Conspiracy, what conspiracy?

Sometime earlier this month someone on NavyNet posted a humourous letter about what may happen to RNR sites in an independent Scotland under the heading Scotland Referendum. Some readers liked it.

It was then deleted by the moderator ‘purple twiglet’ (PT).

Some complained. PT explained it went against some sort of MOD Directive. I said that was bollox, surely we were entitled to free speech. Others also complained but PT was adamant – the referendum could be discussed elsewhere but not on NavyNet, serving members could be in contravention of aforesaid MOD Directive.

I suggested purple twiglet should be re-named purple helmet.

PT posted a long diatribe: NavyNet was not a public site, you had to obey the rules etc. It also included the fantastic claim that it was not unusual for PT to ring senior government ministers late at night to discuss breaking news on social networks. It then went on into a ‘nobody loves me, everybody hates me’ bit about being a moderator including the astounding statement “ people who don’t know me call me a c*nt, maybe rightly so because people who know me think I am a w*nker”.

Ignoring the latter I posted along the lines of: Are you serious or did Walter Mitty just enter this thread? It is usual for you to ring senior government ministers late at night? What is your day job, spin doctor at No. 10?

Who would have thought that such a random comment could have been so near the mark !

I was informed anonymously that PT worked in the media department of the MOD and was of sufficient seniority to accompany officers as senior as the 1SL

I was mulling this over and what PT’s response might be when I went to bed.

At 5 a.m. the penny dropped.

Sure enough, when I logged on the Scotland Referendum thread had disappeared. Instead a ‘Scotland Thread’ (don’t mention the Referendum) announced that since all views had been aired this thread had been moved – no comments allowed.

It has actually been deleted in its entirety. Possibly because PT, in his cups, had revealed too much.

The inescapable conclusion is that at least one thread/subject/forum on NavyNet is being actively moderated by the MOD.

Fine if you’re happy with it.

Prove me wrong.

 

Moved to Site Issues.

I didn't see the offending post. RR isn't moderated by the MoD nor does it exist to promote only good news coming out of the MoD/Naval Service. However the moderators know their Commanders' ( the COs' ) intent and take concentric decisions in support of that.

The ARRSE independence threads are mature in longevity and content. If the first one on RR was intended to be funny it appears that it failed both in terms of where it was posted and its content. Not a good sign. Then someone drips about it by starting a thread in Current Affairs. Our hopes for maturity in depth dashed.

It has been the case since I've been here that moderators are proposed and selected because they are well informed and current. PT was no exception.

Sometimes moderators gang up on a fellow mod behind our cloak of invisibility and have a decision reversed.

 

Guys - panic not! The 'famous letter' (which WAS very funny) has been copied by me and unless Purple Helmet has access to GCHQ it is lurking safely in my C drive, waiting for late next week!

I am Scottish and am fed up to the back teeth with all the referendum threads everywhere, so I started the hopefully non political 'Scotland' thread for folk to just post the funnies - I keep getting sent lots and was about to post the 'Scottish Poond' one and was beaten to it - hey ho (or whit the hell).

So if the OP doesn't re post the letter (I can't remember who it was), just give me the say so when it is safe to put it back up - publish and be damned!

 

I think really that PT needs to watch what he's doing!
I PM'd him about removal of the thread with some genuine good advice as if you had seen my parody of the Sun Front Page, you would understand how he was digging himself into a massive hole! (This post was just before the thread was deleted) He responded as if he was a senior officer being told off by a middy, total arrogance in his response, not a good attitude for a moderator me thinks!
I highly doubt he was very good as a Media Ops Officer!
Just my opinion mind you!

 

My spidey senses detect a "toys out of the pram" moment coming on

 

Oh my, 2 Deck seems to be missing it's lawyer. Someone get on Main Broadcast will they, pipe Tanzi back to the Mess Square of ROMFT.

 

Seadog, a flat denial by another anonymous avatar does nothing but invite the Mandy Rice-Davies response "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he."

News = Current Affairs
MOD moderating on NavyNet = News

Your last two paragraphs are mildly astounding and suggest there is something wrong with the moderator selection process.

For myself, I couldn't give a rat's arrse if the MOD are moderating on NavyNet but it doesn't say much for the site's integrity if it is done in secret.

 

Tanzi

I can assure you that I am nothing to do with defence media despite your fervent belief that I am. For your information, I moderated this thread from the comfort of my b&b bedroom while on holiday from a job which has nothing to do with defence media. I have been privileged enough to do jobs involving some challenging out of hours discussions with seniors, sometimes on media stories, sometimes on operational matters and-sometimes having the somber duty on telling them UK personnel have been killed in action. I have never been a media officer in mod though.

