Message to the beetles who are trying to infest this website
1. I run this website as a safe house for those who need refuge from the beetle-infested comments-boards of the mainstream media, and Facebook walls in general.
2. If you try to replicate here the subliterate, nonsensical, humourless, inane comments you make on your Facebook walls, on timesofmalta.com and on maltatoday.com.mt, you will find the door closed in your face. This bar has a door policy. This is not because I don’t agree with your political sentiments or because I can’t take criticism, as even the most cursory look through the comments-board here will show you, but because I have noticed that wherever a beetle-infestation occurs, all others move out. It’s like with bars and restaurants: when the ‘bridge and tunnel’ people move in, everyone else moves out.
3. Please remember that I have been in this business for a long time and that it is very difficult to outwit me by pretending to be somebody else. But if you must have a go, then try for some more realistic guises. A first-time voter who writes English like a member of Forum Zghazagh Laburisti and expresses roughly the same sentiments is not going to be called Ursula von Stern.
4. This is not Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s Facebook wall. The audience is different, and you might have noticed that the comments are differently written, too. This is not because I am locking out the beetles, but because the beetles never come here except when people like Jeffrey and other tools of the Labour Party or the Labour women in their lives post links on their Facebook walls and incite an infestation. Please bear in mind that comments must be directly related to the post above them, and that reading the post and understanding it is a requirement before commenting about it. A comments-board is not somewhere to dump random thoughts and insults. It is not a Facebook wall.
5. This is a bilingual website. Though almost all my posts are in English, because the readership is international, I sometimes use Maltese sentences, phrases and expressions where necessary for effective communication of certain scenarios. Comments are accepted in both English and Maltese. The requirements are the use of capital letters in their proper place (at the start of sentences, for names and other proper nouns, and so on), correct punctuation and full sentences unless it’s a throwaway remark. I operate a strict ban on a. lines of dots, b. multiple interrogation marks, c. exclamation marks in general, especially when multiple, d. smileys. If you see any of these, it’s because I was under pressure and they slipped through. Or because I allowed them through deliberately for whatever reason.
6. Whatever the Labour Party and people like Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando tell you, I am not a witch who performs magic spells and spreads poison against the Labour Party. I am somebody who puts forward sensible and factual arguments about why the Labour Party is not fit for purpose. There will be the occasional (quite frequent at times like these) joke and mockery, which because of cultural differences can be misinterpreted by people like yourselves, who have a very different form of humour which, equally, I find alien. I do not laugh at the funny shows on Maltese television or at any wisecracks about bowel movements. I am genuinely mystified.
6. And last but not least, if you don’t have a point, then don’t try to make one.
7. All comments that are not in line with the rules – rules which all decent websites should have but not in Malta, apparently – will be deleted. I have to protect my regular readers who come here to get away from that sort of thing, though occasionally I might upload a few to show people what’s going on behind the scenes, and how horrible and full of hdura, lanzit, envy and a desire for revenge some Labour supporters really are. You give decent Labour supporters a very bad name.
42 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
http://complaints.com.mt/maltese-government/franco-debono/#more-225
Sorry I meant to post the above link under one of the posts about FD.
Talking of people inciting an infestation, Mr.Charisma himself was at it last night – Wenzu Mintoff. You’re not in his good books, Deffni.
[Daphne – Yes, I heard him. Miskin.How terrible it must be to have been born devoid of a sense of humour, and so ugly with it. Perhaps the two are related, though not in Woody Allen’s case.]
Daphne, you should convert this post to an on-line guide and have it available on your site permanently.
Well your website is a breath of fresh air, and the reason for this is much deeper than the rules above.
I hope that timesofmalta.com will consider a similar move.
Yesterday I was reading the article related to the Costa Concordia case and I saw a comment: “the sinking ship of GonziPn”.
I was totally disgusted as the story was about people still missing, people who died and people who were traumatized by this tragedy.
I usually do not bother to read the comments section, but some things cannot always escape one’s line of vision.
