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  • #52353 Reply
    SA
    Guest

    Mods. Is there a problem with the updates? Recently the various topics have names of commenters that are not previously known and when you click on the updates on various updates you find that no comments exist. Is this a technical glitch or are comments deleted but remain recorded as being made? Also yesterday a new topic from memory , called, ‘who advices the government on covid19 was posted with several replies. I read some of it and then came back to comment to find the topic not there anymore. Has it been deleted?

    #52354 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Good morning SA; I can’t give you a definitive answer as I have only normal public access, but while you’re waiting for a proper reply I can tell you this.

    An update of the WordPress software including the forum software was performed a few days ago, and now, looking from my system I see some odd effects. Threading of comments seems intermittent, and the blue bar at the top which would normally contain something like “This topic has 34 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 2 hours, 35 minutes ago by So-and-so” now just reads “This topic is empty”. This seems to apply only to topics that have had a comment added since the software was updated. However, other topic have a wrong name for the latest commenter; for instance, the topic “Climate Change Hysteria” shows that “corinadt4” submitted the latest comment, but there is no such commenter on the thread, and the submission time is much more recent than the latest comment displayed.

    I have been told that the failure of threading has open bug reports on the WordPress support site; probably the erroneous commenter names should be reported also.

    Yes, the new topic about the virus seems to have been deleted, thank goodness; I had posted some comments there myself. It might be another bug I suppose, but either way the world is better off without too much disinformation about this, and I’m fed up with posting more accurate information from more relevant and reliable sources. “UK Column” for epidemiology? Urgh.

    #52363 Reply
    SA
    Guest

    Clark
    The author of the piece is Vanessa Bealey which is a great pity as I always respected what she said about Syria as she had first hand information. Another disappointment is OffGuardian which seems now to be a conspiracy site. Did you read this?

    #52365 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Good on Moon of Alabama. Here’s the permalink rather than the front page, so there’s still a link to the article after new articles have been posted.

    #52366 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    “The author of the piece is Vanessa Bealey which is a great pity”

    This is what I was saying the other day, that propaganda in the mainstream spawns conspiracy theory in the new Internet media. When people realise that they’ve been misled, they get very suspicious and swing to an opposing extreme. To back up their new position, they cite motive (ie. “que bono”) and association, but such arguments aren’t about evidence. So from Vanessa Beeley we get:

    “BillGates funded World Health Organisation…”

    Sigh…

    #52367 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    What’s needed is publicly accountable media. Wikipedia was the great hope, so of course the mainstream propagandists started stealth operations like “Philip Cross”. But at least the alternative media are making them have to work harder.

    But the proliferation of conspiracy theory on our side is just muddying the waters massively; the waters on our side. So what we need now is a set of principles everyone agrees to, by which all of us can hold each other to account.

    Which gives me an idea. One reason the hopelessly inaccurate corporate media continues to thrive is that people don’t have time to check the news, follow stories to sources to check for both deliberate corruption and accidental incremental distortion, exaggeration etc., then look up opposing angles, and apply critical thinking. Responsible use of alternative media news is hard work and time consuming.

    But now we have covid-19 with the social restrictions and unessential business shut down – well, this could be the ideal opportunity to encourage critical news analysis among the general population. Plenty of people are bored and stuck at home…

    We need to start hammering out a set of principles for news analysis.

    #52369 Reply
    SA
    Guest

    A crucial point in analysis , something that is missing from what people write and believe in, is to check sources. Many websites will quote unattributed experts as the source of their unverifiable information, and of course states use the excuse of security secret sources, and to me these sources should be looked at with great scepticism.
    The second level is that of the press and others cherry picking their evidence
    The third level is of the misleading attention grabbing headline but when you look at the details of what is reported in the original sources, you find that the message has been distorted or selectively interpreted.
    That is why one always has to check the sources of the information and look at original sources where possible, and selectively try to look at peer reviewed scientific material where science is concerned. And I guess this inbuilt healthy scepticism and checking of sources is one of the main cornerstones of scientific training.

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