Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Hol responsibilty to monitor standards of site content
On another posting on this site a member posted the following:
My response was:
I'd welcome comments on the principle involved here. What do people think? Should the site allow any content to go unchallenged or should we edit certain content? If so, where ought the boundaries of acceptability be placed? Are our terms or service about right or do they need to be changed?
Unfortunately Hugh has chosen to leave this thread off the HOL mail out. He'll have his reasons. He always does. He also is obsessively taking anyones comment off the 'Activity Panel' where you can see the latest comments made by members. However this thread links to an article in a respected national newspaper. It talks about a very serious issue happening in our area. As many people as possible should know what's happening. Are we only into 'candy floss' community news or do we want to be informed about whats actually happening within our community?, (such as the 'drug den' bust in Effingham Rd).
Let the members decide instead of the heavy handed site moderator.
P.S. Watch this comment disappear.
My response was:
Matt, thanks for your comments. You are quite right, I did omit this posting for the weekly mail and you are already aware of the reasons for that since I have made myself clear in a private message to you.
For the benefit of other members I will explain.
For this site to be effective, one of the things we must ensure is that content published here is true and accurate. Where it is made known to us that something is untrue or misleading we will ask the author to amend it. Where the author declines, we ultimately reserve the right to edit or delete that posting. This is clearly set out in the terms and conditions.
On this occasion. Matt, you reproduced a Guardian article verbatim, except in two respects:
1. The title (you changed it from to "The gang shootings that put police with machine guns on London's streets" to "Green Lanes .... gang violence back within our community")
2. The addition of a picture
Your title implied that the recent incidents have taken place on Green Lanes which the original article did not do. I have checked with the police and they have confirmed that none of the recent incidents took place in Harringay. The nearest was on West Green Road.
You also added a picture with the title “Green Lanes centre of gang violence.” The picture is neither in the original article nor is it taken in Green Lanes.
I do not want this site knowingly to allow misleading and scaremongering content. There are plenty of other publications out there doing that. So, I wrote to you and asked you to change the title. I also added a comment on this post querying the content.
You chose not to respond, either openly or by message. So I changed the title to that in the original Guardian article. You reverted that change to your original, and the current, title. I was left with four choices:
1. Do nothing
2. Enter into a struggle to change the title.
3. Delete the post.
4. Remove reference to it from the latest activity panel so as to minimise its profile and impact.
I chose the fourth option since at the time I felt it offered the best balance between effectiveness and stoking the issue and giving it even higher prominence.
It appears to have been the wrong decision since, the cats clearly out of the bag on this and members visiting from the weekly mailer will have been able to read the title whether they read the article or not.
In the final analysis, however, this post has been useful since it has helped deepen my thinking on the need for factual accuracy.
As for your comment Matt, "Watch this comment disappear", it has not disappeared; not one comment has ever been removed from this site for challenging our policies in the two years and more it’s been running. Every challenge or question is responded to with clear reasoning.
I'd welcome comments on the principle involved here. What do people think? Should the site allow any content to go unchallenged or should we edit certain content? If so, where ought the boundaries of acceptability be placed? Are our terms or service about right or do they need to be changed?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Birdy_Too on
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You know my views on this but I seem to get shouted down for them.
The Harringay Green Lanes Food Festival was it's official title but HOL distorted it and made it Harringay Festival in pretty much all of it's coverage, is there any difference?
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Interesting point, but the issue there Birdy was somewhat different. We ran a survey on the site in which 66% of respondents said they wanted the festival to be called the Harringay Festival. Only 34% chose Harringay Green Lanes Festival. This was brought to the attention of the Green Lanes Strategy Group and we even offered to run a bigger survey. The decision was taken to ignore this because the Council have taken an informal decision to rename the area and refuse to recognise that it is called Harringay. There's a whole slew of postings on this)
So the use of Harringay Festival over Harringay Green Lanes Festival in the postings by admin and members was in part a small protest at the high handed way the council has decided to rename the area and second a reflection of the wishes of members of the site as they were understood.
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It is not up to you, the SG or HOL to decide. The festival committee decided, like it or not and we have to respect that.
I prefer the HOLF, but I respect the decision made and we should be 100% behind it rather than playing boss.