Timesofmalta.com should at least have a function to hide the comments.
timesofmalta.com should allow a function similar to Youtube where you can flag stupid and nonsensical comments and then finally report it as violation.
I’m fed up of hearing stupid people using certain comments: It-tort ta’ Gonzi. It-tort tal-GonziPN.
You are not allowed to say, when a ship goes down: Imsieken dawk li ma salvawx. Because then an idiot would answer back: It-tort ta’ Gonzi.
Sybil: What’s the matter, Basil?
Basil Fawlty: Nothing dear. I’m just dealing with it.
Manuel: He speak good… how you say?
Sibyl: English.
I would also like to add that decent Labour supporters are quite irked that elvish is still the preferred tactic even though it has long backfired.
They lament how it’s substituted the party’s manifesto in the absence of any proposal.
Vera ġejja l-aħħar tad-dinja mela – il-brimb qed jattakkaw il-Daphne!
[Daphne – Dawk beetles mhux spiders.]
Ħanfus, Sur Borg. Ixtri dizzjunarju.
Bir-ritratti ħalli ma titfixkilx.
Have you considered readers of yours who are not writers (like yourself) and do not ever intend on being writers?
Personally, I’m a scientist. Part of my work is in fact to write papers but that type or writing is very different to yours in that it has to have a very particular tone, formalism and logical accuracy in every sentence. I also have to make sure that every sentence has to be optimal in length to communicate as much information as possible in a very short space. The difference between your writing is that you simply write what you think as you think it while for my job, writing has to go through several iterations (this does not only apply to me).
What I’m getting at is that I come on here to empty my brain through reading what you write (I enjoy that) and if I ever do comment (under a false name, of course), I do not intend on ever writing a proper paragraph. It is what I find to be the fun of reading/skimming through your blog and joining in the conversation. I find comments on the writing of commentators to be very empty, we’re not the writers.
[Daphne – A scientist, are you? Indeed. If you really were a scientist, you would have understood that this is not about writing style, but about basic standards and content, and subliteracy. I do not accept subliterate comments ( ‘isa hej tejt int fuq Franko’) for the simple reason that the person in question couldn’t possibly have read or understood the post and so isn’t commenting on it but merely popping in here to spray insults. Scientists, more than anybody else, understand the importance of precision.]
Well, I did say I read/skim through your blog – “It is what I find to be the fun of reading/skimming through your blog”. Admittedly, I skimmed through this article because I’m not interested in your rules of how I should be commenting. I comment as I wish then it’s up to you whether to accept the comment or not. All readers know that your comments are filtered to your liking.
And whether I’m a scientist or not doesn’t have anything to do with how well I understand what you intend to communicate through this blog post. My comment was about you and/or other commentators commenting about commentators’ English, not only about this blog post. And again, I’m not here writing science or commenting scientifically and I have no need or intention to prove to you that I am a scientist, it’s very cute that you try to provoke me to prove it to you though.
[Daphne – I’m not trying to provoke you into proving you’re a scientist, Gerald. It’s just that the Beetle Brigade tend to forget that this is my professional line of work (communications, writing and so on) and that I can read writing nuances like blind people read Braille. What I seek to provoke, in people like you, is a response and then further responses, because more is revealed and the false image cannot be maintained. The person who starts out as a scientist/Sliema housewife/businessman/whatever boils down, three or four responses later, to an FZL elf, beetle or the equivalent. I think of it as sport. ]
Daphne has a point. I would do the same.
(from another scientist)
thinker, I do find that when my comments get rejected for some odd reason or other, my esteem of Daphne’s credibility decreases. I read blog posts by first reading the post then seeing what people have to say about it. Most of the time, my interest is in what people say about the issue being discussed in the post. Knowing that Daphne filters comments means that my perception of what people think about the issue is fabricated by how Daphne accepts/reject comments to her liking.
