brought something nasty home with them? HYS has been down for about a week now..somebody must have been "tampering". Imagine what would happen to culprits in a big commercial firm if that happened! Keep "working on it"..good luck.
Complain about this comment
#33
"Biggest problem with HYS is the lack of a ficility to 'recommend against' and entry, that would provide a much more balanced view."
What would be the point of that and how would it provide a more balanced view? You might as well simply double the number of recommendations each post receives. Regularly users know that the system of recommendations is abused, this will just increase the abuse and add to the mob mentality that is all too prevalent in HYS. Too many users are more concerned with getting their comment to the top of the most recommended than they are with posting informed and intelligent comment. That is why the most recommended is dominated by absurdly over-the-top hyperbole and generic attacks and insults. It might be popular to insult Gordon Brown on the BBC, but it does constitute meaningful debate?
Complain about this comment
I've got to say, that update doesn't read like much of an update. It seems to repeat most of what the original post said. No new information.
It can only take this long if there's only one mean who is doing it and happends to be unfamiliar with the software.
Complain about this comment
#193. -Fitzy-
Or if there's a very large team whose members don't all speak the same language (in technical terms, that is).
If I gave a progress report like that to one of my customers, I would very shortly be mounting my velocipede...
Complain about this comment
I wouldn't want to pass judgement. I'm not qualified, so have no idea what problems they are facing. Maybe something to do with the large nambers of contributors and political spammers to the service maybe the infrastructure can't take it. I can say though. Why haven't the fixed this £(£) The comment box is in ascii but the page is UTF-8. (Capital A^ circumflex then the £.
Complain about this comment
Well it's been ages now and still no HYS so I've got a radical idea, just get rid of it completely and try something else.
The HYS format doesn't work very well for a number of reasons (mainly the very poor way it is moderated - sorry moderators but you're frankly terrible) so why not have a comments board at the bottom of every story on the BBC News website ?
The F1 Fanatic website (F1fanatic.co.uk) does just this and it leads to far better debates than we get on HYS, the editor can always put up a discussion piece or opinion poll every few days to bring the stories together.
We could then have discussions about everything that's in the news rather than the limited subjects we get now from the HYS team.
Complain about this comment
Hope this is all rectified soon.As a new commenter I'm keen to begin.
Complain about this comment
Pigsty Hill wrote:
Mind you, if you define 'far left' as 'to the left of Labour', then I suppose that the Lib Dems, SNP, and Plaid Cymru should be included...
###
Actually, I was thinking farther left than that! I remember all the Trotsky teachers in my school in the 70s - full of opinions, the only thing they could organise was a strike once, and even then half of them got the day wrong.
#33 Wrote:
"Biggest problem with HYS is the lack of a ficility to 'recommend against' and entry, that would provide a much more balanced view."
####
Yes, I have thought about that before, and in the end I think it would be best if there was no recommend at all. And probably no quoting other people either. Oh, and no posts off the subject - so when you get subjects on the weather and someone posts "it's a New Labour/Tory plot," that post gets dumped as off topic. It would be on most serious forums out in the real world - only the BBC mods seem to think that is fair argument.
So, just a simple list of what people think. The BBC should not be arbiter of popular opinion, nor should they be running a system that can be abused by users - and currently they are.
I work on an online game - we are very aware how users of certain game forums can organise themselves to invade a game and try and wreck it. The same applies to political groupings. The BBC Have Your Say system is very vulnerable to that sort of abuse. The proof of that is when they read out top posts on News 24 (sorry, the News Channel) - they very rarely read out the top 5 or 10 posts because they know they are unrepresentative.
A French friend of mine was horrified how racist and intolerant Britain was, based on her reading of several Have Your Say forums. Though, she also said this completely contradicted her own experience.
The BBC in their Charter have a duty to show balance in everything they publish. Have Your Say is one area where balance is rarely demonstrated. And it is simply down to the mad recommend button. Get rid of it, moderate a little more strictly when it comes to sticking to the subject, and at least some semblance of balance will be demonstrated.
Complain about this comment
Secratariat wrote:
...why not have a comments board at the bottom of every story on the BBC News website ?
We could then have discussions about everything that's in the news rather than the limited subjects we get now from the HYS team.
###
I think the simple answer to that is man power.
Looking at the number of posts that dont make it out of the queue now shows that they do not have enough mods. Making EVERY news story a discussion header would make it impossible to manage.
On the ability of the mods, the thing I noticed was a lack of consistency. I posted one post pointing out that a top post was racists, and mine was rejected. So, just for interest, a friend of mine posted the identical complaint on his account - his was accepted.
I assume that we were moderated by different moderators. I wonder whether if my moderator had been the moderator of the original post I complained about, would that post have been rejected?
Consistency is difficult - we have the same problems on our boards - but it is possible with good training and management.
Complain about this comment
The static must have all gone by now...
have you tried switching it off and back on again?
Complain about this comment
It won't make any difference to me anyway. Any comment I post always seems to be ignored, then someone else's comment appears a few hours later - more or less word for word what I originally posted.
Complain about this comment
#192
Actually the facility of a 'disagree' button would allow a more balanced debate, as you then don't get a written counter-argument buried 5 pages down in the stack, and anyone who doesn't agree with the post can do so easily, thus balancing the rating.
A lot of newspapers run comments on the majority of their published articles, but these often turn into slanging matches and soapbox merchants muttering into their pint glasses about how dreadful the local council is.
Being able to comment directly on any news item would be great, with the recommend/disagree buttons alongside! How about it HYS mods?
Complain about this comment
Being able to comment on any news article is nice in theory, but I can't say I'm that keen, at least if Sky News is anything to go by. It would most likely result in rarely more than a string of uninformed bile attached to the bottom of each page. Where's the real value in that? (besides the token gesture of 'participation', which already seems to be everywhere, from BBC Breakfast to the radio lunchtime news)
As for modifying HYS to turn it into more of a conversational format (for example by being able to quote other posters more easily) - again, I'm sceptical. I think there's a good argument for leaving it as it is: a depository for mostly uninformed outrage and cynicism - after all, that has to go somewhere, otherwise an enormous chunk of licence fee payers aren't getting their money's worth. HYS serves this purpose well.
Perhaps the BBC could change the name from HYS to VYS - Vent Your Spleen?
Complain about this comment
I truly miss HYS - both reading other comments and submitting my own, but especially venting my spleen.
Did I tell you I truly miss HYS?
Complain about this comment
Another problem is that moderators seem to be woefully ignorant. Any post that doesn't spell out its meaning in words of one syllable, or quotes examples from history or (worst of all) uses irony or sarcasm will be rejected out of hand.
I suspect that it is because these posts go right over the moderator's head. Who are these people, anyway? Does anyone have the vaguest idea where they come from? Is moderation outsourced to Indian call centres?
Actually, probably not, given that India is one of the last places on the planet where a few people still speak and write coherent English.
Complain about this comment
UncertainHeisenberg - 94 - At 2:14pm on 04 May 2009
Completely in agreement with all you say
You'd never have been able to put it so well in just 500 Characters!
Complain about this comment
I bet when the techies get "Fed up" they will give the servers a kick and that probably will solve matters.
Lots of critics of the moderators - - --I don`t have the problems others seem to have and I do post "Pointed" comments.
Complain about this comment
control alt delete, control alt delete!
Complain about this comment
#201
It won't make much difference to moi anyway. Any comment I post always seems to be mostly ignored, then someone else's comment appears a few minutes later - more or less word for word what I originally posted.
Complain about this comment
199
"I think the simple answer to that is man power.
