[An Open Letter]
Dear Nick,
I believe that it is time for Filipino Voices to take an important evolutionary step forward and abandon its policy of allowing anonymous articles to be posted on the website. By “anonymous” I mean “legally and readily unidentifiable” authorship. I think all authors posting on the site ought to be willing to use their real names or be vetted and quoted by some one who is in the rare case when a real need for secrecy or discretion is required. If you think about it, the big gap in “credibility” between certain types of blogs and the MSM is represented by the anonymous authorship of those blogs, whilst blogs by public persons like Manolo Quezon and Dean Jorge Bocobo and yourself have equalled or exceeded the MSM.
Now, I agreed to participate in FV originally because I became convinced that the era of the individual blog had largely passed and that HuffPo and FV represented a step upward in the evolution of the genre. But what I think we have discovered recently is that when you have mixture of serious bloggers willing to lay their names and reputations on the line whenever they post articles, and others who are not restrained by being readily identifiable, then the former are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to the sometimes violent repartee that occurs in the comment threads. Anonymous posters and commenters are not restrained by the usual social stigmas attached to aberrant behavior.
Therefore I think the right step for FV is to make sure that as a collective of bloggers, those bloggers that are privileged to post on the site are all of the first kind, i.e. are legally identifiable for the purposes of the Libel Laws for example. The byline should contain the real names of the authors, not pseudonyms. I think there is much more restraint when you know that it is your reputation and identity attached to everything you say. It can only enhance the reputation of Filipino Voices that a real face and a real name be attached to those voices and the things that are being said, whereas continued anonymity will eventually drag it down to the nadirs we have recently plumbed around here.
Having non-anonymous writers in all posts is also an important legal protection against libel and other forms of legal action or harrassment, since you, as the Blog Owner can publish a policy that what you are publishing are the authors’ own opinions and not necessarily your own. At the moment, the legal opinion expressed by JJ Disini at IBlog5 is that you, and you alone, as the readily identifiable blog owner, are legally liable if you cannot identify the source of some actionable material.
For these reasons, effective immediately I would like to inform you of my voluntary suspension of activity on the FV site, until such time that it becomes no longer a slight on my personal honor to have to share the bandwidth with people who have that unfair advantage over me of being able to assassinate my character and good name from the shadows of anonymity. As you know I can give tit-for-tat and am no wilting daisy when it comes to these engagements, but it just brings out the worst in me and not the best.
I think anyone should still be able to post on the comment threads, but I urge you also to adopt the policy of allowing post authors to moderate their own comments to exclude repetitive or irrelevant, out of topic comments from the pill poppers, coconut racists, shabu heads and other undesirables not really interested in a serious and open discussion. They are like terrorists waiting in ambush.
I realize it may take some time to sort these things out, but as the Blog Owner, it is your call to make, in my opinion, which direction to take the site. I will be building a new group website based on these concepts by bringing in the five or six writers of outstanding reputation I’ve been talking to and was hoping would already be in FV by now but who would only be insulted by some of the present company and not have perhaps the patience that some of us have shown.
At the proper time we can probably re-integrate in what I see as the further evolution of this idea of “Blog Federations” all based on the concept that while it is ideas that matter, we want people to stand by them with their full and real identities and not allow scoundrels to use anonymity to poison the atmosphere for everyone in a Tragedy of the Commons free-for all.
I cannot of course impose my desires on this collective but I hope we can come to a concensus that abandoning the policy of anonymity is really for the good of all.
One discovers the true character of a person in the things he or she is willing to do or say when he or she thinks that no one will know who he or she actually is.
Whither Filipino Voices?
I think for Filipino Voices to expand its membership beyond the handful that are in it now, and to become successful in the long run, it must carefully select the policies and features that evolve the genre towards its true potential as a vehicle of intelligent and insightful
discussions and commentary.
For now, I bid you all farewell and best regards. (Let the personal insults from the Skinheads and Coconut Racists now begin…they will not be answered by me.)
Dean Jorge Bocobo
Popularity: 4% [?]
Dear DJB,
Now, look what you have done! Is this the way of you wanting attention? In less than 8 hours this blog of yours has reaped 49 comments. In another 4 hours angry posts has shoot to the roof at 115.