[Daphne – Again, you can’t possibly be a scientist because you have not understood the simple arguments outlined in the post above. It is LACK OF FILTERING which skews the responses to a story or blog-post, because when the people who can’t think or write move in, the people who can think and write move out. So the reader is left with a very skewed picture: 1. that all Maltese are semi-literate and partially educated; 2. that all readers who have an opinion on what they have read are irrational; 3. that the entire country is against gOnZipN and wants Joseph to become prime minister ghax it-tern tieghu, sorry, tiju. Comments do not have to agree with my opinion, but they do have to be properly put. Deleting subliterate comments and insults does not skew any ability to guage the readership: people who are subliterate by definition do not read this blog. They come in here only when they find a link on one of their Facebook walls and react, without knowing what the subject is about, by shouting insults.]
While I agree that abusive or spam comments should be filtered, I think that rejecting other comments (no matter how little sense they make to anyone) should be done sparingly.
[Daphne – You are quite wrong and you also forget that this is my line of work and what I am specialised in. Nonsensical comments have exactly the same effect as obnoxious people in a bar or restaurant. Once they make it their space, all others leave. This happened most tragically with timesofmalta.com’s comments board, which started out with properly written and well argued comments from the sort of people who might, in another life, have written letters to the editor. Then the Labour Facebook crowd moved in, having decided that the internet is ‘their space’, and took over. Now nobody else bothers, there is no real debate and it is impossible to work out what people really think.]
If Daphne thinks that some comment is superfluous, it doesn’t mean that it’s superfluous to me. At the very least, I can mark up my mental tally of the population of “FZL elf, beetle or the equivalent” in Malta and realize the importance of voting sensibly in the next election because there are that many of them around.
[Daphne – I don’t think you understand some very basic principles of media and communications. The internet is not one huge amorphous space in which you and others can float around dropping comments which then miraculously appear and stay there. Sites with a distinct identity – like this one, newspaper sites and so on – are no different to the print equivalent in that they have to manage their quality standards, image and identity. Comments are part of that in the same way that letters to the editor are. Letters to the editor are chosen, selected, discarded and even edited. Comments also reflect on the assessment of a site’s readership. When I (and others in the profession) read the comments boards of certain sites, our reaction is that no wonder the content is of such a low standard if these are the readers (and vice versa, if they are thinking in terms of giving readers what they want). The brighter reader is inclined to be sceptical of stories and reports written for a readership that appears mainly to be made up of people whose views are markedly different to his own. He will read them, but he won’t believe them – or he will go to other sources for additional information and context.]
Gerald, this is Daphne’s blog.
I fully agree that she has set certain standards on which comments should be posted on her blog since the majority out there cannot even formulate a sentence (unfortunately).
If I had my own blog, believe me, I would certainly do the same.
They don’t do this on, for example, timesofmalta.com and it is precisely why I have long given up on checking their comments section.
Daphne till now has always published my posts, so it must be that you are writing something that is not quite correct or up to standard.
The best solution for you (and for your blood pressure) is to stop checking out this blog, and just comment on other websites.
It’s amusing to me that I seem to have hit a nerve.
Your thinking is fascinating…
[Daphne – You have not hit a nerve. I answer most people who require answers, and I do so as carefully as possible. There is a great deal of ineptitude in Malta where the media are concerned, possibly because we were so late to the party, thanks to oppression and suppression over many years. The way in which Facebook is used by Maltese people, for example, is quite unique: like an old-fashioned party-(telephone) line, but totally oblivious to the fact that thousands of people can eavesdrop on the conversation. It’s a little bit pathetic and a little bit absurd, and I really think some communications/sociology/anthropology student should pick the subject for a thesis or research paper.]
1. I never thought of commenting on a blog post as the equivalent of writing a letter to the editor in a newspaper although I can see how that’s very obvious to you.
[Daphne – This is more of the ineptitude I mentioned. Comments should be written in response to the blog-post or news article, or in direct response to other comments. Comments-boards are not a convenient facility for all and sundry to display their emotions or insult people randomly.]
2. No matter how much sense your logic about this makes, it still doesn’t change people’s perception of your blog when a comment gets rejected. You’re a media guru, I am not. But how I perceive your actions with my lack of media knowledge should be important to you. The fact that your credibility to me decreases (media knowledge or not) *should* matter.