Looking at the number of posts that dont make it out of the queue now shows that they do not have enough mods. Making EVERY news story a discussion header would make it impossible to manage."
Simple solution - turn the moderation off and implement a system of peer moderation that allows other users to flag offensive comments as well as agreeing/disagreeing.
This along with a word filter to disallow profanity should sort that out. Anyone posting a series of comments that are flagged offence should be investigated by the staff and if necessary warned or banned dependent on severity.
This would actually allow for a reduction in staffing.
I think the main problem is that the BBC doesn't actually want us talking to each other and discussing the issues.
Complain about this comment
Might also be a good plan to improve the ridiculously long moderation queue... the HYS postings lack coherence and any kind of "thread" due to comments, more often than not, failing to be moderated/posted until the following day or later.
Complain about this comment
206. At 2:32pm on 06 May 2009, Artemesia wrote:
UncertainHeisenberg - 94 - At 2:14pm on 04 May 2009
'Completely in agreement with all you say'
Second that, thanks for the pointer. However I still have a silly 'Conspiracy theory' along the lines of Tory/UKIP/BNP party workers are paid to write and/or recommend on HYS (I'm sure others would think it the other way round...) it's only a silly thought but it would be strange if HYS remains dead 'til the European elections.
My big problem with HYS is the discussions mainly start during working hours so only workshy office workers, pensioners and housewives/husbands really get a look in when it comes to 'most recommended' - not a well rounded poll - Wonder what white van man thinks? plus school teachers, doctors and traffic wardens?
Complain about this comment
I find it just astonishing that BBC with the billions of pounds available in its budget that it is taking so long to fix a computer problem. I worked on the technical side of the newspaper industry. I would have been out of my job if due to a technical fault I lost a second edition. In my view this failure of "Have your Say" is down to gross incompetance.
Complain about this comment
Have you tried rebooting it?
Complain about this comment
Haha, so many people attributing sinister motives to the absence of the HYS system...I find that quite amusing, really.
Any one of: security breach, database failure, excessive file sizes (my money's here), hardware failure, etc. could cause a system like this to be down for a week or more. I administer a database-led system dealing with (at a guess) around 50% of the data that comes through HYS, not counting rejected comments, and I've seen all of these.
Remember - sometimes finding the problem itself is actually harder than fixing it, especially in complex applications. And replacing the server will just prove a costly mistake if it's not a hardware problem!
Complain about this comment
"28. At 7:40pm on 02 May 2009, grignard wrote:
Am i missing something here? BBC right wing conspiracies? Bias to certain religious views? Why is that some people are too cynical? The BBC editor gave us this post to inform us that HYS has some technical difficulties, thats all. Can you not trust that the moderators are neutral? They can't control the fact that perhaps in one topic most comments are centred towards the right, or left. I mean do you want them to ensure that there is an equal amount of each political persuasion. Please, have some common sense."
You are missing something:
1) The BBC is getting the responses you mentioned because it has lost the trust of many Conservative voters who, rightly in my opinion, see the BBC as favouring a leftist agenda. The examples are too numerous to mention - and obvious to those who use their critical faculties and obtain their news from a variety of trusted sources on the Internet and elsewhere.
2) The BBC moderators are not neutral. Although not breaking any house rules, I have had many comments rejected, presumably because the views do not agree with the political views of the moderators. Moderators also delay comments they don't like so that they are not published until the debate is closing. This limits the impact of such comments and distorts the debate.
3) The BBC is now beyond redemption. It will never be trusted again. The best thing that can happen is for the BBC to be closed or privatised (which, in practice, will have the same result!).
4) The BBC makes me ashamed to be British. It is one of the things I like least about UK and British culture (if you can call it that!).
Complain about this comment
I have yet to see any debates or comments i have made . why is that ?
Oh and by the way what bias this Chris chap showed in his piece about the al aksa mosque' or wailing wall ,on pm about 4.50pm
He repeated took the Muslim to task regarding his view ,but never uttered a word in the Jewish peoples comment's .
What religion is this journalist 'by the way.
Complain about this comment
#212. U-Thant
"My big problem with HYS is the discussions mainly start during working hours so only workshy office workers, pensioners and housewives/husbands really get a look in when it comes to 'most recommended' "
Don't forget self employed computer consultants working from home - there must be at least seven of us in the UK.
#209. Rafa's Magic Hand Signals
"It won't make much difference to moi anyway. Any comment I post always "seems to be mostly ignored, then someone else's comment appears a few minutes later - more or less word for word what I originally posted."
Exactly my experience - by the way, your handle made I laugh...
Complain about this comment
Those who think one can have a dialogue with the Taleban are at best naive. I would imagine they might have said: have a dialogue with the Nazis. (Well Chamberlain did, with disastrous results). These are people who are stuck in the 7th-8th century. Having a discussion with them is immensely more difficult than having a discussion with the Neanderthals. The user who stated they do not want to impose their values on the rest of the world is perhaps not up to date on the plans of the Islamists.
As to what to do to defeat them, this job really belongs to Pakistan, and to Saudi Arabia, which must stop funding them. It is rather amazing that, as the ambassador of the Taleban to Pakistan said, those who "cannot even make glass", want to spread their idiocy to the rest of the world. They live like pigs and want to spread that to other peoples.
Complain about this comment
The recommendation system needs a complete overhaul.
Too many times I have seen in a list of 10 new posts recommendations going
3, 2, 0, 1, 43, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.
This is within 5 minutes of the posts going up. This is not 9 left wing posts and one right wing post. It is one person self-recommending over and over again, it is so blindingly obvious and I have made complaint to HYS on numerous occasion. Nothing happens.
I am relatively right wing, but it irks to see the same right wing poster at the top of the recommendations when he really isn't that clever or insightful, just devious. The world's gone Topsy Turvy hasn't it.
This unnamed person must be really sad to feel the need to do it day after day, just to be noticed.
I recommend dismantling the recommendation system.
Complain about this comment
#216
I wouldn't consider myself right-wing or conservative yet I have comments rejected, left in moderation for hours or days, etc. If you read other comments here you will find similar complaints from the full-range of the political spectrum.
I'm probably wasting my time telling you this. No doubt you will think I'm lying or a BBC plant. That's that thing with people who subscribe to conspiracy theories, any evidence presented against the conspiracy is always dismissed as part of the self same conspiracy.
Complain about this comment
Is this why a pro-identity card comment has been the strapline on the Manchester story all day, when the vast majority of the comments are anti?
Complain about this comment
Left-wingers hate HYS because the perceive its posters to be right-wing Daily Mail and Sun readers. But they can never explain why a forum that is open to everyone should disproportionately attract contributors of a particular political view or the readership of certain newspapers. They are equally unable to explain why left-wing Guardian and Independent readers shun this particular forum.
In reality HYS reflects the views of ordinary people and will therefore attract more people who read the Daily Mail and The Sun than read The Guardian or the Independent. Its not a conspiracy - its just arithmetic - eight times as many people read the Daily Mail as read The Guardian and sixteen times as many people read The Sun as read The Independent.
The reason right wing views dominate HYS is simply because the vast majority of ordinary British people are right-wing. Why do left-wingers find it so hard to accept that they are very much a minority?
Complain about this comment
You must have the worst IT department in the world, there is no way the system should be down this long.
Come on lets have the truth!
Also:-
Less moderation would be nice.
If you must moderate, get a move on the queues back up too quickly.
Change the name from HYS, people don't get to have their say, because posts are rejected or rot in the moderation queue.