We can campaign for it but it isn’t and wasn’t and we need to accept that. If we start throwing our toys out of the pram when we don’t get our own way it reflects badly on HOL.
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That's a whole discussion Birdy which would include which members' petitions we include. Both are legitimate forms of protest. At this point there is no HoL policy. In the absence of that Liz and I take decisions. I'd welcome a HoL group discussion on it and for someone then to go away and draft a policy on this complex issue.
With regard to your point on the festival. That's a challenging line of argument. It almost sounds like - once the council has taken a decision we should abide by it. This wasn't an openly reached democratic decision. It was one taken by a self selecting body Birdy and therefore very much open to non-antagonistic protest.
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Why can’t you respect and uphold the decision made by the committee?
HOL is not the only voice for Harringay as much as it’s a great community tool.
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Great question. Under what circumstances should decisions of elected bodies just be accepted. (And is there any difference for decisions made by unelected bodies?)
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You need to sometimes bite the bullet.
There are some issues on this site that are more prevalent due to the personal opinion rather than HOL or even Harringays overall opinion.
You should fight your corner as in any decision making process and abide by the conclusion. When you don’t, it sits very uncomfortable with me.
You can still campaign for your preference but I think it’s wrong to advertise it based on personal preference.
There are many people and groups who involved in the festival, this is a two fingered salute to them.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Birdy the fact that another person has taken it upon themselves to call the area where I live something different from its original name just because they want to and can and don't even live here themselves sits VERY uncomfortably with me.
It is in no way a two fingered salute to anyone other than the politicians who got naming rights to the festival.
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I'd be more inclined to agree if we were talking about a decision process in the context of a democratic decision making process or a democratically constituted body.
It's an odd argument Birdy. Isn't it a bit like saying to a gay person 60 years ago, "No, sorry, you need to bite the bullet You've fought your corner. The government has decided your sexuality is illegal. You should abide by the decision-making process and get on with you life"? Mightn't one use Luther-King's movement as another analogy?
Change is won by struggle and protest as you know with out me telling you. So surely the answer can't be "You need to sometimes bite the bullet.". That's not enough unless you begin to tease out when exactly that bullet should be bitten and when the fight to change should continue.
It is absolutely not a two-fingered salute Birdy. I've made my praise of the organisers clear. This decision is completely separate and part of an ongoing unrelated issue.
You seem to be suggesting quite a number of reasons why dissent is inappropriate. I'm asking for clarifications to when it's appropriate and when not.
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This has got bugger all to do with Martin Luther King, gay rights or whatever so lets ‘keep on topic’ here otherwise I’ll delete your posts : )
This discussion was started as you stated that an article posted on here was misleading, my point is that your promotion the HGLFF is misleading as you changed what it was called which in my opinion is wrong, however you see it fit to be delete all reference to the official branding. There is no difference apart from you did one and Matt did the other.
Not one person decided to call it HGLFF, there was a committee of local politicians, traders and residents groups who chose that, you didn’t agree, and that’s sour grapes.
This site is as undemocratic /democratic as the committees you have so many issues with, so let’s not pretend that this is overall opinion. I am going to call Fairland Park, the Open Space still the anarchist I am!
I am behind the Harringay name 100%, I am not behind the self appointed vigilante quest to change literature, artwork etc of an official event. If you don’t understand that then there’s nothing more I can add, sorry. -
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Coupla points, then, for my part, I'm happy to cordially agree to disagree:
1. Whilst this issue is not about civil rights, the principle around when disagreement is appropriate, has everything to do with it which is why I made the comparisons.
2. In my mind the difference between the Harringay Festival issue and the Violence post is clear. In the case of the Harringay Festival issue my actions, and those of other members who chose to use the term Harringay Festival, was protest. It was not scaremongering and no one was misled by it.
3. Even if the democratic status of the committee was clear, which is not, it's still legitimate to communicate dissent from their decisions.
4. This site is a completely appropriate form of democratic expression. Arguably any arm of the local media has a role in local democracy by providing a means to hold our local representatives to account. It always has done. The basis of any claims it makes to be representative are clear and transparent. In this case we ran a survey which was the best available gauge of what people thought.
That's my lot. Happy for you to have the final word! -
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