I’ve read the Norfolk comment - my thoughts

1] Personal stress. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the thing, the issue is that Blogpower is a FUN thing, done in spare time and for pleasure. We are already stressed out enough in the workplace at this time of year and the last thing we need is ugly disputes in cyberspace. In the end, one’s mental health is paramount.

2] As for the issue itself, I can’t reprint the comment because it was a private e-mail but the comment was:

a] provocative, about paedophiles and so on and clearly designed to stir NB up;
b] backlinked to ydkm’s own site*, not directly to the BNP, [as he commented on the last post]. I’ll send copies to the other four to see what they think.

*UPDATE: I was wrong, He did leave a BNP url on NB's site. I didn't see it earlier. He comments in the previous post.

Tom made a very good point that, in politics, we have to take the rough with the smooth and ditto in the blogosphere. If we can’t stand the heat, then use comment moderation and simply delete. Or don’t use moderation and delete, as ydkm himself indicated. I do it with the spam which sometimes arrives. We’re not in this to mollycoddle any blogger’s heightened sensitivities. We’re here to blog and combine in a loose confederation. Full stop. Period.

On the other hand, NB himself commented that one of the reasons he left was not only ydkm’s actions but the way a large proportion of other Blogpower members seemed to condone his actions.

3] Not one blogger so far [other than himself] has disagreed that ydkm is taking the p—s out of Blogpower. He’s 19 and having a ball, at our expense. We all do the same: take the p—s out of someone [mine is ‘Them’] but here’s the thing – none of us take the p--s out of fellow Blogpowerers. That’s the point.

Seems to me that if one enters Blogpower, it’s a sort of haven of protection and members go easier on each other than they would on their selected targets outside. To run down the Blogpower list [from within the group] and select a victim to provoke with allegations of paedophilia is an abuse of Blogpower. It looks remarkably like boosting one’s flagging stats in a cheap way.

Chicken Yoghurt hit the nail on the head when he wrote of ‘common decency’. Could we add to the manifesto:

Membership of Blogpower goes with the tacit understanding that we act with common decency towards other Blogpowerers, toning down our usual predatory instincts and remaining either silent or calm in the face of things we clearly are opposed to. Anyone not in Blogpower though is fair game.

As we have no disciplinary mechanism, let’s put this:

If an absolute majority of the current, full blogroll e-mail me to the effect and the other administrators agree, then we post that we’ve removed someone from the roll and await member reaction. I can’t see how that constitutes a political statement, as two thirds represents differing political persuasions. In other words, the libertarians do not currently make up two thirds of the roll. Yet it is crystal clear. It requires two thirds of the roll to take any major action.

4] Finally, to ydkm himself – it’s not personal, man but if you can’t abide by the manifesto addition above, then I’ll vote with my feet and withdraw from Blogpower, on grounds of mental health and heavy commitments. I’m sorry but I can’t be doing with this sort of rubbish any longer, particularly as the full brunt of my work begins in February and it will be hard enough keeping my own blog running.