Remember we pay for this service, we pay your salaries!
Complain about this comment
Perhaps it would help if you employed some of the young wiz kids who cause absolute chaos causing problems for all of us. Perhaps they could put their brains to better use helping the BBC - it could even gain them a job.
Complain about this comment
The BBC is Fixing the Have Your Say fault
and we are Faulting the Have Your say fix.
With the huge Moderation queues that back up with so many Have Your Say debates, the BBC should change the name to Hold Your Say (or we'll hold it for you.)
Matthew Eltringham, I am glad you found the comments interesting and have got back to us with an update. I have also found the comments here interesting and at times entertaining and the lack of venom is certainly refreshing.
But I have an idea that the BBC is going to take this opportunity to force through unpopular changes, like fiddling with or doing away with the recommendation system. I don't buy the vast right wing conspiracy theory re recommendations. On many HYS topics, recommedation of like-minded comments is the only avenue open to those who are having their comments consistently rejected or shunted off into the moderation queue. And on any BBC forum comments from the right are far more likely to be censored than comments from the left. Let's not forget that the BBC is positively pickled in left wing bias. Yes, a lot of the moderation is apparently outsourced but the BBC is unlikely to trust it to raving right wingers or even to centrists. By and large the moderation will match the BBC's bias.
Having said that, it is evident that the moderators across BBC forums do make a considerable effort to play fair. But they are always going to lean left.
I have a suggestion for BBC managers, since we now have evidence that at least one of them is reading these comments:
If you can patch HYS together again, do a thorough study of a number of HYS topics, comparing the ones that have been published to the total received, assuming that they can be retrieved. I have no doubt that an unmistakable pattern of bias will begin to emerge.
Complain about this comment
Maybe the BBC should outsource its technical support to India .. or maybe you already have?
Complain about this comment
The fix is simple - get rid of your techies and hire some decent ones instead!
Complain about this comment
Like some of the other posters here I too am suspicious of the way that certain 'special' individuals appear to have top recommended comments all the time. While their 'special' views may well be popular, there are many other people who express similar views in a similar manner, and it is strange that nevertheless the same particular individuals are frequently top rated.
I suspect that either (a) some people spend their lives getting onto every debate early, or (b) they've got a network of people that sign in to recommend them. I wouldn't be surprised if the political parties have people who try to hijack the site for their own purposes.
I would suggest that you develop modifications to HYS to try to avoid these problems, and to give a more accurate impression of public opinion. One possibility is that there could be an 'antirecommend' button, for people to express disagreement with a given view, secondly perhaps there could be randomised method of listing comments (e.g. the comments appearing on my screen should be randomised, so that people cannot deliberately sabotage who gets the top rated comment). People may want to see the top rated comment, but then prehaps they could only be able to do that after the debate has closed? In any case, I'm not sure what the best solutions are, but something needs to be done about people trying to meddle with the recommendation system.
Also, another nice feature would be the ability to reply to another message. That way if you are commenting on a message left by another user, you don't have to quote what they say.
Complain about this comment
I do so miss HYS. Do you think it's just too busy for one moderator?
Complain about this comment
#223, AlanTTT wrote:
"The reason right wing views dominate HYS is simply because the vast majority of ordinary British people are right-wing. Why do left-wingers find it so hard to accept that they are very much a minority?"
I don't see much evidence of left-wingers finding it hard to accept that they're very much the minority on HYS. I acknowledged just that very point way back in #85. HYS is probably as fair a representation of the opinions of the UK population as we're likely to get from an internet messageboard, with the coarser bits moderated out. And frankly, it's not surprising, given the kinds of views that dominate there. As you rightly pointed out, the two most popular newspapers in this country are the Sun followed by the Daily Mail - both tabloids, both reactionary, unremittingly cynical and negative, both playing to the lowest of human instincts - fear, lust, jealousy. The most *popular* BBC stories clicked on are often those involving celebrities or something sexual-related. The most *popular* TV programmes are soaps and reality TV. In other words Alan, argumentum ad populum is no mark of HYS's quality - if anything, it's the reverse.
As pointed out before, you don't have to take any pleasure in that fact to recognize (and lament) that it's probably true.
Complain about this comment
163 LtKilgore
"dotconnect did you ever stop to think that the reason that so called right wing views dominate is because the misguided swivel eyed lefties are far in the minority and rightly so."
Already made that point, though in my experience the failing of lefties is precisely in not being swivel-eyed enough. If, instead, lefties posted up rants using unremittingly negative words like fiasco, outrage, shameful, farce, disgraceful... and all the other cliches from the Daily Mail's big book of cynicism, and if they resorted to simplistic ill-informed posts beginning with lines like "The trouble with these Muslims is...." then yes, they might actually get more recommendations on HYS.
Complain about this comment
We have no idea precisely what the problem is, and why it is taking this long to fix it? If Mr. Eltringham explains to the users of HYS he might be able to get some free help.
Complain about this comment
#233 canjudge
It's a bit like children having tantrums to get their parents' attention. Just how much obscenity and un-PC language do we have to post to get a meaningful answer from Mr. Eltringham and his colleagues?
Complain about this comment
220 purpleangelgeorgina
spot on about the `topsy turvy' world that we are in.
TrueToo, AlanTTT - do you seriously think that the top recommended spot is not being sabotaged? i'm sure that the frequently top ranked posters do have views that may be popular with some, but the fact that those individuals in particular get rated much more than other similar views suggests that something dodgy is going on. we all know which posters we are talking about. how would you propose to counter their games?
it kind of removes the point of the message boards if someone plays games like that all the time. popular views with the site users will still come through if the recommendation system is changed, provided that it is done right.
Complain about this comment
Could you explain what the actual technical problem is? Too much data in your database so you need to archive? You've hit a system limit in some table perhaps?
I really can't believe you have taken this long and still not resolved the issue.
There's no loss in asking for help.
Complain about this comment
When the system is ready to be re-started, it would be very nice if postings were published in the order that they are finally passed by the censors. This would help to avoid obviously biased "side-lined rejections" by certain unfair moderators. The current method makes it easy to hide comments that do not match moderators personal views and thereby affect votes to reflect a tenor that may not be in keeping with a fair reflection of popular mood. The current order of publishing makes it too easy to present opinion that has itself, been pre-defined.
Complain about this comment
Still HYS is 'down'. Have you thought that a new server might solve the problem? I had a comment of mine 'wating moderation' for two days. Then it was 'unpublished'. Wonder how many this happens to? Does this 'clog' the memory? I complained about a posting, to be told there was nothing to be done, so why have a complaint section? Does this take up memory?
Have you thought of clearing the memory? Perhaps there is to much information stored in it?
Or are our comments being even more censored, now the Government reads our e mails?
Complain about this comment
I apologise for the last paragraph of my 226 not making sense. Replacing ones with comments will hopefully make my meaning clear.
Complain about this comment
Remember all - Have Your Say is a FREE forum. The HYS crew is keeping us informed on the progress. I wish companies that we PAY for services from were as diligent when they had problems! Imagine, having your flight delayed and being updated on the reason why. It would make the wait a lot more bearable. Good luck and do what ya gotta do HYS Team! Cheers!
Complain about this comment
222. georhale wrote:
Is this why a pro-identity card comment has been the strapline on the Manchester story all day, when the vast majority of the comments are
anti?
This is the most pertinent comment on the entire thread and goes to the heart of the BBC's bias. Time after time the BBC will pluck one comment that suits its bias out of a HYS topic and post it on the main HYS page when it bears little resemblance to popular opinion as expressed on that topic. This is the BBC distorting the view of the public to suit its own agenda. In short, propaganda.
