After my post last night on the enigma that is Labourist (the fan site / attack site / alternative model demo of Derek Draper’s LabourList), I got a nice and very full comment (at least purporting to come) from the person/people behind the site, taking issue with my cynicism and offering counterpoints to a lot of what I’d said. I started writing a reply but it go so long, I thought I’d stick it here instead…
Thanks for the considered reply. You’ll forgive me for remaining sceptical of your honest intentions for a while yet though. As you won’t tell me who you are, I have to go on what I can surmise from limited evidence – which doesn’t yet give me cause to believe you. There are six main stumbling blocks for me:
- We don’t know who you are (Okay, I mentioned this already). Now, I can well understand that some people may have a reason for wanting to hide this that’s fine and genuine and not at all partisan – You might work in an area where getting involved with politics could get you in trouble for example. Hell, maybe you even live in Zimbabwe rather than Canada. You can’t fail to see the irony though in lecturing on openness from the shadows.
- You’re taking the piss. ‘Dolly Draper’ on the Whois? Not only are you hiding but you’re having a laugh doing it. You don’t want to engage to improve Derek’s project and are setting out from the outset to put his back up. You then make silly little digs (“Enter your email address for the latest Government spin!” – No, it’s proper Labour spin – Some of the contributors have day jobs with HMG at least until the next election, but they’re writing from a party perspective and unless you have evidence to the contrary, I’d guess on their own time) that would alienate Labour supporters from your site, giving the supposed “real discussion” you want to demonstrate a slant it doesn’t have.
- You’re taking exception to the line that LabourList is a site for “Labour Minded People”, when it should instead be more open, and then saying you’re definitely not one of that group anyway. So you’re thereby telling us that you know better what we want than we do? Seems to be pretty much the kind of accusation you’re levelling at Derek and Peter. And no, I don’t really find Derek moderating Peter’s posts particularly sinister, any more than the other moderated posts on the site.
- You didn’t give LabourList a chance to get started. A month before a launch product that may well change (personally I hope it does in some ways, it’s far from perfect – and yes, pre-mod stinks, and supremebeings willing he’ll switch it off again once some of the trolling subsides – as he suggests he may). If you want to be helpful, give pointers and see what they do on launch before deciding that’s the way the project is cast in stone. It’s easy to believe that a speedy initiative like this looks more like an attack.
- You’re in favour of increasing debate, but seem to want to own it all for yourselves, as you aren’t acknowledging some may want to comment on the original site, and that (even if they are, shudder, “Labour Minded People”) their views count too. The onus on you is to provide a link to the original on each of your pages, so people can follow the whole discussion that you’re so keen on, not just the side spun by you and your mates. As it is you don’t even link to the LabourList site at all – though you said you’re drawing attention to LL and doing them a favour.
- You’re planning to advertise on the back of other people’s content, which they originally provided in support of a different site. Unless this is just a dig at Derek’s plans to finance LL. Principled stands look better without a business case.
But even if you are genuine about this, I don’t see how it’s relevant to me. I support Derek’s attempts at building a decent Labour-based group blog, and to the degree I have stuff to comment will do so there (joining the interminable queue for pre-mod). LL will do a bit to help fill some of the big gaps in the current Labour blogosphere and if it works (which is a very big if – Derek has a very tricky task here) I reckon will be a good thing. Until then, whilst I do appreciate you taking the time to try to persuade even a z-list slackblogger like me, my instinct is to give a guy from our own team a second (third?) chance rather than a group that I don’t know and that I don’t think has LL’s best interests at heart.
Somewhat strangely, the WHOIS listing for Labourist’s domain owners gives an address which turns out to be that of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.
Dear John,
Thanks God for your posts. Reasonable (if a bit critical) but basically well-balanced and positive! Thanks for joining the debate, and if you post a comment on LL I’ll set you up for postmoderating, soemthing we doifor everybody who makes a good contribution to the conversation there.
Best,
Derek
Thanks Derek. Give anyone and blog and they’re an expert, but I think a lot of the suggestions you’ve had, right across from Tim Ireland to whoever’s behind Labourist have had valid points in them that it’d be good to look at for later iterations. The nice thing about blogging is that you can tweak as you go, and improve as you see good ideas to half-inch.
Ultimately though I’m not so concerned about your site design or your troll-culling moderation policies, it’s just that it’s good you’re doing this – filling a gap in the activist blogosphere on the Labour side of politics – and I wish you lots of luck with it.
Yes – have commented on LL already thanks and been pretty speedily approved. Will be following your feed and looking forward to seeing more of what your team get up to.
Cheers, John
John
I’ll keep this quick as I suspect it is only you and I that are interested in this. Your points in the order you raised them:
1. I don’t see the irony I am afraid. We don’t want web nutters going through our bins (which is practically inevitable) and we don’t want to make this about personality. Take DD as an example – he is divisive and controversial. His involvement with LL is asset and liability in equal parts (on a good day). Being as kind as I can, that’s not *always* his fault. Just the way it goes. We don’t want any part of that. And we don’t have Schillings in our corner.