[Daphne – It is your perception that is wrong, Gerald, and not my methods, which are standard best practice. A blog or news site is the property of its owners. Just as a restaurant can and will ask you to leave the premises if you go in to scream insults or spill mess around, so it works with internet sites. There are also third-party responsibilities: you can’t come in here and drag a third party into your comments. Some sites allow it, but I don’t. The anonymity of the internet should not divest you of the codes of behaviour to which you normally adhere.]
If we apply the same reasoning to the medical profession, this would be the same as me saying that doctors should attempt to think about how lay people think and explain things to patients in terms which they understand.
It is the thinking like a lay person that is the focus here. The skill is in the understanding of how your readers read this site and how your actions come across. This I would think would be good communications skills, but me commenting about communications is like you commenting about science.
[Daphne – That is exactly why I am taking the trouble to reply to you, Gerald: to make clear to you facts and concepts which have thus far been alien.]
A recommendation which I do not expect you to follow, but here goes:
In my mind, comments here are not equivalent to letters to the editor. A different posting functionality such as “Email Daphne” and comments actually shown under a “Letters to the Editor” heading (which is not difficult to edit on your site) would, in my mind make blogs more similar to a newspaper-type philosophy rather than common internet blog comments – Which seems to be what you’re going for. On the other hand, I might be the one off reader who does not think of writing a blog comment in the same way I think of writing a letter to the editor. A better way forward is actually getting an understanding what mainstream blog readers perceive comments to be then finding a mechanism to extract out of readers what you want. It might be a change of headings or it might be something completely different.
[Daphne – This, too, shows your lack of understanding. timesofmalta.com, for instance, does not have a ‘letters to the editor’ facility because ‘letters to the editor’ are fundamentally different to comments. It has a ‘letters to the editor’ facility because it has a printed newspaper. The ‘letters to the editor’ on timesofmalta.com are reproductions of the ones in print. Any ‘letter to the editor’ which does not appear in the print version does not appear on line, even though the online space is unlimited.]
In essence… Your readers are not media gurus and you should not expect us to be. While you’re right about reasoning that way, our difference in knowledge of the media translates in a decrease of your credibility from my end – And that is something you should think about and not simply dismiss because your profession is in communications. Sorting out something as the headings on this page is one step forward towards ironing this out.
[Daphne – One does not have to be a ‘media guru’ to understand the basic principles of behaviour on the internet, just as one does not have to be a car mechanic in order to drive a car. As I said earlier, Maltese people were very late to the internet party and then it hit at once. The result is that even people who can barely read have an internet connection and want to participate. This has positive aspects, but it also has very negative ones.]
thinker, I’m actually procrastinating on writing a paper due on the 23rd. I want to read Daphne’s blog (sometimes) because it entertains me and gives me something to procrastinate on. My blood pressure is fine, actually it’s mostly on the low end. :)
Of course it’s Daphne’s blog and she sure should do whatever she wishes to do with it, no doubt. But given that she cares about whether or not people read her blog and perceive it in the way she intends for it to be perceived, I would think that she cares about how her actions come across to readers who are clueless about communications, like myself.
I’m clueless about Daphne’s responsibilities as a blogger and I’m absolutely not interested in finding out what they are. It’s not my area and I don’t have the motivation to find out. How she deals with her responsibilities on the other hand, may effect my perception of this blog and that is probably what she would want to know about, I’d think. It’s not a matter of being right or wrong, it’s a matter of knowing your audience.
[Daphne – My responsibilities as a blogger, Gerald, are absolutely no different to my responsibilities as a newspaper columnist, and I’ve had more than two decades of experience with that. I do, however, have an additional responsibility which I don’t have as a columnist. The comments come through to me and not to my newspaper editor, so I have to deal with them.]
