The Standard has been at the epicentre of this week’s social media eruption – the Labour orientated blog an established culture of one sided personal attacks, so it’s no surprise that decent debate is overshadowed by nastiness directed at people rather than strong support or rejection of arguments.

There’s nastiness on the other side too, I’ve seen plenty at Whale Oil and Kiwiblog – I’ve been at the receiving end there too, as are others.

But I see a difference. On Whale Oil and Kiwiblog the abuse is more fleeting, often a blast on a specific topic, but then left behind, people move on to the next debate. In the past I’ve had ding-dongs with people on Kiwiblog who have later turned around and supported me strongly. It’s more of an issue by issue thing. Arguments, but not feuds.

On The Standard it seems to be that once you are labeled an enemy you are a permanent enemy and treated as such, day after day, week after week, year after year. Most of it constitutes personal attacks and persistent harassment from the resident trolls.

And that culture is encouraged by their ‘moderation’, which is very one-sided. I’ve been banned more than once for ‘disrupting threads’ by being the target of sustained attacks. (The same thing happened at Dim-Post).

And if you point it out you get labeled, as ‘Jimmie’ found out yesterday:

• Jackal 10.2.1.2

  18 August 2012 at 9:46 pm

  Foaming at the mouth? Do I detect a sewer troll in our midst?

Criticism is immediately turned into a personal attack.

Despite what the rightwing might thunk, the leftwing is made up by very reasonable people. Do the right thing and cop less flack… Ipso facto.

And ironic denial. They see dishing out flack as very reasonable if you are deemed to have not done “the right thing” – or if you have done the ‘wrong thing’. It doesn’t have to be criticism that sparks flak, their perception of anything bad is all it takes, and from my experience this is often due to jumped conclusions that simply don’t stack up.

I was reading through Kiwibogs general thread today, and it was hard going.

It can be hard going at times.

I hate to admit it but Pete George actually seems reasonable in comparison to some of those commenting there.

And people on Whale Oil and Kiwiblog have thought I have seemed “reasonable in comparison to some of those commenting” at The Standard. And elsewhere:

The Standard bans Peter George

Peter George is a regular at both Kiwiblog and The Standard. He’s pretty middle of the road and usually has something very sensible to say.

But “reasonable in comparison” was somehow a surprise to the one-sided conclusion jumpers, and isn’t acceptable to The Jackal (and others) at The Standard:

Despite the criticism the Standard has recently received, I wouldn’t like to see any changes to the moderation policy.

Because it protects and encourages abusers?

Especially if that means similar rightwing sentiments and possible shill’s have free license to spout any old rubbish!

Or they just want to protect and promote a one-sided message. Or both.

The problem is, as the last week has shown, when they start fighting amongst themselves their culture of personal abuse can’t suddenly be switched off.

So you get an “ideological knife fight” where ideas are peripheral as people get slashed. And Labour ends up bearing the scars, still with no idea how to debate then work together.