For others besides himself, it was okay for him to term Russia Blog as “propaganda”, as uncritical praise was heaped on another blog.

When legitimate criticism was raised of that other blog, it was simplistically categorized as a “bash” followed by a series of disingenuous personal attacks.

It’s worth repeating that all of Chris Doss’ posts here were of a purely crank nature. Also note the silence of those who seemngly try to give the appearance of being responsible.

Once again, I’ve no criticisms of Andy on the conduct of this thread. Unlike other moderators/hosts, he hasn’t come in to take a questionable side (put mildly) over the other. One can either be an even handed disciplinaraian or take a completely laissez faire approach. The overtly biased moderator/host isn’t a positive quality.

At this thread, links were posted where intelligent discussion could be found. The purpose of trolling can be to either eliminate the participation of a source for political reasons and-or to get a perverse kind of cheap thrill by saying stupidly negative remarks against an individual or individuals. Such a scenario is akin to the crank caller to a talk radio show. Caller id systems and the 7 second delay have mostly eliminated that as an issue.

“I often have the impression that the best comments come in the first fifteen or so, after which quality declines precipitously and often exponentially. Why might that be?

1. The truly smart people only like to make smart points on “fresh” posts. For instance more people read the comments on fresh posts (but why?), so the benefit of a quality comment is lower as the post becomes older.

2. As time passes, the chance that a warring twosome find each other, and take over the thread, increases.

3. There is a tendency to attack or respond to the stupidest or most controversial thing said, and the longer the comments thread runs for, the stupider this will get.

4. As the number of comments multiplies, so does the number of independent discussion threads and the optimal number of threads is exceeded.”

To read the whole thing, go to:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/02/does-the-qualit.html

Moreover, he isn’t aware of my financial situation which in any event is none of his sorry ass business.

“Kremlin fuck-ups”? (his words). Actually, I’ve discussed them. His apparent learning disability prevents him from acknowledging them. It could be a combination of that and just carrying on like a disingenuous troll, who knowingly skirts certain particulars.

Whatever the case, he has conculsively shown himself to be an absolute flop.

Ditto the hypocritically blowhard antics of Kolya, with his pious denouncing of LR. He lost credibility given his own manner.

I’ve been proven right.

The troll patrol at this thread reveals a very sorry aspect of the society at large.

As you wrote, it’s morbidly fascinating to observe the degeneration of this thread. I stopped reading most of the comments but out of amusement watched this thread’s growth into meaninglessness. Averko has a pathetically funny compulsive addiction. You are correct, at one point he posted five times in a row! But that was not enough for him. As I’m writing this, there are seven comments under your last comment, Lyndon. Guess what? Six of them are from Averko. And once again he repeated his sad feat of sending five in a row.

I already explained the address posting. He must have a learning disability.

Lyndon haasn’t been “right” for the expressed reasons, which the troll from Ireland doesn’t address.

http://www.transdniestria.co.uk/

The Romanianphile/Moldovanphile Lyndon has righteously spoken against “Russian anti-Semitism”, while being compararively mute on the Romanian/Moldovan variant which is noticeable.

Lyndon is prone to expressing views like how Molodva’s Gagauz aren’t really being persecuted, while expressing concern for Romanian language Latin alphabet rights in Pridnestrovie (Trans-Dniester). Of the two, there’re those who would consider the former to be the greater issue.

Lyndon has also tryed to emphasize Stalin’s popularity in Russia, while not saying much about the pro-Antonescu sentiment evident among a good number of Romanians and Moldovans.

Or does he prefer having his friend Chris Doss crank away against independently sound pro-Russian views for reasons other than seeing quality exchanges.

A perfectly valid question since Chris calls him a friend and PL is involved with RTTV.

plavelle@rttv.ru

His email is a matter of record.

Some think it insane to advocate a better product.

So be it!

Re: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/50364

In the spirit of offering different views, The Tiraspol Times (a far more objective source than what some often unchallenged and biased sources say to the contrary) carries Muhammad Megalommatis’ views ( http://www.tiraspoltimes.com/search/node/Muhammad+Megalommatis ) which I (put mildly) disagree with.

In Megalommatis’ American Chronicle piece, there’s no substantiation of his claim that “Kosova” has as much a right to independence as the former Yugo republics. Kosovo was in fact part of the Serb republic in Yugoslavia and never a republic itself. In 1989, Kosovo’s autonomy status within Serbia was changed because of the increased Albanian nationalist mayhem during the years of the dictator Tito’s enforced autonomy (1974-89). If one checks back to 1988, there was a consensus among the former Yugo republics that the situation in Kosovo worsened because of the autonomy granted to it. Autonomy or not, it was never a republic separate from Serbia.