Oh and another thing Daphne…
You mentioned that people who made “quality” comments on timesofmalta.com stopped doing it and you have a hypothesis as to why. (They were shooed away by the obnoxious commentators)
Personally, I was one who used to comment sensibly on issues I had formed thoughts about but stopped doing it because I found that my comments were being edited or not posted. I simply thought why would I bother writing sensible profound comments if they’re not going to be posted as I want them to be posted anyway? What irritated me most was that my comments were edited and posted under my name without my approval.
So there’s another hypothesis for you as to why sensible commentators moved away from the timesofmalta.com site.
[Daphne – Profound? Internet comments-boards are not the medium for profundity, even if you were capable of it.]
Scientist, my arse. What branch of science do you study? You’re an undergraduate at most.
wow…I don’t think this was a productive day for your manuscript, Gerald. If it’s due on the 23rd, perhaps you should start focusing again on writing your study.
Good luck with it.
H.P. Baxxter,
Believe what you want to believe, I don’t mind really. I’m a farmer? Sure, let’s go with that. I’m not going to write comments under my real name so forget trying to provoke me to prove to you what I do for a living.
Zeza Ta Bubaqra aka Gerald
(I decided that I like this fake name better and it suits me better, being a farmer and all.)
[Daphne – Zeza ta’ Swansea.]
It’s her blog! She quite rightly decides what goes in, what gets edited and what gets thrown out. i suggest other sites like timesofmalta.com and maltatoday.com.mt should follow her example. Some of the comments on those sites are abusive and make little sense or have any relation to the article which they are supposedly commenting on.
wHat a lonK list of regulaTionZ MarelLi !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!……………………:):)
At last and thank you.
Dear Ms Caruana Galizia,
I personally would like to thank you for creating such a page where I can have a laugh or two and feel sort of at home, as my Facebook profile wall is being, you can say, spammed by my friends who support LP and unfortunately say lots of horrible things.
And another thing, you can’t share your opinion because they attack you.
They complain all the time that PN oppresses people but they do not believe in freedom of speech. I’m oppressed by my LP friends on Facebook who I don’t consider to be my friends anymore.
But to my misfortune I cannot delete them or else I’ll end up with lots of backstabbing behind my back.
So instead, I have chosen to ignore them. However, it’s annoying trying to go on Facebook and all you see is BS from their side.
So again I’d like to thank you for letting us express ourselves here and feel at home.
You sure do have your priorities skewed if you prefer to keep you ‘friends’ rather than express your true opinion.
Unfortunately, that’s the situation because that’s what certain people lead you to.
But instead, I tend to ignore so to not create chaos, because if you share your opinion you get attacked by several people who of course support PL.
It happened once, that’s why I know. My point is that I find comfort here and that’s why I like reading what Daphne has to say. Because I think that for a woman even she’s got guts.
[Daphne – Imagine how much more guts I would have had if I were born a man.]
Daphine you slipped. Are you suggesting that we men are supposed to have more guts than you women?
Is this an acceptance that we are in someways superior?
This is contrary to the impression I get when reading your write ups etc.
Waiting to see how you are going to wriggle yourself out ot this slip up.
Come on make my day.
[Daphne – That was deadpan, Silvio. For crying out loud.]
Your subtle retort deserves a very big smiley, Daphne. However, I will refrain, respecting your rules, and will just grin into my webcam.
Ha ha true. Well, I admire you more as a woman since it is sort of more expected from a man to write in this manner rather than a woman.
I’m no pro-fem supporter but I think that they attack you more than ever because you’re a woman. My dad is 72 years old and he’s learning how to use a PC still and when he reads your articles he’s like ‘damn, this woman has balls’.
And the rankings for this site on alexa.com really say something about it.
One could show the user ip address and town when leaving comment just to show the user that his location has been detected.
Speaking of Labour-infested sites, in the past few days I started exploring Facebook and discovered I need a dictionary which, sadly, doesn’t exist; I’m having to learn the language as I go along.