You must be behind Ako Mismo who made a record setting of 72,000 hits in two weeks! No one is reading my blog anymore!
You have monopolize the attention!
Salud! :)
” think anyone should still be able to post on the comment threads, but I urge you also to adopt the policy of allowing post authors to moderate their own comments to exclude repetitive or irrelevant, out of topic comments from the pill poppers, coconut racists, shabu heads and other undesirables not really interested in a serious and open discussion” — UP n
Heeelllooo! There are only few active readers here than my fingers. If you do that who’d be left?
Cruel war is raging, someone has to fight, from morning till night, it grieves my heart so, I’ll tie back my hair; men’s clothing I’ll put on I’ll pass as your comrade as we march along I’ll pass as your comrade, no one will ever know.
DJB,
I won’t blame you. Yes, you are right. FV cannot enhance your image nor the image of anyone here. It has no mission of taking care of its own customers. It cannot protect you or anyone from defamation and libel. It’s only a site of poor quality, IMHO. Lots of things need to be done. I love it though because it is very PINOY. :) LOL
DJB is working on a different group website.
His words:
People have different reasons for blogging.
Some blog to enhance image. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Some are quite content with their image, they don’t need a blog to enhance their image, nor do they want to enhance their image.
At this stage in their life, they are where they want to be and are very secure of the image they have of themselves.
To impose one’s reason for blogging and make everyone else have the same reason for blogging is ridiculous.
It’s a free world – LET FREEDOM RING!
what exactly do you mean by “very pinoy”? it’s only the law that can protect you from defamation or libel, and no one can initiate it but you.
sorry, that was for leytenean.
The next worst phenomenon has just about come.
We had Connie V and a magnet for 207 comments – but nil a word of reply. What has that reduced commenters and bloggers into – pseduo-intellectual masturbators? High-brow entertainers?
It is like Simone, damn it.
DJB attracts 118 comments.
Surely magnetism does either of two things – same poles attract each, unlike poles repel each other.
Which then was at work in either Connie V or DJB? At least for the latter, we know he never has to get back at FV any second longer unless THERE BE A SEA CHANGE.
it’s a tricks and doggie thingie homey
If DJB is no happy anymore with FV what can we do. He wants to maake his own rules then his decision is a right one. Build another site where the can impose all the rules. Good luck na lang.
but am sure rego, you will be dropping by in his soon-to-rise blog. and as always, you will sidle rave review of commenters you fancy most. but where’s your take on issues other than personal adulations you are wont to make of virtual personalities?
who is kuya m
DJB;s open letter reminded me of a another farewell
“I leave you gentleman now and you will write it. You will interpret it. That’s your right. But as I leave you I want you to know — just think how much you’re going to be missing. You won’t have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference and it will be one in which I have welcomed the opportunity to test wits with you.” – Press conference after losing the election for Governor of California, (7 November 1962); “Transcript of Nixon’s News Conference on His Defeat by Brown in Race for Governor of California”, New York Times (8 November 1962), p. 18.
you’ll find him in Starbucks :lol:
yeah, maybe djb will come back as censor-in-chief of FV.
censor-not-chief of FV.
if anything, i agree with djb regarding how this blog has turned out to be: a ufc-like slugfest imported from philippinebeat and other forums of such nature. kudos to viruses who managed to sneak in.
it is not so much that djb wants to moderate comments but to define exactly what this blog wants to achieve. is this the kind of filipino voices we want to hear? now who was it who was talking about product and branding, and brought in his own brand of crass?
how different is fv branding now from where these cretins used to congregate?
that, to my mind, is exactly the problem with most pinoys. they only want to listen to “voices” they want to hear. result: a one-dimensional view of everything – a wowowee or eat bulaga kind of thinking. no wonder they vote for the likes of erap, lapid, fpj, cory, jamby, and a lot of other hollow-brained congressmen and senator whose only claim to fame is the ability to whip up crap and sling it to their opponents.