A writer on another blog traced one of these comments back to its source and found that it had received the grand total of two recommendations.
However, accessing the HYS page I see that the BBC has put up a contrasting comment, against the ID card. Let's hope this trend continues. It will be a major change from past practice.
237. KRITGuy wrote:
When the system is ready to be re-started, it would be very nice if postings were published in the order that they are finally passed by the censors.
This is a good suggestion. I have often seen the number of comments increase while the "most recent" comment is from the same person at the same time. This is evidently caused by a moderator deciding to go back and publish some earlier comments waiting in the queue. Since these comments then occupy the position on the board of their original submission to HYS, they are hidden back on the earlier pages of the debate. There is, in fact, little point in publishing them in that order since they will generally remain unread. This technique can easily be abused by a moderator as a form of censorship and can be detected by the zero recommendations attracted by these hidden comments. No recommendations are also evidence of comments being left in the queue for days as the debate is allowed to stagnate and then suddenly being published in a huge batch. Few people will go back and read them.
235. captainarmchairhero,
Re the allegation that the top recommended posts have been "sabotaged" I'll have another look at that if the BBC ever gets HYS up and running again. I haven't followed HYS closely for some months now in fact ever since they radically reduced the number of topics available at any one time and trivialised many topics. So I haven't seen the same individuals consistently going to the top of the "Readers Recommended" page. But even if they are, why is this regarded as a conspiracy rather than an expression of the popularity of their views? A month or two back I accessed a HYS topic that had the top readers recommended page dominated by the left. Conspiracy?
232. dotconnect wrote:
You appear to be arguing against yourself in that comment.
And if you really believe that the left doesn't go on venomous rants you need to have a look at the extraordinary response to Mark Thompson's blog on the BBC's refusal to publish the DEC appeal for Gaza:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2009/01/bbc_and_the_gaza_appeal.html?page=1#comments
Given the insulting and snide nature of so many of the comments published, I'd hate to see the ones the moderators censored.
Complain about this comment
I simply do not believe that there is an unfixable fault in HYS. I am a programmer and would face the sack unless I could fix or suggest a solution to a catastrophic failure.
There was an earlier comment that HYS is free. Nonsense, we pay for it with the tv tax and therefore should expect regular and accurate updates on the status of the board as stakeholders.
Have you sacked all your IT department and hired media studies graduates to maintain the code instead? Do you actually have an IT department? Is there political interference? Will you ever tell us the truth?
PaganInfiltrator
London
Complain about this comment
Firstly, can I say that my politics are right wing, but I am not a right wing extremist.
Whilst the moderation queues drive me as nuts as the next man, I find it difficult to detect a left wing bias on HYS. To me, it is refreshing that the BBC publish so many anti-BBC posts here. You try posting an evenly mild criticism of the Daily Mail on their website and I can tell you, you don't have a hope of seeing that in print!
Of course the BBC shows political bias. It is run by human beings, so there is no getting away from that.
Complain about this comment
I think "without fear of favour" is a very strange statement to make given the over zealous behaviour of your moderators. I have had comments rejected for no rwaason other than it would disagree with the personal opinion of a moderator, this has been proved time and time again by resending and it being published.
Its not the software you need to revise, its the blatant bias of some moderators, I recommend some basic training in neutrality.
Complain about this comment
Has Matthew got the week off, or doesn't he know how to update his blog.
Complain about this comment
When you get it working again, could we please have a 'have your say' about the DNA database rules?
Also, as comment 244 says, there does sometimes seem to be a problem with some of your moderators being biased in that they allow offensive comments to remain when they agree with them, but not when they disagree with them. I know it's a difficult job, but it's vital that it's done even-handedly. I do realise that's hard in practise, everyone has feeling about issues, but maybe you need to be more picky about who you choose to moderate and select some very calm, dispassionate people for this role.
Complain about this comment
While you are fixing HYS, can you change it such that all comments are posted in the order that they are approved by the Moderators, rather than the order in which they are submitted. That way the moderators cannot ensure that a comment is unread by holding it for hours and then releasing it for publication on page 80 of the comments list. The time of submission and time it was released for publication should also be shown so the delays imposed by moderators are visible.
Complain about this comment
Gremlins at work? Seems Nick Robinson's blogs are on teh blink this morning!
Complain about this comment
Has anyone checked out the faux "HYS" on ID cards?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/8037188.stm
Read through them - notice anything? you will see that the majority of comments are supporting the governments position on ID cards - in fact 10 of the first 10 comments are strongly in favour of ID cards. The BBC know from the real HYS that most users can't be bothered reading more than the first few comments.
Further down the page you will find the odd dissenter but not many.
I've seen this ID card debate come up about three times on the real HYS and every time those against ID cards are by far those most recommended and also the vast majority of comments.
Needless to say my comment on the ID car debate has not been published.
Draw your own conclusions - but my conclusion is - government mouthpiece.
--
Regarding some posts getting lots of recommendations even when published late in a debate - sometimes this happens to my posts because I post a link to my HYS post on a pro English forum and other users there with HYS accounts approve them - we're generally of one mind when it comes to the raw deal England gets from devolution for instance.
I'm not saying that's the case with all posts that rise rapidly but I'm sure other users are doing something similar.
Topsy Turvey though is without doubt a blatant sock puppet and should be banned.
Complain about this comment
Has it anything to do with Derek Draper quitting?!
Complain about this comment
Well, a week on and its still bust.
Working in local government, I know this would not be allowed to happen, regardless of what #146 thinks! Any software used in the public sector should be regarded as business-critical.
If you cannot fix it inside of 24 hours yourself, get a contractor in who knows this kind of system back to front, who will not get distracted by any other calls on their time.
If the software is off-the-shelf, or bespoke from a company under support contract, they should have someone working on it. If its a hardware problem, a new server would surely have been installed and be running it by now - that only takes hours at worst.
Certainly the IT manager should be sitting (metaphorically) on the heads of the engineers and some kind of progress report that means something should be issued every day.
Remember, us license payers are the customers here!
Complain about this comment
241 TrueToo
I am not concerned with the political leanings of the one or two individuals (or perhaps organisations) that appeared to be using underhand tactics to regularly get top recommended posts (maybe after this discussion their behaviour will stop now). It happens that
one of those individuals in particular - as highlighted by #220 purpleangelgeorgina (we happen to live in a 'Topsy Turvy' world) - happens to have views on the right.
Its not their views that cause my suspicion, its the fact that they get recommended much more than posts with similarly expressed views - THAT is the suspicious point. In fact their behaviour undermines the views that they express.
All I would like is for HYS to be more reflective of the people that use it - granted, it is a very special sampling procedure so it won't necessarily reflect the views of the entire population - but it should at least accurately reflect the views of the people that use it.
An antirecommend button would also be quite useful in this regard.
Complain about this comment
To TrueToo at 241
Re the allegation that the top recommended posts have been "sabotaged" I'll have another look at that if the BBC ever gets HYS up and running again. I haven't followed HYS closely for some months now in fact ever since they radically reduced the number of topics available at any one time and trivialised many topics. So I haven't seen the same individuals consistently going to the top of the "Readers Recommended" page. But even if they are, why is this regarded as a conspiracy rather than an expression of the popularity of their views? A month or two back I accessed a HYS topic that had the top readers recommended page dominated by the left. Conspiracy?
-------------------------------------------------------
You wrote the above in response to 235 (captainarmchairhero) which was a response to my original post at 220.
