…there was an election in the offing. And there is, and I don’t mean the one that’s ever more likely regarding the incompeten… I mean incumbent in Drowning Street.
Managing a message board is never easy. I’ve been online since before the Internet and often spent all night chatting in various bulletin boards, long before Facebook ate up all the forums leaving only advertising, armchair warriors, media spinners and more advertising. People get quite cross, in text, where they wouldn’t dream of spitting vitriol in real life. It can be fun and it can be deeply depressing. But what about when you’re engaged with the debate but also the forum admin?
There are elections in the offing, in fact, and I’m up for one of them! In South Gloucestershire we all hit the polls on Thursday 2nd May 2019 to elect our new County Councillors, and also our Parish Councillors. I’ll (probably) be standing again for Charfield Parish Council, where I’ve served now for the past decade.
Our local county councillor has been a Lib-Dem for all that time, and they’ve done sterling work as minority partners in a Conservative majority council. A suspicious person would look at the current makeup of the county council and point out that all the planned strategic development locations in the WECA JSP within South Gloucestershire would seem not to be in Conservative wards. But surely you can’t draw such unerring conclusions…
But back to the forums, and quick, before this becomes a different post. It’s been incredibly hot and dry in recent weeks, and there’s been the expected number of inflammatory comments and the expected amount of gentle moderation applied. But how deeply can one become immersed in the conversations when they become party political? Especially when the worst of the flannel is coming from the “other” side of the floor. Or worse yet, when it doesn’t.
If I start calling posts out for being nonsense, I’m entirely likely to present a clear bias, particularly to the posters of nonsense. If I let it stand, it creates a situation where others will step up and present their truths, countered by the other’s brand of truth being expressed more forcibly, and so on. Of course, letting the argument continue without getting involved would be lovely, if it wasn’t for my email in-tray…
Ah, democracy. I’m ever so supportive of free speech when that freedom does not curtail others’. It’ll be fun to watch the blow by blow (oh, except it’s in a closed Facebook group, sorry). But there are elections coming, and folk are getting sassy. 😉
Rosher.Net 
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