If you wander over to arrse, you'll see a long discussion on the specific din in question and what it involves.

The reason the thread in question was deleted was because I have a fairly intermittent connection up here, and the moderating tools are a pain to use, particularly on the iPad. Bluntly rather than waste more of my precious holiday than I needed to dealing with the inane ramblings you come up with and tidily moderating it, I just hit delete. Frankly I think it is no loss to humanity.

If you want to think there is some major conspiracy at play here then please go on. I'd suggest illuminati, the Freemasons, the UN and the creatures masquerading as women from Joanna's nightclub all play a part in this somehow. A prize of a new tin foil hat to the best conspiracy.

As for my offer, I am quite happy to step down. If it saves me from patronising pm's from people like drew feet who managed to authoritatively tell me I was an ex-regular Lt Cdr apparently (news to me!) while bragging about supposed connections they have to terribly important people then I am all for it. The fact not one of those individuals who moaned has stood up and offered to take on the job is very telling indeed.

 

So, just to get this right. You defend the deleting of the entire thread not because of any conspiracy but because you couldn't be arssed to do your job of moderating properly. Good news for those who contributed to the discussion.

Do you also retract your statement "I've personally had to ring up senior government ministers late at night. . . . . this is not that unusual." We are talking about members of the cabinet here, right? And not just one.

You can see how a simple soul might get confused.

And, just for clarity, I have no fervent beliefs and I never mentioned a major conspiracy - confirmation of a simple, run of the mill, everyday conspiracy will suffice.

I leave it to others to comment on the 'patronising pm's' you may have received. As far as I'm concerned if a thing's worth saying then it's worth saying in the open.

 

Please so that we can ALL read it put the original on ROMFT

 

Kinell, he's a ferkin Steward

 

Tanzi - I am not retracting anything.

How I choose to moderate is my business. If you think you can do a better job then put your name forward.

 

We could just scrap RR?

 

Tempting - but then where would Tanzi take his wild conspiracy theories?

 

Does it really matter? Its an Internet forum....

 

That's half the problem right there. Moderators who act on a whim or personal prejudice - or under the direct orders of the MOD.

As I said in my previous post, which you deleted along with everything else, I considered putting myself forward but, unlike you, I am not on first name terms with any cabinet ministers so I did not think I was highborn enough.

Now, if you could make some introductions on my behalf that would be a great. Liz Truss would be a good start.

BTW couldn't help noticing that you edited your first response. Nothing sinister there, people do it all the time - especially if they got it wrong first time round

 

http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/passports-please-you-jock-twats.218983/

 

And I felt that the post prior to my ARRSE contributon should be shared!


You lot putting the boot into the Scots are amateurs, read how it should be done:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...ious-disaster.html?via=mobile&source=facebook

This coming Thursday the Scots will vote on whether to make Scotland an independent nation. And I hope they do because it will be a disaster.

I don’t say this as a prejudiced Irishman. Even though the thistle-arse sheep-shagger Scots swiped Ulster and sent a herd of Presbyterian proddy dogs and porridge wogs to squat on our land and won the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 by using unfair—indeed, unheard of —- organization, discipline, and tactics on an Irish battlefield. We Micks only hold a grudge about such things for 300 years or so.

Nor is Scottish independence a misery-loves-company moment for us Irish. True, Irish independence has been no bed of shamrocks, what with the Easter Rebellion, the black-and-tans, the civil war, the IRA, and the Celtic Tiger turning out to be a mangy barn cat drowned in the well.

We Irish don’t hate the Scots per se. They’re too much like us Irish, who all hate each other. So we’re just looking for a fine entertainment from across the Irish Sea as Highland Scots have a donnybrook with Lowland Scots, Glaswegians dust up with Edinburghians, and Clan Dewers unsheathes its claymores for battle with Clan Johnny Walker.

