The Devil's Own Blog From God's Own County

One, two, three, four, five, six.

We're not talking here about whether these are good or bad aims, good or bad criteria but they are the ones which developed at Blogpower over the last year and a bit.

Blogpower began as a loose collective for the small to medium blogger and the idea was to visit others and give mutual support. At first all was well because the type of blogger we had, Heather, Tom, Bel, Welshcakes, Ellee, was hardly likely to get into apocalyptic mania.

Trouble was we had an open door policy and virtually no rules of membership and so we had all types starting to join. As it grew, it was the members themselves, such as Matt Wardman, Ian Appleby and others, who started raising the question of ethical standards.

So, as one of the admins, I began with a BP ethos and this was fine tuned by the members themselves over the next year. The first crisis was the BNP. Many felt they had infiltrated BP for their own nefarious purposes but these weren't spelled out except that they were BNP.

When pressed, people would only say that it was a discredited hardline group with a racist agenda. But racism is not the only agenda and people roughly agreed that any blog pushing, say, mistreatment of women, would be equally anathema. Against that were the pure libertarians who said that anyone - holocaust deniers, mass murderers with an agenda of murder, anyone - should be admitted.

The upshot was that a large number of members left on the strength of the BNP and then we had the next crisis - getting rid of the BNP from the group.

I argued that the only reason we could act against any member was if he was using BP for his own ends and representing an organization, which the conservatives and liberals in there were also doing, incidentally. So clearly there were certain types of organizations which were anathema to members, i.e. ones which pushed an agenda contrary to the common good.

Unfirm ground, wouldn't you say?

As it turned out, our BNPer was a bit foolish and someone from outside Blogpower shopped him with his infamous "them" comment on a public forum, meaning that he saw himself as primarily BNP, pushing their agenda within BP. It was these grounds - using and viewing BP in a non-friendly way and not feeling one of the group in any way, which tipped the balance.

He left, another was blocked. Now the one who was blocked was technically just a conservative but the issue there was lack of transparency - that it wasn't possible to see who he was or what he was up to. Well, how many use pseudonyms anyway? The issue then was that he was not what he purported to be, i.e. he said he was this but was supporting an anathema group behind the scenes.

You have to understand here that this was a problem of political mindset - libertarians wanting no regulation and other political viewpoints favouring legislation, rules, codes of conduct and the like. With such a disparate group, this was always going to be an ongoing battle.

Out of this came a vague but still deeply held, for all that, ethos that the blog had to at least be of a certain 'quality' to be in BP, that it had to be transparent, not into some sort of active recruiting for any movement and used ethical means within the blog to disseminate its message. There was no issue of foul language at this stage.

At the same time, there was another issue - that of the hierarchical structure of the group. A sizeable number saw it as my "baby" but others, especially newer members and those who resented my influence were pushing for a democratic structure, which, as members know, I also was pushing, even down to a recent e-mail to Thunderdragon on the issue.

So the era of rules came in - that any objection needed a 72 hour discussion by members and so on. Other issues were where BP was actually going, what its direction was and how it was fulfilling its implicit aim of defending the blogosphere.

We then proceeded to accept new members, reject some and a self-actualization came in which people either accepted or went along with for the nonce. That's where I objected to Crushed by Ingsoc being in the group. I'll come to the reasons in a moment.

Now the whole difficulty with him is he was not a loner, like our BNPer was or a newbie. He'd been in there for some time, doing his thing and went round to many members' blogs leaving comments. So he was seen as a "good guy" and my objection to him was never likely to succeed on the grounds which I brought.

These were that he was using images of Christ as a cover to legitimize his call for a marxist one world government with himself as its prophet of some kind. There's no question as to him doing this - read his blogposts where he calls for people to rise up and join this movement. Plus his own quote:

Every reader counts, because if I can get enough, I can take it further. And they need to be devoted readers . You never really got the plan, you just saw this is something fun, its not.