I could easily have access to 40 slightly different email addresses all labelled to me or my kids. For every btinternet.com subscriber can create 20, yes 20, email addresses 10 for btinternet and 10 for btopenworld, just on one account. It's so easy and then you can create two (maybe more) personas for each email address. so with one email account I can have 40, 60, 80 etc recommendations in the time it takes me to sign out and sign in again. It would mean having a really good memory, or even wierder still a list of my BBC accounts and email addresses. That is why I mentioned the last 10 postings having the following recommendations
3, 2, 0, 1, 43, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.
It's not a concerted effort by a group of like minded souls but done by an individual with 40-odd personas who feels the desperate need to be noticed and be top (how proud he must be). How many recommendations they end up with has nothing to do with the sentiment of the post or how well (ha!) written they are it is to do with how fast this person can get his 40-odd recommendations in to get to the top of the reader's recommended page. From there he will remain top. This is annoying as he is not a balanced soul and has repugnant extreme views in my opinion, and I am right wing. They are usually really poorly constructed arguments. They are solely recommended by other individuals as they are at the top of the recommended page, nothing else. Not many people read the top three pages and THEN decide where to put their recommendations. They do it as they go along until bored.
As I said, the recomendations page is totally "Topsy Turvy" and needs to be re-thought.
Maybe a random selection of 20 posts. By this I mean truly random as picked by a computer, not picked by a mod who finds the only 20 posts out of a thousand that agrees with his own viewpoint.
Complain about this comment
dotconnected wrote:- ....the two most popular newspapers in this country are the Sun followed by the Daily Mail - both tabloids, both reactionary, unremittingly cynical and negative, both playing to the lowest of human instincts - fear, lust, jealousy. The most *popular* BBC stories clicked on are often those involving celebrities or something sexual-related. The most *popular* TV programmes are soaps and reality TV and argumentum ad populum is no mark of HYS's quality - if anything, it's the reverse.
Ah yes that well know hypocrisy of the left - one minute they claim to be for the common man but in the next breath they berate him for not coming up to their exacting intellectual standards - left-wingers are such snobs.
Complain about this comment
cant you fix the moderators?
some of their decisions are very questionable!
ive had posts on topic rejected against house rules.. with no response when i ask why
ive had some held in the moderation queue for 3 days, then unpublished as the debate has been closed
ive had one post that was ranked the number 1 most popular for 5 hours, then disappeared completely, even when the debate was still open.
Complain about this comment
Several commentators have mentioned the HYS moderators often inexplicable behavior. My experience of HYS is that the moderators use many tools to censor comments they do not like;
1: Comments are input to HYS at the time they were submitted not the time they are added, so comments that the moderators do not like can easily be buried.
2: Large blocks of Comments added just as the HYS closes so no-one can recommend them;
3: Comments that meet all the house rules get rejected, no explanation so this leads to the belief that the moderators are not impartial and are rejecting reasonable comments for no other reason than they do not agree with them or like them.
Moderators a little more transparency please.
Complain about this comment
captainarmchairhero:
"Its not their views that cause my suspicion, its the fact that they get recommended much more than posts with similarly expressed views - THAT is the suspicious point."
That and the fact that they regularly have comments published hours or days after the HYS has started but then suddenly receive 140 recommendations within an hour of being published.
Although I may just be bitter because they've knocked some of my comments off the top of the recommended list a few times :-)
As far as BBC left/right wing bias goes I think I'm going to have to give them the benefit of the doubt, I've never been described as right wing but I have lots of my comments rejected or removed from HYS.
The only bias I've ever noticed is their regular subservience to the Israeli lobby, apparently we're not allowed to question the Israeli's without being seen as anti-Semitic, no matter how justified the criticism is.
Complain about this comment
Perhaps when HYS is corrected the BBC can eliminate the annoying 'fault' when a response is recommended by many people and therefore makes it into the top few to be seen on screen, only to have it demoted by a few "counter" comments which are then used to reduce its ranking so it is difficult to find. Until this is corrected the BBC leave themselves wide open to accusations of trying to obscure popular opinion which doesn't fit the BBC's particular agenda on that subject. I show below an example of this - a "most recommended" posting subsequently almost wiped out in the rankings by a comparatively few counter comments :
Added: Saturday, 17 January, 2009, 18:14 GMT 18:14 UK
I'm fairly sure this is how it will go.
1) Israelis ceasefire
2) Palestinians claim victory
3) Money/aid pours into Gaza
4) Money diverted to tunnel digging teams
5) Money diverted to rocket-making crews
6) Rockets land in southern Israel
7) Israel sits and takes it
8) Not a peep from Europe
9) Israel responds to rocket fire
10) Europe protests Israel's aggression
First Name Last Name
Recommended by 486 people 18 Jan 09, 8:04am
THEN A WHILE LATER THE BBC REMOVE THIS COMMENT WITH 486 RECOMMENDS,AND DEMOTE IT IN THE LIST OF RECOMMENDED COMMENTS BECAUSE IT HAS A COUNTER COMMENT WITH ONLY 7 RECOMMENDS, SO WHAT WAS TOP OF THE LIST IS CONVENIENTLY PUSHED TO THE BOTTOM, AS BELOW:
Added: Saturday, 17 January, 2009, 18:50 GMT 18:50 UK
1) Israelis ceasefire
2) Palestinians claim victory
3) Money/aid pours into Gaza
4) Money diverted to tunnel digging teams
5) Money diverted to rocket-making crews
6) Rockets land in southern Israel
7) Israel sits and takes it
8) Not a peep from Europe
9) Israel responds to rocket fire
10) Europe protests Israel's aggression
First Name Last Name
Points 4 & 5 are a bit irrelevent as they require little money. Point 4) should have been 'Israeli airstrike kills Hamas politicians'.
[LemuelGulliver], Great Yarmouth, United Kingdom
Recommended by 7 people
Complain about this comment
Instead of carefully constructed questions on carefully selected subjects like we see on HYS, the BBC should just provide for comments on each and every news story on their web page, like on-line newspapers do. Then we and the BBC would get a much better understanding of public opinion.
Complain about this comment
#254, AlanTTT wrote:
"Ah yes that well know hypocrisy of the left - one minute they claim to be for the common man but in the next breath they berate him for not coming up to their exacting intellectual standards - left-wingers are such snobs."
There's nothing snobbish about recognizing that the tabloids - those papers with the largest circulations, the Sun and the Mail - peddle in ignorance and outrage, in gut-level nonsense and reactionary piffle, that they play to the most ill-informed of society. Your squirming around this fact is a hilarious example of the "political correctness" that infects the right, and shows up the right's hypocrisy when they bang on about PC. Sure everyone has an equal right to express their views, but let's stop pretending that all views are as informed or as well-reasoned as each other. Let's stop developing this blind spot about the vast vat of ignorance and bile that dominates popular opinion for fear of offending/patronising those who spout it on platforms like HYS.
I'm also categorically NOT suggesting that this is as easy as right-wing = ignorant btw. The right-wing are certainly NOT all ignorant or ill-informed or even wrong. However it is an uncomfortable truth that the ignorant are, more often than not, drawn to the right-wing (unless I'm missing that big contingent of left-wing Daily Star readers?) - and that's an embarrassment that the right-wing always prefer to brush under the carpet.
Complain about this comment
It appears to have returned...
The first topic being about blogging.
Complain about this comment
It's fixed but everyone's post total is zero!
Complain about this comment
It's back but 4 years of comments lost down the memory hole.
I hope they are going to restore all our previous comments as I'm sure that a lot of people have put a lot of effort and research into their comments.