I, however, have a personal reason for wanting an independent Scotland. I’m an ex-foreign correspondent, vintage 1983-2003, who retired after the Iraq War, too old to be scared stiff and too stiff to sleep on the ground.
Yet once foreign correspondenting gets in your blood… Ah, there’s nothing like a primitive, quarrel-torn, disastrous Third World country. And Scotland has everything it needs to be what old-school foreign correspondents fondly call a “shit-hole.” Plus Scotland is conveniently located for aging journos like myself. It can be “covered” from the comforts of The Ritz in London, and there will be plenty of unemployed Scottish unionist refugees hanging around waiting to be hired as drivers and translators. Scotland’s economy will be the requisite Third World shambles. Scotland’s two dominant political parties are the leftist Scottish National Party and the leftist Scottish Labor Party. These can be counted on to vie in out-lefting each other. Cuba-with-chilblains, here we come! The Brits won’t let the Scots keep the pound. The EU needs another Greece or Portugal dragging down the euro like the EU needs another bureaucrat in Brussels. Scotland will be reduced to using the 16th century pund scots, value soon equaling the Zimbabwe dollar—to the delight of bean-counters employing journalists who have expense accounts. Scotland already has the essential Third World drug oligarchy -— Chivas Regal, Cutty Sark, Vat 69, Grant’s, Ballantine’s, Teacher’s, J&B, Black and White, Haig and Haig, Laphroaig, Dalwhinnie, Glenmorangie, Glenfiddich, The Glenlivet, The Balvenie, The Dalmore, The Macallan. And as a guarantee of a Third World economy in shambles, Scotland is oil-rich. Proceeds from its North Sea drilling rigs will insure corruption and kleptocracy on a Nigerian scale. Besides poverty, privation, and suffering, Scotland will have the other standard-issue Third World conditions that foreign correspondents need to provide the colorful, heart-rending, op-ed provoking, Amnesty International-baiting copy we love to file. My Pulitzer is in the Highlands. Scotland has poignant disease too. Does Doctors Without Borders treat hangovers?
You can be sure Scotland will have armed conflict of some kind (“bang-bang” as we pros call it). Besides internal feuds, Scotland is perfectly positioned between two hostile powers—England and Norway, who aren’t going to let those North Sea oil fields go without a fuss. Scotland will be Pakistan with exposed knees.

Scotland has terrible weather—always good as dramatic background for on-camera live reports. Albeit Scotland’s terrible weather is more the sub-Arctic than the usual sub-tropic shit-hole kind. But you can always put on more Banana Republic safari jackets, while you can only take off so many layers without looking like a half-naked fool. Speaking of which, the Scots are ideal in the matter of outlandish native costume. The males go about in skirts and tam o’shanters carrying a lady’s purse, a sporran, that puts Channel to shame. They’re ready for their close-up. But don’t giggle. There’s a dirk at the waist and a dagger in the left sock.

Scottish foreign food is sufficiently foreign. I’ve had raw lamb brains in Kuwait, goat in Somalia, cobra blood in China, and dog stew in the Philippines. I’m eager to add haggis to my list of bragging rights. Scottish music is sufficiently—to be kind—exotic. As soon as Scotland descends into barbarous chaos expect the pig-sticking squeal and shagged sheep moan of bagpipes to be frequently heard on NPR. (By the way, NPR newscasters will have to learn to pronounce “Scotland” the way the Scottish do. When asked how to pronounce the name of their country the Scottish say, “Faauhk you.”) The Scottish language is, as all good Third World languages must be, incomprehensible. Take this verse by famous Scottish poet Robert Burns in his famous Scottish poem “Auld Lang Syne.”

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pound the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit
Sin’ auld lang syne.

No one in the civilized world has any idea what that means. This allows news reporters to translate whatever is said by a Scot being interviewed into whatever will make the most news. If it bleeds, it leads.

The Scottish have the regulation Third World tales of past glory, featuring such unlikely characters as The Maid of Norway, a King Robert nick-named “The Bruce,” an Earl of Atholl (really), and Mel Gibson. They also have the standard-issue yarn about how, after brilliant victory upon victory in defense thereof, their independence was treacherously stolen from them. This would be by the 1704 “Act of Union” with Great Britain, which passed the Scottish Parliament by a vote of 110 to 69. The one thing the Scottish don’t have is a ridiculous dictator. The Scots exhibit many of the Third World shit-hole qualities that foreign correspondents prize, but a penchant for ridiculous dictators is not among them. However, Mike Meyers—from whom we haven’t heard much lately—would, I’m sure, for a reasonable price (always hard to obtain from a Scotsman), get his Fat Bastard costume out of storage and undertake the role. Oh, what a glorious catastrophe independence would be. Excuse me, I have to get the keffiyeh out of my dusty suitcase and pack a kilt.

 

Two points.
1. Why shouldn't someone in Defence Media contribute to, or even moderate, a RR forum? It would surely become obvious if the dark forces of censorship were being employed. In this case I thought the moderator( although not in Defence Media) did give what seemed to be a pretty good reason for using his judgement.
2. Is there a danger of discrimination here? What's wrong with creatures masquerading as women?

 

1. Conflict of interest if they don't toe the line. I for one believe MOD censorship was employed.
2. The fcuking awful moment when you wake up and realise what you went to bed with.