The use of Christ in this way alone was unethical. Trouble was, as no one is Christian in the group, [there are satanists in there though], except one lady and she remained silent except to e-mail me agreeing, then members did not warm to the argument that he was out of line in the same way as racism on a blog is.

To vilify a Christian in these days is quite OK, in most people's minds. No one's going to act on abuse of Christianity. Blogpower certainly weren't.

Then came the second issue with him. Ms Swan started writing to me with what he was doing with women and the complications here were that firstly - what he was doing with women was not seen as a BP issue by members and secondly - that she was a jilted lover out for revenge. This was the line he pushed within BP and that alone should have raised eyebrows - that he was saying things about a person outside the forum which she could not defend.

Then came the first corroboration from outside this pair - two women who'd been used by him and they spelt out his modus operandi. He attracted girl visitors to his blog, made real contact, gave them to understand he was serious [see his post on sales technique] and then spat them out. Naturally they were not amused by this.

So the problem was that I knew what he was up to but couldn't make it public because I had no permission to release e-mails, even within BP.

Returning to BP, now we were in full swing at that point , vetting new members on moral grounds, on transparency, on general "good-guyedness" and on length of time the blog had been in operation. OK - so here was a blogger who was recruiting and not in any moral way, e.g. for one of the mainstream parties but for something most hold anathema - read other bloggers on the EUSSR, for example, to get the general idea. Well, that's what he was pushing but worse.

I wasn't after his scalp in terms of booting him out at that point but for members to recognize what was going on. Confirmation of his stance on his blog came in, in dribs and drabs, after that. Again, in his own words:

* the whole point of being anonymous was to use my blog to found a movementn and the government not to know who I was. Am i safe now?

* a marketing tool, a recruitment strategy

* like the girl at Klit---- [name abridged by Higham]. She is an anarchist in the Phillipines. A good contact for the planned movement.

* I don't care whather anyone loves J--- . I'd rather people loved that little red V.

The little red V meant victory of course for the "movement".

I became increasingly strident and vocal on him but because this last material wasn't available for members and they just had to rely on my saying he had said these things, he himself stepped up his assiduous visiting and being a good guy, along with picturing Ms Swan, from whom he thought it all came [though it didn't] as a mad jilted lover and me as misguided and under her thumb.

Now anyone in his right mind knows I'm impossible to control and sometimes out of control. This was one of the reasons for the denouement later. Look at my blog when I get onto an issue.

And yet this viewpoint took hold of many members - that this was a personal vendetta with some sort of personal gain in it for me. Well how personal had drumming out the BNP been? Of course it was personal but for whom was it done? In whose interests?

Blogpower of course and that was no different here.

Didn't matter if it was Ingsoc or Daily Mutterings - a rose by any other name ... I was still going to zero in on something "not right" and raise it because BP and BP members were being used here by this man for his own "plan" as he stated it above.

That's the point where he used a complete e-mail of mine I'd sent him some time back and posted it at Blogpower. I immediately called for his expulsion, on the grounds that this was completely unethical by any blogosphere standards, together with the constant trouble from this one source. People have been thrown out of BP for far less than this.

There was virtual silence. Two or three voices agreed that it was completely out of order and the prat had to be chucked out there and then. But the remainder were silent. I asked what the heck was going on here? This man who had the history which I'd already outlined had published my private e-mail to back up one of his arguments.

Blogpower's reaction was silence.

You see, he was one of the "good guys" referred to at the start, a long termer who visited others' blogs, giving them stats and commenting on their posts. Interests of BP versus personal interest here. Plus one very true point - I hadn't printed what I have above at that stage and was relying on people knowing I wouldn't attack anyone unless there was good reason or at least prima facie.

Then came the December 23rd incident where just as people were winding up and winding down for Christmas, he showed his true colours. Without considering that people might not want this coming to their e-mail at that time, he opened the issue up again and wanted me to answer his questions on the BP forum, where the e-mails go to everyone's inbox. Then he sent me an e-mail saying he now saw my true colours.

