Do Mhks Read This Board?

[Albert Tatlock]

Some interesting points about where people come from. Are people saying that on this forum people who live elsewhere shouldn't have a say on what goes on here? To me, as well as the usual chatty fun, informative type of stuff, the forum has a great many users with the interests of the island at heart - who cover numerous serious issues. Outsiders with an interest in the island are no bad thing IMO, as they are actually giving us feedback, and are obviously picking up on the island from the information getting out - from politicians, news stories, and even the forum itself which (if you look) can often pop up in the first few links on google on island issues - depending on the search terms used.

 

For example, I think Skeddan has come up with (although maybe boring to some users) some important constitutional issues and issues of the level of democracy on the island - and backed much of that with analysis. Too few people look in-depth at some of these important issues IMO, so the more people who can explain these things in laymens terms the better AFAIAC. People obviously find it topical and relevant - as they reply.

 

What about Manx people who are living away (I've done that sometimes), serving in the forces (I've done that), or just working away (I do that sometimes)? What about local people who can't be arsed to, or don't want to, vote (I've done that a few times)? Do they get a say?

 

All some of us were suggesting in this thread, was a better way to encourage 'busy' politicians and civil servants to use the forum, whilst 'protecting' them by giving them the opportunity to reply once to specific questions, instead of going through numerous pages and monitoring a thread - some of which last a week or more. No one is trying to change the forums at all, just perhaps add a section where such replies could be posted in a simple question(s)/answer format - with those questions agreed in a thread e.g. over the preceding week. If that question was put by a local, an ex-pat or an outsider is irrelevant to me, provided the question is agreed relevant by the majority. It's simply about buy-in for politicians and civil servants, who are unlikely to want to get drawn into answering points one at a time over a week, because when they do appear in a thread they often become the focus of it. Even if only one or two agree to reply, at least that would be a result. I do think it's possible if it's handled properly - e.g. anyone see Finlo v the Chief Minister in Manx Tails this week?

[Chinahand]

Sincere apologies. I was wrong. Fully admit it. I'd picked up the New Zealand connection and nothing more and then noticed your posting times and thought it was odd - was half expecting an explanation that you worked night shifts! We've had various people, TheSkeet being the most famous example, claiming to other than they were.

 

Concerning myself: Obscure - yes, but not disengenuous. I try not to disclose personal details. Seems sensible - I have no idea but would be very cautious of posting my IP address on an internet forum!!!! But I don't misdirect - as TheSkeet most definately did, and as I, totally incorrectly, thought you were doing with New Zealand.

 

I'm reasonably well known for posting about the PKF report on the MEA, some people call me an apologist and say I should come clean. I maintain my privacy and quote (in vast and boring detail) the publicly available info on the MEA when people make incorrect statements.

 

Pulling this back to the topic: If that's being obscure then I am - and it is another example of the problem MHK's would have with posting on the forum - they wouldn't know if people are being sincere or trying to trap them.

 

I personally don't think its a big deal, but understand the slowness of MHKs to make use of the site.

 

Not totally convinced if this is a good thing or a bad thing - some parts of the forum are as boring as hell, having an MHK led topic which 90% ignore, but which keeps the 10% who are interested posting wouldn't damage the forums and would expand its reach if you asked me, but what do I know!

[Sidney]

I'm reasonably well known for posting about the PKF report on the MEA, some people call me an apologist and say I should come clean. I maintain my privacy and quote (in vast and boring detail) the publicly available info on the MEA when people make incorrect statements.

 

Strange you should mention that, about 2 years ago I had a senior manager from the MEA in my taxi and we were discussing Manxforums. He said that he and a couple of others in the MEA would dearly love to know who Chinahand is, and in particular where he gets his information from!

[Dudley Butt]

Regular postings no - people would complain about them wasting time. But occassional contributions, or a blog - heck most UK politicos have one nowadays - I think it would enhance an MHK's image.

 

The general public have no idea what people like me actually do, and I have been toying with the idea of another Blog in my real name to put across some of the interesting things which I am extremely lucky enough to be involved with – but again that seems an intrusion - though you have the option to totally ignore a Blog.

 

Politicians popping up regularly in the middle of threads is harder to ignore.

 

But as there are apparently 80,000 new blogs created a day, who am I to add to the dross? Opinions gratefully received.

 

Final contribution - does anyone else feel uncomfortable when someone posts in their real name? Everyone following a real person becomes respectful and restrained - the debate/argument often grinds to a halt - because you are speaking to a real person, rather than a character, and a lot more respect is shown. It changes the whole dynamic of the forum.

[Albert Tatlock]

Final contribution - does anyone else feel uncomfortable when someone posts in their real name? Everyone following a real person becomes respectful and restrained...

Oh **** off Dudley

[Dudley Butt]

That's much better....

[Skeddan]

Sincere apologies.

No worries Chinahand. Also I agree it isn’t sensible to provide details which might identify one (not so much MF members finding this, but employers etc. doing background checks (as they now do) and identifying your postings and discovering one’s breakfast cereal preferences etc.).