Complain about this comment
The main subject on HYS presently: Should the database be trimmed?
Made me laugh anyway.
Complain about this comment
dotconnect wrote:
The right-wing are certainly NOT all ignorant or ill-informed or even wrong
but usually selfish. and if they're not selfish, then they are ignorant.
Complain about this comment
I am delighted to see that the mere act that HYS isn't working hasn't stopped the conspiracy theorists, right wing reactionaries, left wing extremeists, anti-muslim extremists, anti-anti-muslim extremist extremists, neo-bigots, hopelessly misinformed radicals and humerous commentators from venting their bile and ilconsidered opinions. ever let them stop you!
Complain about this comment
254 AlanTTT wrote:
"Ah yes that well know hypocrisy of the left - one minute they claim to be for the common man but in the next breath they berate him for not coming up to their exacting intellectual standards - left-wingers are such snobs."
Surely that would only make them hypocrits; not necessarily snobs. And someone who believes that they are intellectually superior to someone else is not necesarily a snob either; they might well actually be intellectually superior and therefore are only guilty of being right.
Complain about this comment
Hmm. I think you will find that far more people are pissed off with the fact that they cannot comment of the day-by-day collapse of the New Labour Fourth Reich than that they cannot comment on Swine Flu.
Odd timing many think. But then many think, they do say, that the BBC is now no more than the propaganda arm of New Labour, sorry, the government. And this ex license fee payer would agree with them.
Complain about this comment
"I'd also like to thank you for the comments about the functionality Have Your Say offers and the moderation processes we use - they have been extremely interesting to read and reflect much of what HYS users have already told us directly about the system.
Matthew Eltringham"
Is that one of those politician thank you's ?
You know the sort, you tell them something they don't want to hear so they say thank you and then forget everything you've said.
This blog has thrown up all of the complaints I made many months ago when completing the BBC's on-line survey regarding HYS, it seems most people are giving the same complaints/suggestions I gave, I wonder why none of them resulted in any changes to HYS ?
Incidentally, HYS is back and my first comment was rejected, apparently giving a direct answer to one of the questions posed breaks the house rules somehow. The fact that I happened to criticise the BBC's standards of reporting in recent years and stated how this has lead me to use more on-line media & blogs for political News may have something to do with it, or maybe I'm just being paranoid again...
Complain about this comment
#267 Its_An_Outage wrote:
"Surely that would only make them hypocrits; not necessarily snobs"
Actually not even that, as it's possible to both berate someone and stick up for them. But either way, you're spot on about the snobbery, which is why I continually emphasize that you don't have to gain any pleasure from recognizing that there's a whole lot of stupid out there.
Not that I was berating "the common man" anyway - whatever that is. (I think it would be unfortunate if AlanTTT has defined ignorance and selfishness as "the common man", wouldn't it?)
Complain about this comment
#267 & 270
To paraphrase a well known Zen saying - "Only a complete fool believes they are intellectually superior to anyone else."
Complain about this comment
How right wing are these people that complain about left wing bias on 'have your say'? HYS is representative of people who comment on the internet and nowhere near representative of the whole country. Those who don't use it also pay the same £142.00 as these right whingers do and don't expect to get preferential treatment. The 2p a year or whatever it amounts to. The Idea that anyone pays £142.00 for HYS and blogs which are a miniscule part of the BBC is ridiculous.
Complain about this comment
While the HYS forum is "up the spout" [gone wrong, ruined] [please check a good English dictionary like "Chambers"] the fact is that for many of us it is like being a King without his harem for more than a week! No insult intended to the women!
Especially those Kings/Emperors/Caesars who are quite used to spouting off at the drop of a hat {though limited by the Beeb to two comments per hour which I believe is due to the indiscipline of the Proletariat}!
On the other hand, the generally or continuously 'constipated moderation' (as mentioned by someone else in an appropriate thread) seems to have spread like the swine flu!
What is the moral of the story OR what is the Q?
Constipated moderation is spreadable OR is constipation like a virus?
[With due apologies to the Engineers/Tech whiz kids who handle such mundane matters]!
Please excuse me! Don't hate me! Please!
MaxMaxmilianMaximusI, Indian Caesar, in Singapore
Complain about this comment
#271, fillandfrowpist wrote:
"To paraphrase a well known Zen saying - "Only a complete fool believes they are intellectually superior to anyone else."
Oh no you don't, fillandfrowpist. The point I'm making is a general one, not a personal one: that the intellectual capacity and the level of informedness of great swathes of the general populace (which will obviously be reflected to some degree on a mainstream platform like HYS) is low, sometimes dreadfully low. This isn't about snobbery, nor is it about modesty - it's about honesty. It's a simple matter of fact that people are not intellectually equal (or equally willing to engage their intellect), nor are opinions equally well-formed. As licence-fee payers, of course we all have an equal right to express our views, but only a fool would honestly believe we are a country of intellectual equals.
As for personalising it with all these "you think you're better than everyone else" tactics fillandfrowpist... I've no interest in claiming what 'I' am or what 'I' am not. Making this about me, and implying that I am, is no more than a diversionary tactic on your part (and a fairly transparent one at that).
Complain about this comment
273
Constipated moderation is an unfortunate but often accurate description. Moderation blocking the flow of....etc.
Complain about this comment
#274
Oh, so it isn't personal until someone else makes it personal? Two more things to try on "Mr Butter wouldn't melt in my mouth": "Empty vessels.." or one I love from Buddhism "Silence thy Gong".
Complain about this comment
#276
Oh fillandfrowpist, you're doing it yet again! OK, here's one for you:
play the ball, not the player
Go on, give it a go. See if you can. Because so far all you've done is avoid tackling/disputing what I've said in favour of the mere fact that I've said it.
So let's try one more time, shall we? Is everyone an intellectual equal - yes or no?
This time, see if you can answer the question or address the issue without resorting to your book of proverbs or any other diversionary tactics.
Complain about this comment
How much money is this costing the taxpayer to fix?
I think it's disgraceful that I have to pay for such a mess and why is it taking so long? And, dare I say it, someone should be called to account. Seems time and money are of no concern to the BBC just take more money from everyone next year.
No problems at Sky I see!
Complain about this comment
243. dflughae wrote:
Whilst the moderation queues drive me as nuts as the next man, I find it difficult to detect a left wing bias on HYS. To me, it is refreshing that the BBC publish so many anti-BBC posts here.
The BBC is left wing, without a doubt. But it's also obliged to pretend to be impartial. Hence a debate like this one. Meanwhile the BBC carries merrily along pumping out left wing propaganda through its own output.
252. captainarmchairhero,
I find that the short, sharp, direct and forcefully-expressed comments are generally the ones that get the most recommendations, politics aside.
253. purpleangelgeorgina,
Assuming tht one or two people actually are abusing the system in the way you describe, it would still be impossible to ascertain how many recommendations are abuse and how many genuine recommendations from like-minded people. If there were a lot of abuse, one would expect the recommendations to soar. This simply doesn't happen. The system is not perfect, but it's preferable to having no recommendations, which would limit the expression of popular choice. That's how HYS used to be and it was far more open to abuse from moderators demonstrating their bias without a restraining hand from the public.
255. denzil69 wrote:
ive had one post that was ranked the number 1 most popular for 5 hours, then disappeared completely, even when the debate was still open.
Happened to me as well. My comment, posted a few days after the topic began, was doing fine (without my help) and starting to climb up the recommended comments ladder onto the first page until someone pulled the ladder out from under it by deleting the comment.