bencard, i do not mean the regulation of topics, but the polluting level of noises created by trolls and their kind. surely, when you know that they can make or raise valid points, why allow these trolls to promote their air of intellectual stupidity? they make better market vendors, where indeed free enterprise abound, sold at screeching decibels.
you’ve been listened to hear. so it’s not a case of what voices fv wants to hear. it’s a case of sifting the class from the crass.
you don’t have a monopoly of the definition of the class. PERIOD.
you don’t have a monopoly of the definition of the word class. PERIOD.
nor do you have a monopoly of what makes a troll – you could be another person’s troll.
and you might think you are a classy act – sure thing toilet bowl is so classy – when you might very well be a tramp.
do i hear the troll reacting? since when is plagiarizing ever considered an act of class?
tramp? nah, that’s should be what people in a barge suspect him to be.
making a generalization based on faulty sampling makes your conclusion FLAWED. :lol:
@bong
what do you mean, monopoly of definition of troll?
don’t we all agree what a troll is? isn’t there a slang dictionary definition? do you not agree with it?
Gabbyd:
definition of “class” , to which i replied yeah – a toilet bowl nickname is so classy :)
as to “troll” – yes, we know what trolling is, but it boils down to who is trolling who
bongP,
the surfeit of plagiarized items you posted in many a comment threads vis-a-vis only three blog entries you made so far (pf which, they read like regurgitations anyway of benigs rants) is more than enough for me to conclude your plagiarising proclivities, at p<.000000001.
you don’t know the history of my handle. so just swim in there.
read my leps: i did not claim monopoly of its definition, in the same manner as you plagiarized the highly technical definition of “rebuttal” VERBATEEEMMMM from wiki, and claimed it to be common, including an OPINION of an example to the definition. and still call it common? heller? monopoly ka dja. take a swim in the coast of mati, where serenas abound. or so i heard.
the surfeit of plagiarized items you posted in many a comment threads vis-a-vis only three blog entries you made so far (pf which, they read like regurgitations anyway of benigs rants) is more than enough for me to conclude your plagiarising proclivities, at p<.000000001.
you don’t know the history of my handle. so just swim in there.
your sampling is FLAWED.
ERGO, your conclusion is FLAWED.
you have not counted the comments made in other blogs, nor have you compared the number of sentence per blog – and compare it to the number of sentences per comment.
your sampling method does not account for the total number of sentences in the blogs + comments made in blogs not pertaining to discussions on the existence of a deity –
which shows how disastrously flawed your sampling methods are, and how seriously flawed your conclusions are – PALPAK! :lol:
not to mention your PLAGIARIZED questions :lol:
oh, is plagiarism a matter of outweighing–like ‘your majority rules’? crass act you have there. but see, i applaud your disintellectual bravado: you still cannot wriggle out of the mess you made. you have in fact plagiarized, barring other entries from other blogs or not.
you come to FV on a topic about plagiarism based on a FLAWED SAMPLING METHOD, leading to a FLAWED conclusion.
if that’s the only topic you can post about – my my my, the queen of red herrings has a new title – queen of trolls :lol:
Well maybe, DJB wants serious, quiet intellectual discourse as in the classroom or library.
But when one enters a public place like Filipino Voices’ agora or piazza, one must be prepared to face the hecklers, ranters, beggars, paupers, addicts, the untouchables, and the great unwashed. Hoi polloi, so to speak
Not to mention that FV becomes the Roman colosseum when the gladiators inidoro ni emilie and bongV face off and go for the jugular. :)
oh phil, i really don’t mind the banters. it’s intellectual vacuousness i do not buy.
but then again, phil, wouldn’t it be great to find just that: an intellectual discourse. where we can correct those who still thinks that the limit of infinity over infinity is still infinity? or that the abstract concept of mathematical infinity is as real as in a highly material-conditioned universe? wouldn’t you want those things clarified by our resident cosmologist who has wandered off instead to another dimension in the cyberspace.
Hhhmmm, probably.
But still, if a topic interests me greatly, I’d rather do my own research than believe the Googlers and Wikimen. Wink wink. :)
the long and short of it is this:
1 – you are trying to assert as truth, that which you are trying to prove.