 

As for suggestions, this is how it started:

 

I'd like to see politicians answerable on forums in official capacity, but on second thoughts I'd think the forums would have to be heavily moderated to filter or cut out the garbage and silly nonsense that sometimes crops up.

 

We've tossed around a few ideas as to how we could do this but not really come up with anything that works properly. John Shimmin expressed an interest via email in taking part in a 'Live Chat' but again, it was impossible to idiotproof it.

 

I think we'd still like to do something, but it needs more thought.

Following that, some thoughts were bounced around. The suggestion that seems to have been arrived at is to simply start with a subforum for ‘Local Politics’ – as nipper originally suggested.

 

Sure lots of people are not interested (just as others aren’t interested in gaming, sports or other topics, but some obviously are). This would at least give the frequent political discussions that crop up a subforum of their own rather than being spin offs of local news topics.

 

Where it goes from there is another matter.

 

I fail to see how just that subforum is a ‘nasty suggestion’ that will spoil MF. If it’s not the kind of discussion you’re into or you think is pointless, you don’t have to participate. The other subforums will still be there and won’t be changed. Having classified ads didn't lead to a takeover of the rest of MF.

 

“keep the forum for fun and entertainment.” Fine – but should it be exclusively that (and is it anyway?) Would having a distinct subforum section for more serious discussions spoil that? I’d think that this would give a place for serious discussion rather than have it get in the way of the fun and entertainment.

 

Frankly at the moment I think it is totally premature to consider this having some grand political design engaging MHKs etc. in the way people seem to be imagining (and fearing or being cynical about). There simply is not the basis for constructive productive political discussions which get anywhere. If there was, maybe more people would be interested, would participate and contribute. A couple of people have noted they are reticent to make posts which are 'intrusive' on the community which are serious and boring/interesting (depending on your interests). Would a discrete area for this not make sense to cater to that?

 

If one started with that very modest step of having such a subforum, then perhaps one might think of how this could be taken further or not, limitations on who might post etc. – as would no doubt be discussed that in that forum.

 

Is there any good reason for people to feel threatened by just having an additional subforum for Local Politics?

[P.K.]

Final contribution - does anyone else feel uncomfortable when someone posts in their real name? Everyone following a real person becomes respectful and restrained - the debate/argument often grinds to a halt - because you are speaking to a real person, rather than a character, and a lot more respect is shown. It changes the whole dynamic of the forum.

Well Dudley, on the "a lot more respect is shown" theory in my own case I can assure you that to date the evidence for this is zero. But then you have to earn respect and maybe on here I just let myself down.

 

BTW, I was back in The Albion the other week, it is still excellent. After all your promises where were you?

 

Welcome back to Planet Earth. Although anyone who slags off Ann Robinson and then admits to watching her program is not doing their credibility any good, always assuming they had any to start with that is...

Sometimes houses have more than 1 person in them, though I suspect you may never get to know that - I happened to be on the computer at the time.

Well Albert would you be good enough to tell that to my partner and both of my daughters? Thanks.

 

Oh dear Albert, this thread hasn't exactly been your finest hour has it? Your excuse for slagging off Ann Robinson and then quoting her show being "I was on the computer at the time" when we all know that only girlies can multi-task. As your self-esteem shrinks can you feel your nose growing?

 

As any politico would be unable to hide behind an alias it would only be right that those asking the questions would do the same.

[VinnieK]

Is there any good reason for people to feel threatened by just having an additional subforum for Local Politics?

 

I don't think there is, but I don't really see the point of such a subforum: most of the discussions regarding politics are inspired by local news stories. Whilst it's true that a dedicated section for local politics would offer a home for spontaneous discussion of a particular issue, it also means that we're likely to end up with two subforums which are largely filled with the same or similar subject matter. Hardly a disaster, but unappealing nevertheless - if anything it'd probably be better to simply rename the existing forum "local news and politics" or something similar to make explicit the inclusion of discussions that would be held in a local politics subforum.

 

I'm not sure there's much purpose in attracting MhK's to the board. As has been brought up by others, they already have the ability to post if they wish to directly engage the forum readership, be it to argue a point, to set the record straight, or whatever. After taking into account the moderation needed to cut out the crap and ensure the discussion doesn't fly off on a tangent or concentrate on one particular point or issue, and given that there's no guarantee that such discussions would have regular demand, we may as well just have an occassional feature where an MhK responds on the forums to an e-mail containing pre-approved questions from various posters (which at least has the virtue of organizing the debate and keeping everything concise, though is a far cry from the spirit of public discussion).

 

I could perhaps understand the idea of election "specials" where candidates discuss their manifestos (which all too often receive little public scrutiny) online, since this is when both the public and politicians have a particular and intense interest in one another, but then this is entirely up to them and suffers from exactly the same problems and criticisms as the proposals for catering specific discussions to MhKs.