2. Yes we are taking the piss. We tried commenting on LL and our very reasonable but dissenting comments were deleted – not flagged – deleted. So DD is soliciting blog posts from our elected representatives, taking advantage of a level of access that very few others share and then stands in the way of allowing those blog posts to be discussed. That’s not blogging, not discussion and not a conversation by any reasonable definition. Taking the piss was the only available option.
3. Fair enough.
4. How hard can it be? We have built a site in a little over 24 hours that cost virtually nothing and has seen over 10,000 visits in 3 days. We have 4 times as many Twitter followers than the ‘real’ site (I know, hardly a measure of success) and has been widely applauded by bloggers from both ends of the political spectrum. The only thing LL has that we don’t is a bunch of willing contributors. But wait, I guess we have that too thanks to copy and paste. LL doesn’t need a ‘chance to get started’, it needs the right people, the right attitude and the right technology. Currently 0/3.
5. Kind of see your point. I think I have an emotional reaction to the phrase ‘Labour minded’. It’s just so tribal and partisan. Tony Blair would never have signed up for that 🙂 We don’t want to own the debate at all. In fact, currently owning our little piece of it is a depressing responsibility. We just want to ensure that the people that do own the debate (or the debating platform) are playing it with a straight bat.
6. I can see why that would look bad and I agree with you. But you don’t know what we are going to advertise…
On your final point about relevance…it’s relevant to you because in the absence of a miracle, Labour is likely to spend the next 8-12 years in opposition. If you want to a part in preventing that, I suggest you get all of your mates knocking on some doors because on current form, Derek’s venture in the ‘blogosphere’ isn’t going to save you.
I know I lied about being quick – sorry.
One final note; you described yourself as a z-list blogger. Totally unfair. Derek should have you blogging for him not moderating (there he goes – missing the point again). Should you fancy blogging over at Labourist, you would be more than welcome.
Cheers.
Thanks again for that. Heh heh, it’s often slower to write something quick – “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter” (TS Elliot).
I’d challenge though on your perception of relevance and mine. I see LL as a potentially great tool for the Labour blogosphere. One more nerdy politics blog is never going to mainstream into a wider change, but what it can do is join and boost the other volunteer-run/official party efforts to network Labour supporters and encourage them to become better digital activists – bloggers, social networkers, remixers (like you), digital creatives. We’ll need people to be trained up and net savvy come the election, or the Tory digital activists will pwn us at every turn.
That’s not to say what you’re describing doesn’t need to happen too. I just think it’s a big extra expectation you’re dumping on Derek that we wouldn’t think to do, say, to an activist effort like Conservative Home.
I’m also easier on moderators than most people as I moderate a bunch of communities myself, and know what it’s like to occasionally c*ck up a decision that snowballs – especially when a project is starting. I like to think I do okay on balance, and tend to view myself in other mods’ shoes – especially those shoes that wade through far more than I ever have to deal with in my largely polite little corners of cyberspace.
PS – I don’t think that’s what Derek means on his post-mod comment – More that once you make an approved post on a login, you get past moderation for your future posts – something that happens fairly inobtrusively on a number of other blogs I use.
Having read the comments here now I understand why you, John, thought for some reason that I was behind Labourist. For the record, there are about a million people in Calgary, with a good percentage of Brits living here too (actually, their number is growing steadily, as we keep hiring police officers, bus drivers, etc. from Britain).
But I don’t belong to the Calgary Chamber, nor do I set up anonymous websites. My views and opinions are oftentimes harsh and not quite popular with a lot of people (because I call a spade a spade, that’s why), but I never hide behind a username or some other phoney name. When I place my thoughts on the internet, I always do so openly and in my own name (I absolutely internet anonymity; I think anonymous bloggers and commenters are either cowards or sickos, or both).
Plus, my own Web Column keeps me busy (as does my regular work), so I really don’t have the time to start up an anonymous website in the UK and get into all manner of aggravation in a country that’s thousands of miles from where I am.
I took a gander at Labourist, and frankly, at first blush, it looks like a fairly decent site. I like the fact that they follow Barack Obama’s example of “post-partisanship”. That’s a good sign, because after several years in the internet racket of thought-sharing if there’s one thing I know it’s that blind partisanship and ideology are the sources of all evil.
Greetings from Calgary
Werner (who still thinks that Canada should return to the good old days of “British North America”).
D’oh! Thanks for that, Werner – looking at it put me in mind of your writing and interests. Shame, as had it been you I think I could have understood better why they were doing it. Everybody’s cloaked in some layer of identity ambiguity on the web, but I’m maybe a bit too cynical in not taking some things at face value until I know more about them – As they make such a big point of not saying who they are, and voicing hostility to the project they’re remixing (a kind of blogging short-selling?) this is certainly one of those that makes me pause. I think we’re going to see a lot more of this kind of thing, probably on all sides of politics – some honest anonymous, some anonymous because they’re opportunist tricks.
So much for my ‘tec skills though – shall stick to day job. Best wishes, John