2 – I have no evidence for kapre, but I can’t prove there aren’t any kapres, so I should be agnostic about kapres?
ah, phil. you are indeed no cut and paste researcher. may the tribe increase.
*psst, you there, wag ka nang humirit.*
cut-and-paste is not for people who have all the time in the world to comment and split hairs – if you have all the time, go google it, wiki it,read up on it, etc.
for other readers whose time is at a premium and who would like the skinny – a quick cursory reading delivers the gist without having to google.
don’t assume FV was written for miss toilet bowl.
Phil, you’re right! Am just bewildered by this sudden turn of event. I thought DJB was enjoying all those wild ‘reparteeing’, he’s always been having the upperhand in all the skirmishes, and now this? Which makes me so sad, because, even in a marketplace such as you said here in FV, or at other sites of intellectual discources that I’ve seen, his wisdom always shines through.
Also want to note here that, while ‘classroom or library’ is a nice place for quiet intellectual discourse, this present FV format is just as nice to have intellectual discourses (the wise writers and commenters here been doing that for quite awhile already, and me enjoying them all as a kibitzer)…rowdy, wild, and often hilarious.
Well, not as quiet as a library!
But who wants to stay in a library, or a classromm, if you “just wanna have fun” as Cindy Lauper would say?
“but he’s always been having the upperhand in all skirmishes”
now that’s one of the most partisan statements i have seen in this blog. you see what your biased mind want to see.
Hehehe. I meant almost always. My Manoy Bencard can and did stand up to DJB and, if one has to determine who had indeed the upperhand in their numerous tussles in the past one can only scratch his head.
To be fair to DJB, this place had a different vibe to it in the early days. ‘Intellectual’ discourse? It had it in spades. DJB prolly misses those days when those he debated against stimulated him instead of merely annoying him. But calling for each FV contributor to out himself or herself won’t accomplish anything. It’s all about the post and not the person who wrote it. If it makes him feel any better, maybe contributors should make themselves known to Nick who Im sure will protect their anonymity if that’s what they want.
I just want to point out the curious use of the word ‘evolve’. If DJB wants evolution in FV, then he should let things be and may the best ‘meme’ survive.
Boxing is still good.
But, the younger crowd prefers – MMA!
Walang kiyeme! Hataw agad!
DJB is enjoying to have the best in him by now until again, the cretins, the gremlins, the racists, the errants, the skinheads will invade his blog or shoot from the periphery.
Either way it goes, DJB is under siege. The blogosphere looks like a trap – there is no way out.
Who knows that what DJB thinks to be the worst in him actually reflects the best in us.
I am curious how “the crowd” will respond to DJB’s to-be-released new blog site which allows the blogthread author/initiator to edit or remove “uncouth or offensive comments”. The to-be-released site allows the blogthread author/initiator to sanitize his blogthread;
-remove the “Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha! You are a joke!”, retain the “Ha!Ha!Ha! You have such a great sense of humor!”;
-remove the “Oh, come on, padre damaso, you are wrong and you know it!”, retain the “your insights are commendable!” comments;
– remove or retain “..GMA, talsik diyan!” or “…’tang inang VFA!” if the language is not welcomed by the thread-author
with djb, decency and civility in language go out of the window when it comes to gma, fg or the sc (esp. davide). talk about hypocrisy.
To have closure on the departure of DJB from Filipino Voices, allow me my dear commoners, plebeians, and proletariats to play David Soul’s song of farewell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY8APrYU2Gs
Yes, Phil – we are not DJB’s baby. How can he give up on us?
Maybe the other way around – “Don’t give up on DJB” – “just one more try…”
Two things came crystal clear as blocks of historical reality, maybe part of an emerging intellectual culture even.
Let me state it this way: a guest blog is equally if not far more dangerous than a farewell blog.
This is shocking. An excellent blogger, leaving FV. Well, hope you the best DJB sir.
I figured DJB was you. I’m just happy to comment, whether the blogger accepts my post or not, that’s up to the blogger. I don’t mind contributing a post here and there, no problem with giving my identity to the blog administrator. But I prefer to remain anonymous to trolls. However, since you and I are related in some sort of way (your Dad and my Mom), two great minds would be too much for FV. ha ha ha!