I lay in bed last night thinking about Nadine€™s dilemma.
I 
expressed my
disappointment yesterday that she had switched off her comment
facility, which I feel is crucial to a blog.
Nadine indicated it was a time-issue, without mentioning that she had been targeted by hundreds of merciless "low-life" bloggers. I€™m sure I would do the same in her shoes.
The furore followed her controversial posts on abortion and the science and technology committee on which she sits. Abortion is a subject Nadine feels passionately about. As an MP with a medical background, her judgement should be valued. She believes the committee was hi-jacked by those who have powerful financial vested interests in the abortion industry.
This is Nadine€™s report on abortion, describing how she thinks MPs were misled and not presented with all the facts about foetal pain. MPs were discussing whether changes should be made to the 24 week limit for abortions. They decided it should remain unchanged.
Nadine left a comment last night in response to my post. I do send her my sympathies, particularly being sent "scary" messages too late at night. It is unfair that her loyal following should be deprived of the chance to debate a very serious topic, that it should be hijacked in such a forceful way, leaving her no choice but to ban comments altogether.
I share Nadine€™s hopes that she will re-open her comment facility when she feels comfortable about it. We want Nadine to continue writing her great posts without being under duress from cyber stalkers.
This is what Nadine said:
The fact is I was getting hundreds of comments. Many, as a result of what I have been doing with regard to abortion, some of which were absolutely vile.
There are some lovely people out there, but there are also some serious low life €“ and when you put your head above the parapet, as I have, the low life take aim.
I may, when my work regarding abortion takes a slower pace, re-introduce comments. However, in the meantime, having to deal with people who think it€™s cool to re- post their comments 40 times a night, and there are dozens of them, so that it takes over an hour to sort out the email account in the morning is no joke.
The comments I now take on email are far more serious in content.
It would be great if I didn€™t have a day and night job and could focus on the blog, but that€˜s not why I€™m here.
Very few of my constituents used the blog to communicate with me, but almost every person I meet reads the blog and therefore that is where I need to focus what little time I have.
I did take comments on my BB but I am afraid I had to stop that also when I started to receive some very weird posts late at night, which frankly scared me.
*I€™ve just spoken to my technical adviser Geoff and he recommends Nadine should add blocks to prevent offensive comments and emails.
No, Nadine *claims* to have been targeted by hundreds of merciless low-life bloggers - and/or targeted by a few low-life bloggers submitting hundreds of entries (she has yet to make this clear).
But the reality of it is that Nadine made a claim that was totally unfair and totally without foundation in reality, and she is now unwilling to retract the claim or even have it subjected to scrutiny on her website.
Again, I invite you to have a closer look at the background:
http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2007/11/nadine_dorries_iain_dale.asp
http://www.sticksandcarrots.net/2007/11/01/the-nad-gambit/
I€™m afraid you€™ve been sold a lemon, Elle. Nadine closed her comments because she wasn€™t able to defend her position. The links Tim has provided explain but here€™s the short version:
In the report you€™ve linked to, she wrote:
Ben Goldacre, the author of that article, has responded:
http://www.badscience.net/2007/10/oooooh-im-in-the-minority-report/
That€™s the nub of Nadine€™s problem right there.
Rather than dealing with the evidence which demonstrates that she has made a spurious accusation, she censored all mention of Goldacre€™s response in the comments to her blog. The next day, she closed comments.
She has not withdrawn the accusation or apologised for making it.
Is this the same Tim Ireland who stalks people on their blogs? Maybe you are the low life Nadine is referring to?
Read the stuff about the Guardian - seems she was right to me. You wouldn€™t be trying to create a storm in a teacup would you so that people will hit your blog via the links you have put on Ellee€™s site and put your hit rate up? if I were Nadine I would write to the editor of the Guardian, this guy seems pretty un-profesional to me. Ellee, you should put a block on the name Tim Ireland - he is the reason many MPs don€™t blog. He makes their life a misery with his obsessive comments and stalking.
Ah, good. An anonymous (tick box) ad hominem attack (ticks box) smearing my name (ticks box) falsely stating that I€™m guilty of ad hominem attacks (ticks box).
A most useful example for a later case study. Thank you.
Now let€™s get back to the matter at hand, shall we?
Well, that€™s awful if she is receiving abusive comments but she should have explained this in the first place.
Ellee (apologies for carelessly misspelling your name last time round), I don€™t wish to clog up your comments but I hope you don€™t mind if I ask Matt a polite question.
Matt said:
Dr Ben Goldacre, the Guardian employee, used information in the public domain to write an article examining the science being presented to the committee. He then wrote a post highlighting the fact that Nadine Dorries had falsely accused him of participating in some sort of leak/conspiracy. He wasn€™t secretly passed information by another committee member as Nadine claims; he downloaded it from www.parliament.uk
Dr Goldacre also supplied evidence - links to the relevant PDFs - proving this (and Ms Dorries refused to allow that evidence to be presented to her readers).
In what way was that unprofessional?
Agreed. Initially she claimed she was closing comments because she was €˜too busy€™, which gives this later claim a fair whiff of invention.
Nadine€™s case is not helped by recent antics of another Tory blogger who falsely claimed that he had deleted an exchange that didn€™t go his way, because it contained €˜vitriol€™.
(Whoops. Nearly tripped over you there, Garry. Mind your toes.)
Really Tim, funny that, because on the other blog you and this Garry guy blogged straight after one another.So is Tim Garry and Garry Tim? A certain Anne Milton MP has had some very bad experiences with you hasn€™t she Tim?
My name€™s Garry Smith, Dave. I€™m 36 years old, live in Aberdeen and can easily prove that I€™m not Tim Ireland.
Why does no-one want to discuss what actually happened, Dave? I€™m not that interested in discussing more silly accusations but would be interested to know whether you think Nadine Dorries should withdrawn her false allegation.
By the way, the one comment I submitted to Nadine€™s blog read:
.
I also included the link as in my previous comment above.
Can anyone explain why this perfectly civil comment was not published during a day when other comments were?