I reiterated at BP the reasons he must be expelled [as above] and the whole issue blew up again, at which point I said enough - that no more was going to be written for now, that I was going on hiatus and any decision would have to wait till New Year. At this point, I e-mailed three of the senior people, Ian Grey and two ladies and asked them to take over the functions I'd been running and instead I would administer the writing up of the rules etc.

Still as an admin, of course. This has been seized by Grey and he claims I had left the admins completely. In RL, his slant would be known as historic revisionism.

Now no one, at this stage, had really stepped back and considered that this one man, Ingsoc, had dominated the whole of BP matters for nigh on three months and that as long as they retained him, it was never going to alter. I had just managed to convince some fairly high profile bloggers to join BP and this was a terrible thing for them to come into.

Thus I stated categorically at the mailing list that neither he nor I was to comment in any way on this matter until after New Year, when it would be finally resolved. Members said thank goodness for that.

What do I find halfway through this period? He'd been to the least experienced lady admin and as she herself said, on her own authority, had permitted him to issue yet another statement on the mailing list, tagged to her own statement so that technically it was her statement.

Now this was simply contrary to what members had indicated. It was Christmas, for goodness sake and NO statements should have been issued by either him or by myself. I e-mailed the admins asking what the hell had brought that on. I was on blog hiatus at the time and only wanted some peace at that point.

And what is a "tagged on" statement anyway? And why? For what purpose, with everyone knowing I was on blog hiatus? Why not when I was NOT on hiatus?

When I did come back, I finally had the permission I needed from two of the women Ingsoc mistreated to reproduce some of the sordid details but couldn't issue them at BP itself because of the rule I'd put in place myself which members had gone along with - no more at this forum.

However, I was also being e-mailed by members that if I had anything, to put it up and resolve the matter. Now I was finally allowed to release the material [building up every day] but it was too sordid to be of use [sexual and with lots of foul language] so I released the toned down bits you have seen if you've read the posts. And it had to be at my site because the other had been closed off by my own rule.

Ian Grey had been waiting for a pretext and when I put the first post about Ingsoc [see "One" above], he, at midnight on January 4th, revoked my moderator status on the grounds that I had to stop making statements at BP. His decision was out of order on two and a half grounds:

1. the airing of this issue within the mailing list had been specifically banned by me in the first place, not by him, so my whole thrust was that nothing be published at BP;

2. he had no right to revoke my status under BP procedures, where any major move is always on a recommendation to members, followed by a 72 hour discussion at the forum;

3. technically, for the same reason, he was not an admin yet because the new inner admin group had not been approved by the membership - that was down for after New Year.

Why did he do it? Pretty clear - to prevent me from posting anything. Now, Matt, in the post below, said I left BP "in a huff".

Well, that's really rich.

Grey unilaterally shuts me out of the BP forum and any message from me can only go through him. the controller of the forum so the only way to call his conduct on this is via individual e-mails. I did e-mail many members and I also e-mailed the admins, reminding them that Grey had "overstepped his authority", according to BP procedures.

I received a few e-mails back from people still in town, appalled that this had happened and asking what the hell was going on - plus one from Grey, cced to the other admins. In this he stated that all three admins had agreed to gag me. But he knew that he couldn't do this. At least he had done it but not legitimately.

Matt has also asked why I didn't remain in BP and deal with Grey inside?

How, Matt? How? He'd revoked my posting rights and the other two had either gone along with him or hadn't known about it. There was no forum left to call members, except to either e-mail all 60 or post on my own site.

E-mailing 60 people did not seem a good move during this holiday period.

At that point I threatened the admins that unless this was revoked, I was gone from BP [even then there was support for me in certain sections, as the co-founder of BP and they had e-mailed me specifically not to leave].

Now came the actual reason I did leave - the one which tipped the balance.