Awhile back, I noted how in some instances greater autonomy can prove counterproductive to fostering greater human rights ( http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/8375-25.cfm ) .

Megalommatis’ claim about how Russia will lose the Muslim world has been proven wrong. Despite Russia’s support for Serbia and a war involving predominately Muslim Chechnya, Russia is on arguably better terms with the Muslim world when compared to the leading Western nations. Unlike other European heads of state, Putin attended a major Organization of Islamic States conference; where he expressed interest in his nation becoming a member of that organization.

Some analysts have suggested that the historical and cultural ties between Russia and Serbia are overrated. The more overrated belief is the idea that going against the Serbs puts the West on good terms with the Muslim world (reference comments made on this point by Bill Kristol and Paddy Ashdown, among others).

When belittling Russia and Serbia, note how Megalommatis selectively chastises the use of the way “democrats” is (in his view) wrongly used. Present day Kosovo is less democratic than Serbia minus Kosovo. On that point and others, the Serbs have proven their case over the Albanian nationalists.

*****

I posted ther rest of it because it relates in part to Russia and GV having a seemingly (at least of late) anti-Serb bias.

This is constructive criticism as opposed to the mischievously wanton attacks launched by some at this thread. My way of formal criticism isn’t at the level of what’s found elsewhere.

“Here are the relevant stats: of the 117 comments on this thread so far, 58 (by my count) were posted by the most prolific commenter among us, who also has managed to make three unanswered comments in a row on five separate occasions; four unanswered comments in a row twice; and at one point posted five unanswered comments in a row!

Although they do not always tell the whole story, simple numbers can be very revealing. In this case, they seem to reveal that the ‘performance’ in the comments above is indeed “a further sign” of said commenter’s “great ability” in matters such as clicking on the ‘Submit Comment’ button.

And yes, I am aware that a comment analyzing blog comment statistics is ‘off-topic’ almost by definition and could be seen as about as consequential as counting the number of dust motes in one’s belly-button lint. I prefer to think of it as deliciously meta.”

****

No substantiation whatsoever in much the same manner as the German speaking troll blogger in the trackback below.

I understand that Lyndon Allin is involved with selecting Global Voices blog material from eastern and central Europe. The selection process typifies his biased and factually challenged opinions on a number of topics. Plenty of one sided convoluted invective from Greater Surbiton and the Srebrenica Genocide Blog, but nothing of late from blogs like Gray Falcon and the Byzantine Sacred Art Blog. Deciphering Transnistria has yet to get posted at GV, unlike the faulty produced material from Fistful of Euros. Wonder why? I factually replied to some of the faulty Fistful of Euros material at GV. Of late, the GV posted comments section hasn’t been picking up posted comments.

It’s quite clear who does and doesn’t believe and observe the idea of intelligent discussion in as non-biased a situation as possible.

This is now the second-most-commented-on post in the history of Siberian Light. The 117 comments would make it a bit of a piker over at Sean’s Russia Blog, where this kind of thing seems to happen all the time, but still – over a hundred comments is nothing to sneeze at. Perhaps we could conclude, since the original post is about blogs, that the large number of comments is just further proof (as if any were needed) that bloggers like to talk about themselves.

Further examination, however, reveals that blogger navel-gazing cannot account fully for the high number of comments. Here are the relevant stats: of the 117 comments on this thread so far, 58 (by my count) were posted by the most prolific commenter among us, who also has managed to make three unanswered comments in a row on five separate occasions; four unanswered comments in a row twice; and at one point posted five unanswered comments in a row!

Although they do not always tell the whole story, simple numbers can be very revealing. In this case, they seem to reveal that the “performance” in the comments above is indeed “a further sign” of said commenter’s “great ability” in matters such as clicking on the “Submit Comment” button.

And yes, I am aware that a comment analyzing blog comment statistics is “off-topic” almost by definition and could be seen as about as consequential as counting the number of dust motes in one’s belly-button lint. I prefer to think of it as deliciously meta.

Do carry on, gentlemen, the all-time SL record for comments on one post is within reach!

At least this venue has a fair game attitude unlike the other one.

I can earnestly say that my performance here against the asshole behavior is a further sign of the great ability I possess in a high profile media/public relations position. I’ve the satisfaction of knowing that some intelligent others feel the same way.

Talk about cranky!)