I suppose the moderators call that Freedom to be speechless.
256. michael8128,
I agree totally.
257. Secratariat,
The only bias I've ever noticed is their regular subservience to the Israeli lobby, apparently we're not allowed to question the Israeli's without being seen as anti-Semitic, no matter how justified the criticism is.
You have to be joking about that and I would laugh except that it's not funny. The BBC has published a tremendous amount of anti-Israel comment on these forums, much of it obviously anti-Semitic.
274. dotconnect,
You can't judge someone intelligence from the few hundred words they are limited to on HYS. You can judge spelling, sentence construction and opinion. That's about it.
Complain about this comment
TrueToo:
"The BBC has published a tremendous amount of anti-Israel comment on these forums, much of it obviously anti-Semitic."
Sorry mate, I was referring more to the BBC's output as well as the HYS posts that are being published, apologies for not being clearer.
In recent years I've noticed the BBC becoming far less balanced in its reporting of the Israeli/Palestinian War to the point that most of the articles they produce on the subject are almost identical to the Israeli's own press releases. I now rarely bother to read what they produce on the subject because it's like reading the "Penguin book of Zionism" (available from all good tinfoil hat retailers :-0 ).
As for the HYS, I've had countless posts removed from debates even though I've quoted information from the UN & other organisations, none of them were offensive and I've got enough Jewish friends to confidently say I'm not anti-Semitic (although I'm admittedly anti-Zionist - I know this is a very broad term but Im sure you know what I mean).
To say "much of it obviously anti-Semitic." frankly ruins your argument, a few anti-Semitic posts do make it onto the boards but they're few & far between. Very little of the criticism of Israel that I've seen on HYS or elsewhere is anti-Semitic, the overwhelming majority of it has nothing to do with their faith and everything to do with their actions and the anti-Semitism argument is just another tired old way of excusing the illegal actions of the Israeli government.
Intellectually the argument is on a par with those who see the Holocaust as justification for Israeli crimes.
Complain about this comment
279, TrueToo
What I deem the poor quality of much of HYS has nothing to do with spelling or sentence construction. You're closer when you say opinion though. I'm talking about poorly-formed arguments and cognitive errors combined with that unique brand of Daily Mail *spite* so often in evidence on HYS. Obvious failures to grasp the statistical reality of an issue, talking about minority groups as if they're one homogenous lump in which each individual should bear responsibility for the actions of a few, opinions that are clearly coming more from the gut than the head, believing what you want to believe (such as the Great HYS Fault/Brown Protection Conspiracy!), unending cynicism and defeatism at anything or anyone in power, and more.
I refuse to accept that "the common man" (as AlanTTT called him) has to be synonymous with these traits - but at the same time, I'm not going to paper over the 80 tonne gorilla in the room which is that these traits appear, regrettably, to be quite "common".
Complain about this comment
279 TrueToo
Fine, having the `recommend' button allows people to express agreement with other posts that otherwise wouldn't get past those moderators that you are so suspicious of, but do you not agree that a button to express disagreement would be equally valuable - allowing people to express opposite views that might not get past those `unreliable' moderators?
Then we would really see how popular those underhand posters would be.
Complain about this comment
280. Secratariat,
I would accept the I'm not anti-Semitic, just anti-Israel argument if people on these forums were not so obsessed with bashing the Jewish state and if they didn't use the knee-jerk Israelis are like Nazis insult to express their loathing for Israel. And I would be less suspicious of them if they also spewed venom at those who really deserve it, like the genocidal regime in Sudan.
If you really believe that the BBC has suddenly become "Zionist," you are accessing a different BBC to the one I'm familiar with. I guess you also missed the fact that the obsessively anti-Israel Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, was last month given the lightest possible rap over the knuckles by the BBC Trust for his anti-Israel reporting. The Trust took a year and a half to consider the complaint against Bowen from the public and come up with its reluctant and feeble response. Bowen, you'll might note, has not been removed from his post and is still cheerfully pumping out his bias and "editing" the bias of the BBC Middle East team.
Nobody is using the Holocaust to justify "Israeli crimes." This only happens in the fevered imagination of the anti-Semite.
281. dotconnect,
Did you access the link I gave at no. 241 to Mark Thompson's blog on the Gaza appeal? If you want an example of a pack mentality from the left, you'll find few better that that one.
You might also like to consider that the strength of the "Daily Mail" reaction on HYS has much to do with the attempts by the social engineers of the UK Labour government and its PR representatives at the BBC to herd everyone into their PC camp and paralyse critical thought.
This social engineering from the left understandably causes a great deal of opposition.
282. captainarmchairhero,
I have just cause to suspect HYS moderators of bias, though they have improved in recent years. I used to complain about HYS comments but then stopped since there was little point in it. One comment had nothing but this:
Israel dog ... UK dog...America dog
I complained about it on the basis that it was abusive and added nothing to the debate. (Back then you could present your own reasons for your complaint unlike the current standard form with a choice of a few alternatives.) My complaint was rejected and the comment remained.
This is one among endless examples of moderator bias. They often appear unable to follow their own House Rules. HYS moderators appear to be young, inexperienced and seriously lacking in education. If they are budding journalists, then we are in serious trouble.
I think an agree/disagree button is a fine idea and a more valid way to judge the response to a comment than the current system.
Complain about this comment
283, TrueToo wrote:
"Did you access the link I gave at no. 241 to Mark Thompson's blog on the Gaza appeal? If you want an example of a pack mentality from the left, you'll find few better that that one."
The post you're quoting me on wasn't related to the simplistic left-right 'battle' you seem thoroughly determined to return to. I was drawing a parallel between a particularly popular brand of ignorance and spite (a combination at which the Daily Mail excels, regardless of its political leaning), and the poor quality of many HYS comments. If you want to bring this back to earlier references to the right-wing, you should keep in mind that the Daily Mail and other tabloids do not represent all right-wing thought (thankfully), though they do represent a hefty chunk of it.
The less intelligent chunk.
Let me re-state:
1) the right-wing are certainly not all ignorant, ill-informed or selfish
2) however the ignorant are, more often than not, drawn to the right-wing
3) great swathes of the country ARE ignorant
As a mainstream messageboard, HYS reflects that. It's evolved into an area dominated by people who prefer to rant and moan than to argue intelligently. There are plenty of people on the right I've conversed with who accept that HYS has reluctantly become the home of mostly poorly-formed opinion and argument - sometimes hilariously so.
When I talk about 'the ignorant' I'm referring to those whose posts demonstrate a noticeable ignorance, some of the aspects of which I raised in a previous post. Before I'm dismissed by the charge of elitism, I should re-emphasize that I don't feel good about acknowledging any of this, however incredible that might seem to you - but I feel even worse about pretending it's not true.
Complain about this comment
284. dotconnect wrote:
The post you're quoting me on wasn't related to the simplistic left-right 'battle' you seem thoroughly determined to return to.
So what? I didn't know there was a rule here that we had to answer point for point in consecutive order. Since you haven't responded at all to my evidence of the pack mentality of the left, I'll take it then that you have no answer to it and no rebuttal.
You say this: However the ignorant are, more often than not, drawn to the right-wing. And you accuse me of being simplistic.
But you are right: the left/right divide is obviously not clear cut and there are many shades of grey. I just find it a little easier to use a general term for the purpose of argument when I'm referring to the left rather than breaking it down into specifics.
I've seen a great deal of well-argued points from the right on HYS - within the 500-word limit, of course.
They used to sometimes extend it to 700 words. Perhaps those days have gone.
