12 November 2006

Recent feedback

| johnboy
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As we tap away bringing you a free service with no government funding we do enjoy hearing what people think of us. This weekend has been a particularly rich one, and as I realise the majority of readers don’t bother with the comments I thought we’d bring them to your attention.

Mickey D didn’t like what we had to say about the Belconnen Community Festivial.

“Bloody hell johnboy,you hit the nail on the head with that one.I mean after all if a community event couldn’t entertain you in the oh so long time of a whole half freakin hour then they deserve the so logical bashing that you did give.I myself might not have a threshold for entertainment but jesus mate,a whole half hour to put such a full depth review? of an event that went for at least a few hours.Top class all the way mate.You should have stayed for the strongman contest ‘cause you (me really) might have been lucky enough for one of the men to have dropped a heavy cement ball on you oh so fat head.Next time at least stay for some of the freaking event(half a freaking hour doesn’t count).Mind you while i was reading your long bloated review? i kept thinking “i need to be doing something,anything but reading load of trollop.I’m now going to lick my cats kitty litter tray to get the taste of your well written and constructed review?

Comment by MickyD — November 12, 2006 @ 12:31 pm

He then followed it up with another effort:

Fuck it to buggery johnboy,you are is wasted english skill of typinge is two good not two what the fuck are you on about? Grammar is a wonderfull thing.You can write about crap but at least stay for the boring event to crap on about.I am not a local nor anywhere near the ACT.

Comment by MickyD — November 12, 2006 @ 6:23 pm

I’m not entirely sure that was irony.

Pierce had a lot to say on the subject of my reportage of the PM’s XI.

“Oh for the love of God Johnboy, are you going to bitch and moan about not being taken seriously as a journalist or a serious media outlet every week now?

How exactly does editorialising on the work done by actual journalists (ABC, CT, SMH, shit even 2CC) and posting the odd report on something people saw as they were driving by the Lodge (a blurry truck with a log being loaded into it) or Christmas decorations at the Canberra Centre or most impressively, the appearance of the ramp to the carpark at the Canberra Centre give anyone here the right to claim journalistic credentials. (Ok, Jey aside perhaps)

Delusions of grandeur much? I would have thought that the Concatenate would have brought that back to Earth.

Yes, I enjoy the discussion of local events and issues, even if most of it is whiney in nature, politically slanted and underinformed, not to mention the sycophancy displayed by everyone to the all-wise JB. .

This frothing at the mouth about the “rude, unprofessional incompetents” at Cricket ACT because they refused to kiss your arse reminds me of another self-important media figure I’ve just finished reading about in Jonestown. (Of course, he has several thousand times more than 20 or 30 mindless yobbo rednecks feeding back to his rants)

Perhaps my rant would be better directed at him but that’s Sydney and Canberra deserves better.

Comment by pierce — November 12, 2006 @ 12:46 pm

For which I humbly apologise for expecting to get a reply after a series of correspondence, and also my paltry nine years experience as a working political reporter.

Wino also thought my comments were unfounded, despite the near-unanimous agreement of everyone who was actually there:

“JB fails to get a jurno pass to the kricett… then bags it…. who’d a thunk it

Comment by Wino — November 12, 2006 @ 6:52 pm

I think this is particularly unfair as I thought I’d had a great time at the cricket, and conveyed that.

Lastly, Equalitarian had numerous whinges about the way we run a site he doesn’t pay for and we don’t force to read, the first of which went like this on the matter of the dragway:

“Having lurked on this site for a while, it amazes me how divisive some people are. It’s as though there’s kudos in bagging other citizen’s enterprise and determination.
You elect political leaders, yet expect NIMBY lap-dog followers. Then criticise them for that too.
A dragway was Jon Stanhope’s election promise – you elected him knowing that – end of story>
The original dragway was a successful, low key, local enterprise that never put its hand out for Government funding. It was closed through a beaurocratic bungle and all their hard-earned finance, infrastructure, entertainment momentum and goodwill disappeared in a puff of red tape.
The negligence was ruled as such by the highest courts. The stupid, undeserved crap, confusion and conflict has continued ever since.
Put yourselves in those fellow Canberran’s position for a moment and think how you’d feel.
Just, legitimate and deserved compensation for the personal and organisational losses over the years would have cost the taxpayer far more than the reinstatement funding currently offered by the current Government and Opposition. (Schools vs dragway is a fudge for simpletons, admit it)
One of the factors mentioned in noise impact studies is the “prejudice against the source of the noise”, irrespective of the actual volume of that noise.
Prejudice is the problem.
Methinks citizen Ant, while living in Pialligo all those years ago, had an issue with people up the road having a bit of (very) occasional fun, rather than the volume of sound being overwhelming.There are no records of any complaints from that period.
It does seem curious that Ant’s anecdotal account of past suffering and inconvenience co-incididendally bobs up when there is a lawn mower and chainsaw lobby group playing “concertos” outside the Assembly building and vying for negative attention around the place.
Why pretend, through ignorance or deviousness, that the dragway was, or will be, worse than the true facts.
These are divisive fibs and not worthy of a modern, progressive city in the 21st century.

Comment by equalitarian — November 12, 2006 @ 12:02 am

This was followed by a spray about not being all sweetness and light about the belco community festival:

Hey Johnboy, is your daughter a belly dancer? Maybe you’d prefer she was home reading. No to both? Thought so.
Why does negativity feature so large in your critiques. A prob with a Belco extravaganza? Go to Wooden. Everyone tries, and cops shit from the armchair. Constructive is the go, after all, what did you miss while committed to this gig?
Yeah, I know, the keyboard

Comment by equalitarian — November 12, 2006 @ 12:59 am

In any event I’m sure if you all hate what we’re doing here you’ll stop reading, in fact we positively encourage you to.

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I appreciate the fact that I can get both sides of the story from publications such as RiotACT and Crikey. Sure the contributors have their biases but it makes for interesting reading.

I don’t have a clue who jb is, and with respect to what ever journalistic qual’s/experience he has, I don’t really care.

What I do care about is that jb devotes what must be a lot of his time in providing a virtually uncensored forum wherein we can all voice our opinions.

For that I am thankful, and if that makes me a sycophant to jb then so be it.

Oh and as for political independence – I’m so bloody independent, I have to ‘fess up and admit to voting for Paul Osborne!!!!

it seems to me that riotact is under soem sort of concerted softhead attack.

mysterious new posters with literacy levels rivalling three year olds, or school leavers from qbn, making multiple tedious posts about multiply tedious issues.

is riotact journalism ?

if it was published on paper and read by the same number of people that read it online no one would even question whether it was journalism.

im betting it has more readership than citynews.

its an excellent source of local canberra news.

notice that the ct website no longer even has a ‘local news’ option ?

apart from the abc online news, i cant think of a better source.

the fact that readers of the blog make posts – some of which would classify as ‘news’ cannot detract from this sites credibility or status as ‘journalism’.

you must all note that the major tv/radio/newspaper outlets all want YOU to contact them with YOUR news items. or photos you took etc.

is riotact any different ? Id say its better – as the news comes through from YOU relatively unfiltered and without the corporate ownership spin that it would attract on mainstream media.

additionally, a news item posted here allows YOU and ME to make a comment, add additional information, provide analysis, shitcan it etc.

the nice folks at naomi tonight or the ct dont want that. scares the advertisers away.

so jb – im a supporter of this site, as journalism, and your right to hit the delete key on unwanted posts, news items, or softhead trouble maker accounts.

so I’ve gone back and read the cricket article again, still seems quite negative to me. It is amusing to see the arse lickers get all bent out of shape though.
Great site, I enjoy it on many differant levels, if I didn’t I wouldn’t visit, much less participate.

Yes that would be the very same streak of yellow.

barking toad5:25 pm 13 Nov 06

Seems the negative feedback extends to radio as well.

I just caught the arse end of someone called John on radio samuel expressing some glee about a Canberra blog rep not getting accreditation as part of the meeja for the cricket match. He declined to name the blog.

Would this be the same John_B whatever of the weird tastes as exposed on TSSH recently?

hehe – Mr Evil… I wouldn’t be surprised…

My comment was ment as a light hearted dig, and I’d like to think that’s how it was taken.

barking toad11:40 am 13 Nov 06

nice of pierce to be a bit more conciliatory now he’s put the sherry away

but I find his sycophancy to the all-wise JB to be a bit much

🙂

JB, maybe you are being stalked by DJ’s family?

not so much labour other than on JB’s part pierce. There are few mostly slient partners in this endevour but without the numerous contributions from JB and continuing support from yourself and others who come back every day to read, Riotact wouldn’t be where it is now.

Oh and I should say, thanks to the people who do labour away tirelessly keeping this beast going, it is a great site.

Ok, so having had the chance to have a bex and lie down I will concede that my rant on the second cricket posting was unnecessarily harsh and apologise to those that I offended.

While I’m happy to take responsibility for my own actions, I will say that I probably shouldn’t have jumped online after reading about the Parrot for several hours and getting progressively more riled about the state of the media in Australia today 🙂

At the same time, I’m not going to disown some of the positions I took – I do look to RiotAct as a handy aggregation of local news and I do enjoy the breadth of intelligent discussion but at the same time I’m still not sure that it’s journalism as such. Of course, the question of what journalism even is, is quite unresolved and given the state of the media in this country today, anything that adds to the diversity should be encouraged.

Apologies also for my ignorance of your time in the Press Gallery Johnboy – the obfuscatory nature of your first description left me confused as to what you were doing there and led me to conclude something in the spin-doctoring field but evidently you were actually a journalist?)

As to sycophancy, again, that was probably OTT as well – there is probably no more here than any other web forum.

As to me, I have no political affiliations whatsoever. I’m not (and have never been) a member of any political party and didn’t even vote for Stanhope at the last election. I wonder how many regular posters here are able to claim the same level of independence.

Anyway, this isn’t particularly about me although it has been interesting to see the assumptions drawn in defence of the site. I do resent being called a rambling illiterate with bad spelling – I’d say that my ability to put my thoughts into structured paragraphs puts me above the level of rambling and any spelling issues I’ll put down to typos.

For the record, I’m not a newcomer to this site either, I just tend not to post unless I have something to add to the conversation.

I like to think they make for amusing reading.

It’s an internet rite of passage.

JB – why bother posting this kind of thing? Why give creedence to this kind of guff? I mean – it’s your right as editor, but it makes you look a little oversensitive.

I agree with all the comments JB.

Stop critisising everything and having delusions of grandeour and start acting more like a journalist. (sarcasm alert)

I wonder if these people will ever mature to the point where they can argue an opinion without getting stuck into the person they disagree with?

I often disagree with some of the opinions expressed here, and there are times I wonder why some things get coverage at all.

But I think the same thing about pretty much every news outlet I get my information from, so no biggie there.

The fact is, RiotACT is one of the few places where I can actually get any news and information about what is going on here in my hometown.

If people aren’t prepared to accept coverage or opinions that they don’t agree with, perhaps they should move on.

I’m offshore Medan Sumatra actually about 4deg 13min N and 98 deg 39min E. It would appear as if I’m in Singapore though because the Satellite link goes through our Singapore server. Anyway the point is I come here for news as well because it hands down beats the Canberra times website for local news.

JB, there will always be illiterate crapheads such as those featured above – they’re really not worth highlighting, and will in good time disappear into their own vapid areas of the blogosphere.

Bah. I think you guys (johnboy et al) are doing a bang up job. I don’t always agree with you, I don’t always think the stories posted are even of any relevance. But bloody hell, I’m getting a pretty good local news/opinion site here and it’s costing me nothing.
And for what it’s worth, I reckon a press pass to the cricket would have been well deserved – in terms of getting local news, this site runs second only to the ABC for me (sometimes even first).
(Sucking up? Me? Never!)

Yep, but all three are brand new arrivals, all with long, badly spelled rambles.

On the plus side, that usually means they’ll disappear within a week. Or turn into crazychester.

JB

Maybe fair comment on most of these posts, but including Equalitarian’s comments re the Dragway is drawing a very long bow. I can read no criticism of this site or its management into that post whatsoever.

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