Following is a transcript of a “conversation” – for want of a better word – I’ve had with a denizen of FB (told you I’m learning the language) deep in darkest recesses of the Xarabank group
Marlene Spiteri:
ghandi unur najd li secret heart sec school kont imur ghax b ikolla tijak ma taf fejna injoranta naz mahruqa ghax demkom taht il blata
Sunday at 6:05pm • Like
Antoine Vella:
Marlene, inti għandek l-unur tgħid li kont tmur is-SECRET Heart School. Imma s-SECRET Heart School għandha unur tgħid li kont tmur int?
Sunday at 6:43pm • Like
Marlene Spiteri:
mela qbilt mijaj li ghandi inur li kont imur emm u educata ghax int qbist fin nofs defsa injorata u ghandi lunur najt li ghandi 3 it tfal il gmiel tahhom u nanna ta 3 angli li rabejtom b laqal tal gver laborista u li komplejna ingawdu l afarijiet li ghamel il
Sunday at 8:37pm • Like
Marlene Spiteri:
u li itom il pn qeddin thotu u tkisru dak li ghamel il gvern laborista il gvern ta malta u ghawdex taghna viva josegh muscat mexxej futur u vuva malta
Sunday at 8:40pm • Like
Antoine Vella:
Marlene, imma inti dyslexic? Għax fil-każ ma noqgħodx nikkritika l-kitba tiegħek.
Sunday at 10:06pm • Like
Marlene Spiteri:
kiem hi hadra karen din mix xjaten gejja ghanka bil mankamenti trid tbilli hbitajjar ghax ek imdori jaghmel il gvern tahha ta xara isfar xorta sirt nafa billi hbit wicca jien u keran ghana tfal ghanglie u madix ghalfejn tinheba wara wicca ara int tinheba ghax qisek qattusa
Sunday at 10:23pm • Like
Note: Throughout this exchange, Marlene Spiteri was convinced that Antoine was a woman’s name. This is how she eventually realised it wasn’t:
Marlene Spiteri:
taf kif sirt naf buffu ghax ghandek friend ragel jismu bhalek bek indunajt u isa ma nopsorx minek il kliem ta li hareg min fommok il mankamenti ek talimt antoine
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Changing-our-comment-moderation-policy-on-MaltaToday-com-mt-20120117
Thank you for outlining and reminding what rules are there for.
It is a pity that The Times allows such comments to be uploaded. I will not bother to give my opinion on MaltaToday. I feel comfortable giving my views on this blog but have never bothered with the others. My views have always been uploaded, even if I did not always agree with Daphne.
To Gerald. I apologise but I did not get to read through all the comments you made. It is so tiring to try and read such long and boring comments after a hard and rewarding day at work.
My one short comment started a discussion with Daphne which I found very interesting. I’d say it was more than successful at serving its intended purpose.
And no, I don’t expect you to have the attention span to read the comment exchange. Not that it matters, after all, the “long and boring” discussion was initiated by a farmer.
Daphne
I wholeheartedly agree with what you have written here.
My only query is why you continue to accept contributions from people writing under pseudonyms.
We no longer live in the 1970s and early 80s where one was afraid to speak out loud.
Allowing the use of pen names allows people to forget that we live in a free society.
The Times (of Malta) stopped allowing contributors to use pen names about 20 years ago.
[Daphne – Only in the print edition. There are very few people commenting under their real name on the online edition. Letters sent in for publication must carry your ID number, full address and telephone number, and the editor’s secretary will ring to check your identity if there are doubts. You will understand that this is not realistic for online comments. I would love it if everyone were to comment under their real name, but there you go.]
@ Gerald
I suggest you try filling your brain, not emptying it.
(For readers who can’t be fagged to check it out, here’s what Gerald said above: “What I’m getting at is that I come on here to empty my brain through reading what you write (I enjoy that)”
Really? You consider reading this blog as filling your brain? I feel sorry for you. Don’t get me wrong, it is entertaining and good fun.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Changing-our-comment-moderation-policy-on-MaltaToday-com-mt-20120117
Are they trying to emulate this blog or have they been given instructions that their readers are giving a bad image of the Labour Party, reminding more moderate readers of what life used to be under Labour regimes.