Complain about this comment
285, TrueToo:
Re. answering points in consecutive order
- of course there's no such rule. However if someone explicitly references a post - as you did with my #281 - then it's reasonable to think that the subsequent points are intended to be in response to that.
Re. pack mentality
- I'm not arguing for or against that either way.
Re. me being "simplistic" by stating that the ignorant are, more often than not, drawn to the right-wing
- I disagree. I've acknowledged that that's a general observation (notice the phrase "more often than not"). Sure, it would have been simplistic if I was simply arguing that "the ignorant are right wing". And it would be even more simplistic if I claimed "the right wing are ignorant", as someone did earlier. In fact I did neither and intended neither. I simply observe that the least informed and least intelligent in society have for a while been more drawn to the right than the left (if we want to use the most common newspaper analogy, to the Sun and the Mail rather than to the Guardian or Independent - and the qualitative difference between those sets of newspapers should tell you something).
Like you, I've seen some reasonably well-argued points from the right on HYS, but they are overwhelmed by the poorly-argued reactionary bile, of the "I blame the Muslims - send 'em back to where they came from" variety (caricature accepted, but not far off the flavour of views that get permitted, even by the so-called biased moderators)
Complain about this comment
Just to pick up on your final point, it's likely that HYS is not the ideal place for argument, primarily because that relies on picking apart your opponent's post, and responding to their picking apart of yours, and so on, all of which is best served by two things:
1) a proper quoting mechanism
2) a minimal number of participants
Even if HYS added a better quoting mechnanism, I think it would still remain too fast-moving and with too many participants to offer much in the way of a conversation. The most interesting and enlightening debates tend to occur in smaller online communities with far fewer participants. I don't think HYS lends itself to that at all, so it shouldn't try to be anything beyond its current role, which is a kind of venting ground so that people can feel they've got something off their chest.
In that sense, I suppose it's possible HYS may not be the true reflection of public opinion/ignorance that I originally feared.
Btw, on the subject of quoting, a quick test to see if the blockquote tag is working here yet...
Complain about this comment
286. dotconnect,
You "simply observe" more ignorant prejudice from the right and I simply observe it from the left. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
BTW, nobody observed that I was wrong to say that the HYS limit is "500 words." In fact, it's 500 characters, which is about a hundred words. Not much scope there to present a coherent argument.
In that sense, I suppose it's possible HYS may not be the true reflection of public opinion/ignorance that I originally feared.
Aha. It's good when light dawns.
Complain about this comment
To TrueToo
#112: "I'm willing to at least entertain the possibility that I could be
wrong"
Yes, I feel the same way too! :)
1) Do you feel you have credibility as an independent judge of objectivity if you mostly post about the Arab-Israeli conflict regardless of the specific subject of a blog post?
Whenever the subject of a debate is actually related to the Middle East your views and rhetoric are countered with convincing arguments and you then lose interest only to repeat and expand on the subject again on another unrelated thread.
Continuously overstating the case and repeating your world view doesn't make it any more valid. It is natural to try to minimise truths you don't like.
2) For convenience, you seem to like labelling people and generalizing. To quickly gauge your impartial judgement, based on his posts how would you describe the regular poster MarcusAureleusII, politically and in more general terms?
3) How would you rate yourself and how do you think posters would rate you on the political spectrum? (perhaps based on the responses you have received from a random sample of other posters)
4) Do you find that pack behaviour and mental inadequacies mainly apply to people that you disagree with?
Please don't feel obliged to reply. It would be good to expose the inadequacies of the "Have Your Say" system and come up with something better, less open to abuse, more representative etc.
Complain about this comment
There are four HYS topics currently open for debate.
And the comments in the moderation queues:
181
59
409
5
That's around 650 comments shuffling painfully along in that tortoise-paced queue, most of them almost certainly never to see the light of day.
Any thoughts, BBC?
289. marko,
I can't help you with your problem with me or your poor grasp of psychology.
Now perhaps you'd like to make a rare (for you) on-topic comment?
Complain about this comment
TrueToo
"I would accept the I'm not anti-Semitic, just anti-Israel argument if people on these forums were not so obsessed with bashing the Jewish state"
That makes no sense at all mate.
It is the State that is being criticised for its actions, not the people being criticised because of their faith.
If they still existed you'd be able to find many, many posts where I'd criticised the actions of the Israeli government but not one of them would mention their religious beliefs, nor would I criticise all Jews because of the actions of the Israeli's.
The closest most people get to this would be questioning the belief of certain Israeli Jews that God gave them the land they now occupy, that's hardly anti-Semitic, just a logical interpretation of a Biblical text being the word of man rather than the word of God.
I've spent much of the last eight years complaining about the actions of the Bush administration in America, by your logic that would make me anti-Christian but nothing could be further from the truth.
I would say that for me, and most other people I've ever met, the problem with Israel has nothing to do with their faith and everything to do with their actions and the anti-Semite argument is put forward as a catch all response from those who are unable to defend the illegal & immoral actions of the Israeli government.
"And I would be less suspicious of them if they also spewed venom at those who really deserve it, like the genocidal regime in Sudan."
Many of us do but making those comments on a HYS regarding the Middle East would mean they were breaking house rules so would not be published.
Just because we criticise one group for their actions does not mean we're absolving others of responsibility for their actions, I and many others have been equally critical of the actions of the PLO and Hamas but we don't get you accusing us of being anti-Muslim when we do that.
"Nobody is using the Holocaust to justify "Israeli crimes." This only happens in the fevered imagination of the anti-Semite."
No it doesn't, I've lost count of the times I've heard people say we should stop criticising Israel because of how much the Jews suffered during the Holocaust.
I'm not saying it's an argument you've used but there's many an Israeli apologist who uses this argument.
Complain about this comment
It is 6 May since we have had any update.... still no archived record of my 'have your say'...is now 11th..shouldn't there be an updatea nd also why is it not flagged up at the top of the Have your Say homepage?
Complain about this comment
Is it just a coincidence that have your say has crashed during the M.P.'S expenses row? I think not.
Complain about this comment
Will Songs of Praise now appear on Fridays?
This latest appointment is DISGRACEFUL
Complain about this comment
The biggest abuse of the moderation system is not posting all posts in time order as they come in. If there is no good reason to reject a post is should go on straight away not be held back in some odd limbo. It is not like numbers are any excuse for 'sifting' you have some Lists (no debate is possible and is a disingenuous description, for that we need a proper message board system) that have vast numbers of messages. Holding any non rejectable post back and not adding it until it is buried on page 35 or just prior to closing it is bad moderation behaviour and 'looks' like partiality/selection.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
when will somebody at the BBC finally accept that HYS is probably the worst thing on the whole website
'comments about functionality and moderation' sounds so harmless - they are complaints, everybody knows how bad it is and it's been years now - how many more comments will it take until it is properly sorted out?
What's the point having an over-moderated limited space to air your opinion when it won't be published for 12 hours or more, and even then will appear on page 16 and probably won't be seen by anyone - the only purpose of it is to get two messages on the front page, the rest of it is completely redundant
I like the BBC, but HYS is a disgrace to it and I've never heard anything but complaints against it - so why not do something about it?
Complain about this comment
Everyone has an equal right to express their views rave
Complain about this comment
Dear Friend,
It took me 30 minutes for reading huge viewers comments.
I think that,our comments are enough to correct mistakes from that programme.
I think that,BBC should appoint many eminent persons for software latest applications,monietering all world services.
Always ,very difficult to surf BBC services.
Whereas, leading social websites are having best available manpower and with latest softwares.
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS