more badly taken notes….excuse errors, written on the hoof……Simon McGarr….Libel online.. You’ve the same legal standing as a blogger as RTE. Defo of defamation - ” where a false statement is published about a person which tends to lower that person in the eyes of rith thinking members of society”. Doesn’t matter if everyone knows it’s false. You have to prove it’s false. “right thinking members of society” can usual be replaced with “judge”. Defenses 1. justification 2. fair comment (opinion). What is fair comment - matters of pulic interest. I’m of the opinion that deputy x did not give the full truth….Artistic merit can be fair coment. You can say something (piece of art) is total rubbish. Who is liable - authors, editors and publishers, isps. Are isp’s publishers or mere conduits? If you have a moderator you are a publisher and editor. Isp’s including hosting. Remaining a mere conduit - caching/hosting. (i’m running out of battery so might get cut off soon). If you are unhappy about something write to host. I don’t like what they are publisihing - the more vague the better- and the host is almost obliged to remove site. Misuse of defamation law: ….if someone says you have defamed someone and you haven’t then they have defamed you. 1. SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation (he didn’t hint that mcd might have been doing this) 2. McLibel - mcd’s want people to stop handing out leaflets - we wer not given a fair trial - no state aid - therefore a right to civil legal aid in libel cases.3. Fake Claims. If you get served with legal papers go to lawyer to make sure that they are genuine - could be some chancer …sorry battery died in the middle of this one…also had to leave directly after it. Thanks to all the speakers, Damien, Suzy and Cian and all else involved in putting it together.

more badly taken notes….excuse errors, written on the hoof…Guido Fawkes is introduced (from order-order.com) - started sept 2004 total hits 600 a year later 27,000 and now 350,000 hits a month. Spikes of traffic when elections on. His mission : narcissism and personal ammusement. The Guido “brand” would tell a little being named after the guy who planned to blow up the parliament. He started blogging on samizdata where he used to email his posts to them, eventually his emails went “missing” so he started his own. For a long time he was getting 600 hits untilhe saw a labour party posted which he thought looked iffy (Michael Howward with a clock) - he emailed the newspapers and then his traffic exploded (after being published in newspapers). Then journalists would come back to his site to see what he was stirring up. He had a cross-over moment (when Mick Fealty writes about you in the Guardian). Novelty is incredibly important - something people didn’t have before. It may be a bit of gossip overheard in the parliament. His market is journalists and insiders. He spoke in a language that they understood. His is more “Matt Drudge than wonkette. His main competition are the diarist who used to steal his stories and then they started getting invoices from him. If people steal his stories he enters in the Pres Plagiarist of the Year Award. He has a “lie-ometer” taking piss out of politicians. It annoys him when nobody says “you’re lying” particulalry in broadcast media. The journalist needs access to the politician. The need for access is why they get away with it. ….gives Cherie Blair story journalst overheard about Gordon Brown - journalist would have been under pressure on that one….Tried to do issues with righ, left and cetre bloggers - problem was that left blogger hated Tony Blair as well as the rest of them (Recess Monkey). Alot of sources come in by email (you probably know this already). Guido claims he is still on outside despite contacts with mainstream media. Guido has still some credibility - he hasn’t had a writ that have been successful - no major mistakes. No real money…until popbitch and guido - since introduced advertising. Can make as much money as a journalist. If quality of writing is good you will be picked up - so good way for a journalist to break into the industry. If you pick right subjects that mass audiences are interested in then you can have a very successful blog. It is effecting “dead tree” media - people being let go, journalists being paid lest, more resources going towards online offering. He as re-jigged his life to have no assets in the UK! Raised hurdles for been served a writ. His publishing company is overseas. His servers are in US. Used pictorial references to name Prescott’s mistress. Sometimes doesn’t mention to his wife what posts he’s doing! Naming Prescott’s mistress went front page on newspapers. He thought he was going to be sued - caused awkwardness. He stayed in France. Nothing came of it. No writ. After that the traffic leapfrogged. Also broke the “loans for peerage” scandal which he believes will end in charges been brought. Guido is now in the loop on this as he has been a leader on it. Difficult to keep secrets these days - everyone has a cameraphone these days. If you are in right place and right time you don’t need all the equipment of CNN. Sites like webcameron are less spun and more honest (are they????). Using “message space” to increase revenue. Podcasts are dead, videobloggin is the way forward. Nobody puts into their ipod they click on it on their pc. The Press will be pixellated (it’ll be a matter of printing off a pdf). Newsrooms will survive but comment journalists will survive. Guido’s next project is going to be a video blog (guy news online!)

Richard Delevan asks Guido would he take up a column - Guido says he’s turned them down - prefers not to have to report to editorial staff. Question about how important is his image…..he says image taken from kids magazine from the 50s. He says that there is most journalist are liberal - believe reducing taxes are bad idea. Guido would be hiting the delete button on coments if he were a politician. He would moderate moderately. Guido is a full time blogger. 40 hours a week maybe more. Success is due to content. Cost of running it is just his broadband connection (like Iain Dale he uses blogger.com). Sophisticated system is not important, content is important. Response to question: 2005 election in uk was the electioin where the “blogs. didn’t bark”. If you’re looking for a scalp follow a candidate aroung with a webcam and wait for a slip up. Mick (slugger) says that blogging Northern Election doubled his traffic. Lot’s of people sending in photoshopped images. Lot of fun to be had around election. He disputes with Guido that Slugger is totally respectable. Sharp blogging produces sharp journalism, produces sharper politicians. Effects are generally positive. Guido: he would focus on advisers of politicians who are good source of info. Guido now gets info by email (he used to Google as an investigative tool). Now lunch. I’ll prob. have to head off soon enough after.

More badly taken notes….excuse errors, written on the hoof……Suzy contacted a range of politicians who blogged (not putting up just press releases) and she contacted some of the parties. She shows Brody Sweeney vlog. (That’s the guy from O’Briens Sandwiches - I didn’t know he was in politics but he is - for Fine Gael - his site is at http://www.brodysweeney.ie/defaultb.asp - don’t see any rss feeds obviously).

First speaker is Damien Blake (http://www.damienblake.com) .

Damien amazed at the success and interest in his blog. He focuses on local issues in Letterkenny. 3 Goals - connect to local people with contact details and info , connect people with services and lend support to local events (secret 4 th goal to beat his brother’s bebo site).

If Damien was wondering about issue he found it useful to put a post up on it and get comments (bad or good). Useful for getting an informed debate going. He’s surprised that if you send a press release to the local newspaper they’ll actually run it. He recommends that if you’ve a problem you should blog about it, put the facts online, but don’t slander the politicians straight out- better just put the fact out there.

Nest spearker Ciaran Cuffe - who was out with Michael McDowell at a school reunion (Gonzaga - he speaks with a more “normal” accent that what you would expect from a Gonzaga alumnus). Old style media still extremely important - where most of his constituents will find it - but you have to keep your finger in both camps. He also uses a website to convey regular messages - blog is more personal, he can also put non-politics issues - more about himself. He gets contact from old ladies with handwritten notes, email, text etc…so many people related to the world through different media which he believes is not a bad thing. Sometimes the mainstream medai pick up on what he’s saying on his blog and contact him and ask about it. He would like to blog more, rarely gets the time.. ….afghan in cathedral, mohammed cartoons, love ulster, rape case / laws, were examples of meaningful items he blogged on. Blogging is a great way to get away from the constraints of party politics….(he trasferred email from Dich Roche on to his blog…as a comment)….He enjoys it and will be blogging the election over the next while.

Next speaker Dominic Hannigan- labout councillor from Meath. (http://dominichannigan.blogspot.com/). He started in March 2006. He also had a website dominichannigan.com - had debate before he set up the blog - some thought it would be a bad idea - it takes an hour a week, did it on a Sunday. Over the last few weeks that it leaves him open to a lot of critisim. He’s in a marginal seat area in running agaist primarily a Fianna Fail candidate. He didn’t moderate at all at start. In August they had issue with a school. He posted about it, some comments were quite negative. He deleted a comment and got grief for it- which was picked up by a village magazine who commented that he removed a post - so last Sunday he posted and within an hour he had 7 “people” attackinng him (5 came from the same computer). The problem is that it may catch the attention of the national media and they may mention this which will detract from the real situation. Dominic puts it to the audience - what should he do about this - obviously it’s better not to be moderating - what are people’s views on this.

Bernie asks Dominic did he get professional advice on blogging or is he on thin ice himself? Dominic didn’t do a huge amount of research before he set up the blog. Bernie says that Dominic is naked without the tools to block out the troublemakers. Slugger mentions that the Guardian restrict people to one comment per half hour. Slugger also says there are “trawls” who assume different identities and they try to ignore these guys, but there are others who if you engage on the upper side of the argument who can get a higher standard of discussion and readers get more out if, about what makes you tick. So long as you are straight with people they will see that you have integrity. Ciaran moderates his comments (usually due to advertising for enhancements…). There are some topics he doesn’t get involved with, if it’s a debate that you can’t win (”there were no votes there”).

Speaker from the floor (didn’t catch name - colm?) says that level of discourse is apauling. He says that the blogging politician are involved in clientelism (e.g. labour shold be blogging about multiples of salaries for ceo’s., greens should be saying that we should n’t be using air travel to save co2 emissions). Dominic said that he has many policy papers on his blog. R Delevan says that the interesting thing is how the politicians respond when there’s a burning issue and they have many comments. Damien agrees with Colm about clientelism. He found that while he may be an idealist many people don’t care about policy. He likes the disintermediation of blogging - you can give your thought processes even ahead of a vote, directly to the people. The blog gives an opportunity come across as more of a person. It’s another way of interacting.

Simon says that surely that politicians have no choice but to blog. He says he represents the “crest of the wave”…..this is the new generation …if demographics say that people want to blog online then there must be a resonse from the politicians. Politicians just give up, they can’t reach them, they can’t leaflet apartments. Blogging is the way to reach the younger generation. Comment difficutlies will have to be fixed if they wish to be relevant to the younger generation. Ciaran agrees that it really is bizarre to knock on someone’s door while there eating dinner and say “do you want to talk about the election” - blogging is one of the saner ways of communicating.

Question from the floor: How do you justify the time. For 2007 is it time well spent for getting votes. Dominic says that being the vanguard of blogging means that you can get some national coverage and exposure. He spends an hour a week - he could see about 20 people in their homes in that time. Ciaran agrees that there is advantage in being an early adopter (all have featured for blogging) - any means necessary to get your message across. He didn’t go into politics to meet 60,000 people in dun laoghaire - he went into politics to get some ideas acrosss. He tells story about rapid fire canvassing through intercoms in apartment blocks when he was a Dublin City Councillor. Blogging he reckons will be a useful tool in the toolkit. Damien says there are times when you are not canvassing so blogging doesn’t need to take away from canvassing. Ciaran emphaises that it’s also about showing that you’re human (reference to his post about Leonard Cohen).

Badly taken notes live from blogging the election conference…I arrived late as usual.. Richard Delevan is asked what is impact. People like him listen. If you can put information into the public domain that has impact. Getting your guy elected can be a very clear measure of impact. If you can expose that someone is unfit for office, that’s impact. Then he shows ad from youtube - one for a property website (funda) which I’ve seen before. Man I wanted to live in one of those apartments - amenities to entertain and delight the island residents - on a new dublin beachfront - classic. Maybe the PD’s might latch on to that one. Be funny, fierce and fearless.

Well you’ve heard of the tag cloud - well we’ve developed what we call the “Theme Cloud” (we were going to call it “topic cloud” until we search-engined for that [we didn’t “Google for it” because to use Google as a verb like that is a breach of Google’s TM] and found that someone else had trademarked the name “topic cloud”. Anyway it’s very like a tag cloud except for 2 major differences:

- Words are grouped together in clusters, by theme
- We include bigrams i.e. two words rather than just one

One other difference is that it is not developed from technorati tags or category labels but rather from our bots analysis of the word/term weightings and distributions.

Damien notes that there have been problems recently with old blog posts coming back to life and to the front page. This is caused by GUID problems. Every post in the feed should have a GUID. This allows us to separate new posts from old posts. Sometimes people edit posts and there system doesn’t have a GUID with the result that our system thinks it’s a new post. Other times bloggers delete a post that they want to edit and create a whole new post with pretty much the same text, and in this case the post nearly always has a new GUID. Recently Blogger went pretty much way offside by totally screwing up all the GUID’s for those who moved to the new Blogger Beta. So there are many ways for getting GUID problems, but the vast majority of those are caused by the recent Blogger screw up. We’ve tried to do a bit of a clean up and have killed 181 of the Blogger type GUID change posts.

It’s not the first time we’ve reason to question the behaviour of those at blogger. See:

What’s good for the Google is not good for the Gander - Google blocks Blogger content and then disobeys robot.txt

Roger over and out.

Hi there,

Sorry for the absence over here on irishblogs. We’ve been working on our Irish Search Engine, Scrudu.

We did take some time out to do something that we’d been meaning to do for a while - and that is to list podcasts on the site as we find them. You’ll see them there on the right hand side of the home page.

While we were fixing the guid problem we revisted “The Buzz”. While it is still work in progress, we’ve made a few changes which seems to produce much better results. This is an area we would like to spend more time on in the future.

We’ve done some work to clean up the duplicates caused by people using blog systems which do not report the post guid correctly. One of the downsides of this is that there will be temporary errors over the next 3 days (these errors should get cleaned up every 5 mins or so). Some of these errors will be permanent for the small percentage of sites that do not report a date or any guid at all.

This is a message we received in relation to Blogsome.

dear sir,
my bloge add has been inturupted by a child baby. at the managing time i had gone to bathroom at that time a baby dismiss that blog that’s why sir pls, i request you to stablished again. thank u

My guess is that he’s saying “I deleted my blog accidentaly and I’d like to blame it on my child. Can you reinstate please.”