After the e-mail cced to the other admins, came another e-mail, privately to me from Grey and it didn't mince words. The tone you can imagine and all his resentment of many things over the history of BP came to the surface. Ian Appleby is the expert on this and he knows that Grey has been tricky to handle. It runs very deep and very long and involves his resentment of many things.

That was the end of it. This was so unpleasant and so misconstrued the situation that there was no choice any longer. It made working with the admins impossible and look what I would have had to have done if I'd stayed:

For a start, I'd have had to get my posting rights back from Grey but to do that, I could only go through Grey himself. This would have involved a mass mailing on my part and for what? To dislodge all three admins who'd acted outside their brief [two without really knowing that] and to dislodge Ingsoc. Do you see that this was getting too mammoth, particularly with something called Real Life also demanding the lion's share of my time?

So I resigned at DTB [the only place I could leave the message] because life's too short to be dealing with this sort of vitriol. It warned the members what Grey had done. I e-mailed the ladies to say that's what had happened. One wrote back immediately [one of the longest serving members of BP] to broker a way back. Even at this point I was going to retract the resignation letter from DTB on the strength of this brokering. Remember that this is about 2 a.m. and it was hardly likely many would have read it yet.

Too late.

Grey had already, at that very same moment that another admin was brokering a peace, lifted this letter and put it inside "his" mailing list to be sent to all members round the world. He wasn't allowing any possibility of me coming back.

Did he try to resolve the issue at any time by brokering a peace? Did he make any last ditch attempt to resolve the matter?

Not him. He sent prescripted ultimata, that was all. No attempt to delve into and fully explore the issue at all. No recognition that if I'd been going on about this for so long, there must be something to it. No attempt to say, "OK, James, let's appoint someone [which we'd done once before] to look at the allegations in detail and his decision will stand."

There was no attempt at any reasoned resolution of the matter.

What members could hardly have known, [and this post is mainly for members], is that the key to the success of BP largely lay with Ian Appleby. He was the one who kept two Yorkshiremen - one cavalier and prone to exerting huge pressure over issues and the other obstinate and resentful - on an even keel, which is rich because he himself is from those parts.

So BP was adminned by the three Yorkshiremen. Good eh?

But the thing was, when Ian had to go, the balance was gone and though both Ian Grey and I did what we could to stay friendly, we were chalk and cheese. Therefore I think you can understand that when he says at the mailing list that everything was done to broker a solution - that's bollocks. History says otherwise.

He was the final straw and even when I moved to stay in at the death, he'd already moved to exclude me.

So that's where it is. Shut out. The long term admin who tried to broker the peace has since resigned from her position and the other two run the show.

They've done some damage control at BP, sending letters out to members who left in support of me and assuring members that I left of my own accord [which Matt interpreted as leaving in a huff] and that BP would go on to bigger and better things without me and so on.

Much of the blogosphere knows of my attachment to BP and that almost all my blogging actions were in terms of that group. People know full well that personal vendettas within BP are a strawman and that it was for BP that this man had to go. The trouble is that he was too entrenched and so it was me who had to go instead, engineered by Grey.

Finally there is the charge that I am acting now to bring Blogpower down.

What sort of a fr----ng idiot would say that? Everyone knows that you don't tear down that which you invested so much of yourself to build up - at least I don't. I've wished them well and said I am still for them. This is the charge which hurts the most - that I'd try to bring BP down.

But with their leader having now shut me out, do they expect silence on what actually went on, especially when the wrong story is being peddled as to the true state of affairs? These were my personal friends, for goodness sake, who've now been fed an untrue line and who have left me.

Matt writes of poisoning people against BP. Really? Where have I written against BP itself? Show me. I've written against two people who should not be there and I state it again. What do I personally gain from this? Zero. Nerves. And what of the friends I've lost? What about the poisoning of their minds against me by a construction placed on the events which does not accord with what really happened? That gets no mention, does it?

That is the story.

All my posts on the matter

One, two, three, four, five, six.

Labels: blogpower ethos, procedures