[Skeddan]

most of the discussions regarding politics are inspired by local news stories

Yes, that’s true to an extent. On the other hand it sometimes seems local news stories become a vehicle to return to some general political topics. Obvious examples are mode of election of MLCs, EU membership, Water Fluoridation, Political parties in IoM, voting age. Some of these get picked up on and become a discussion that flares and fizzles again and again. So have many threads which sporadically discuss the same issues.

 

Local news has over 4,000 threads now. That’s fine, but to find discussion of MLCs in this – even with search – becomes unwieldy.

 

With Local News, new stories pop up, so making some threads hard to find. This results in duplications. e.g. water fluoridation. Hardly a disaster, but cumbersome and leads to repetition, reiteration etc.

[VinnieK]

That's the nature of forums though: they're best suited to relatively short bursts of discussion than continuous debate on a given topic, and are open to people who just want to launch into a discussion without trawling through archives first (some don't even read through the earlier posts of a particularly long thread before posting).

 

I can see the basic appeal in drawing related topics together in a coherent debate; I'm just not sure it would work. For a start, there would still be a lot of repetition and going over old ground. Any discussion of MLC's is likely to feature much of what's already been said in previous threads throughout the forum's history. Secondly, it's likely that this proposed subforum would suffer from the same problems as any other:

 

Say, for example, we're celebrating our new found home of reasoned, focused debate with another fun argument about speed limits. Everyone has a big old ruckus with some throwing stats about road fatalities in the mix, others talking about how it's not speed but driver skill that determines accidents, and yet more talking about the merits/evils of state intervention and regulation in the lives of citizens. Eventually the discussion comes to a halt because, let's face it, everyone got bored and decided it was no longer worth the effort. Then, four months later, someone discovers an exciting new study that backs up their opinion, or the government makes some decision that's relevant, and the thread is resurrected, with exactly the same arguments being had only with a slightly different focus. After a few iterations of this process we end up with a vast thread that's just as difficult to navigate, and an argument that's just as inconclusive, as it would be were it split into component parts and scattered throughout the archives.

 

I'm not against such a subforum being set up (it's not my forum, after all!), I'm just not convinced of its long term appeal or practicality. Apart from anything, it's likely only to benefit the old reliables who come to dominate the discussions here and who have the necessary will or desire to maintain an interest in a long running discussion. There's even the potential for new and casual posters who just want a chance to shout at clouds and speak their brains for a bit to be put off from contributing by the implicit expectation that they'll be contributing something new to the discussion (which, when confronted with page after page of previous posts on a given topic, is something of a daunting prospect).

 

Something else to consider is that many of the discussions here are a mask for even more general opinions than the ones you list, one of the biggest being: state intervention - good or bad? There's the very real possibility that all discussions in any local politics subforum could simultaneously converge to the same argument regarding the "nanny state", an eventuality that scientists and good wizards predict will open a direct portal to hell and unleash Satan's mighty legions upon the Earth.

[Slim]

Final contribution - does anyone else feel uncomfortable when someone posts in their real name? Everyone following a real person becomes respectful and restrained - the debate/argument often grinds to a halt - because you are speaking to a real person, rather than a character, and a lot more respect is shown. It changes the whole dynamic of the forum.

 

It seems to depend, as in the 'real world', on who the person is. There's quite a few people who've posted in their real names, and still have to fight their corners, Steve Babb and Stu Peters for example. What you might not be aware of too, is that quite a few of us know who each other are, so using nick names doesn't really make that much of a difference.

 

You're going to notice it more perhaps because you post with two accounts, and one of them is in a very obvious and public position of power. I'd not want to give you too much of a hard time in case the black cars turned up outside.

 

As to the blog, why not try it and see if there's interest? I'm certainly keen on following the progress of things I know your working on like the curbside collection because from a member of the publics point of view, these things can appear to grind to a halt for long periods of time. I wonder how much of a difference better communication all round from government depts to populace would improve bad feeling or apethy? I'm not talking about annual glossys stuck in with the courier either, but regular progress reports in normal non-governmental language that people can understand.

[nipper]

You're going to notice it more perhaps because you post with two accounts,

 

. . . . and the rest !!

[Skeddan]

That's the nature of forums though....

VinnieK, I don’t really disagree with anything you’re saying in this post. One can’t be sure it would work, or its long term appeal or practicality. Equally one can’t be sure it won’t. It might fizzle and die, become just a regular with little difference, develop in unexpected ways, or even grow to become an exemplar of ‘ePolitics’ in action.

 

However I do think that this might give a home for posting in ways that some at least are currently reluctant to for being instrusive, boring or out of keeping with the tone of the Local News subforum. As I said earlier, it might attract people to the forums and to contribute who do not currently do so.

 

IMO, give it a space and see what comes out of it rather than try to anticipate how exactly it may or may not fail / succeed. If it does flourish, it would almost certainly be in ways we could not predict now. The certainty is it won’t go anywhere if strangled before birth. Hence IMO, give it a space where such discussions can assume their own nature and follow it, and see what happens. A slightly organic approach I know, but that is probably no bad thing.

[Albert Tatlock]

A slightly organic approach I know...

Don't mention that word - that'll probably mean an increase in subscriptions