Curiousor and Curiousor

While I spent the day moving and trying to get KMG back online L’affair Colbert took many a dizzying twist and turn.

A miracle occured.

First Colbert posted a long rebuttal of my email in which he states:

So what happened to this comment, I went through my spam filter to see if it was caught there but besides the countless manhood enlargement products and on-line gaming ads no “rather insulting” comments.
As I was away from my computer for most of the day, it being my youngest first birthday I know I did not delete it. A quick check with my security guy to look at the records shows no posting activity beyond what appears on the site of held in the spam blocker.
colbert

And then in his comments Colbert comes up with this:

When a comment is posted to my site I instantly get a copy sent to my blackberry so that when I am away from my desk I can see what people are saying. In the last couple of days I have not received any notification of a comment left here by Mr. Currie and it is not in the spam list so I am left with no other option but to believe that he has made this story up.
colbert

Meaghan Walker-Williams beats the poor man about the head and shoulders with, er, logic and eyewitness testimony. Ian Scott nails him on the tech end. Kate McMillan suggested that it was just spiffy to delete whatever comments you want.

With the arrival of the screen shot from Andrew Anderson’s invaluable CanConv, Colbert had to go to plan B.

I’m not disputing that Jay may have posted something to his blog. I’m not even suggesting that a few people may have seen it on his site before it was deleted by someone with administrator privileges.
colbert

Meaghan wallops the poor man pointing out that he had earlier claimed that with respect to the substance of my post, namely my comment on his blog, “I am left with no other option but to believe that he has made this story up.” op. cit. supra. Kate is surprisingly silent. Ian Scott was being “spam blocked” but posted to his own blog:

So either he is a liar, or an idiot, or his “security guy” is totally incompetent and an idiot. One comment he could miss? Perhaps. Two or three?

In fact, I’ve just tried posting a comment on Colbert’s blog a few minutes ago – the same “spam tag” message, and then tried resending it and got the “Oops” message.

So that indeed is evidence that his software DOES have a record of the comments. Therefore, Colbert is outright lying or is incompetent at figuring the difference between a spam comment about spam and a comment about inherent rights.

My guess is that Colbert is blocking some folks and is using his “spam filter” to prevent some people’s comments from going live before he has a time to “vet” them.

So fire away with your libel allegations against me, Colbert. I’ve got the screenshots, and I’ll post them on my blog as soon as I’m done my coffee.
ianism

Better still, Ian has lock down evidence that Colbert’s “spam filter” was extra clever,

In fact, if you go and look at this post, you will notice that Les McKenzie has a comment in which he says, “Had you not been such a shithead, Ian, I might apologize for misreading your quote…”

Now, Mr. McKenzie was directly replying to my one of my comments on Colbert’s blog. You’ll notice that both of my comments have been deleted. Yet McKenzie’s remains… do you see anyone else named “Ian” above his? Colbert’s actions make McKenzie look like a blooming idiot.. responding to some guy named “Ian” on TWO separate occassions on Colbert’s blog – yet no “Ian” author exists. I’d be a little miffed at that if I were McKenzie.
ianism

Ooops….smart people are ganging up on Mr. Colbert. Time for Plan C. The old “you’ve been hacked…well so have I and I am not going to take it lying down” gambit:

We have found the missing comments! By going through the actual database we have located the original comments and something very curious. it would seem that “User Unknown” was able to delete the comments, using time stamps and IP access logs I will be forwarding the information my security guru discovered off to the same person at the RCMP that reviewed the logs when I was last hacked first thing in the morning.
colbert

First rate. Better still, Colbert or his security guru were miraculously able to find and restore the comments which

“In the last couple of days I have not received any notification of a comment left here by Mr. Currie.
colbert

You can read the wee thing here - which is a link to Colbert and I will repost it to my blog shortly. “What once was lost is now found”, as the hymn goes.

[Apparently the “hacker” really had it in for me. Every comment I have posted to Colbert, until today, has been miraculously restored with the little “Comment edited by User Unknown Comment recovered by Administrator” tag. Even the ones which were not deleted in the first place…]

Having been caught lying Colbert realizes that an apology might save his well flayed skin:

I will apologize for possibly suggesting that these post never existed, I just never saw them and had no knowledge that they had been removed. If Mr. Currie is willing to withdraw his potentially libelous accusations regarding my involvement in tampering with his blog I will conceder the matter settled.
colbert

Now, as it happens I know a little something about libel law. First of all there is no legal animal as “potentially libelous”: either something is a libel or it isn’t. Here are a couple of examples of libels:

It might have even sounded like a good idea while you were refilling your bong
colbert

Stating that a person uses drugs is outright defamation of character. Doing so in writing and publishing the result is a libel.

I have not received any notification of a comment left here by Mr. Currie and it is not in the spam list so I am left with no other option but to believe that he has made this story up.
colbert

Stating that a person “made this story up” is defamatory. Doing so in writing and publishing the result is a libel.

I’ll hold the question of Colbert’s libels in abeyance for the moment in the general expectation of a full apology posted prominently on Colbert’s site.

Written by jay on August 8th, 2005 with 7 comments.
Read more articles on Canadian Politics and Pot and blogging and law.

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7 comments

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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Sean
#1. August 8th, 2005, at 8:24 PM.

Add me to the list of people who saw your comments disappear from Colbert’s blog.

Speaking of editorial policies, I don’t think we’ve ever deleted comments from PolSpy out of malace, although I know I’ve managed to kill a few because of outright stupidity. I’ve accidentally clicked the wrong button while trying to approve comments and have toasted a few as a result.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com MWW
#2. August 8th, 2005, at 10:03 PM.

It’s never going to happen Jay.
Colbert and his loyal comrades (with the exception of Andrew.. who is more concerned with truth and facts than bizarre party loyalty) are deep deep deep into the bunker on this.

So much so that they are actually over there at his blog crowing about their “victory”…. and how the people who pointed out the strange happenings have psychological problems and are making “irrational and unfounded accusations.”

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Kate
#3. August 8th, 2005, at 10:59 PM.

“Surprisingly silent”?

I felt a little embarrassed about commenting at all on a thread that was supposedly peopled by mostly rational people - I don’t like admitting I’m attracted to car wrecks in the first place, much less jump into the mess with both feet.

On to the more pressing question:

Have you all lost your minds???? It’s a goddamned blog comment, for Chrissakes.

And yes - nobody who owns and pays for any blog is obligated to explain why they choose to delete comments. They are offered as a privilage, just as any other access to private property. But if you think you’ve been wronged, how about asking politely before going off with half-baked accusations.

I’ve been wrongly accused of deleting comments so often I’ve lost track - out of thousands posted to SDA, I doubt I’ve removed more than 20 (non-spam), almost exclusively for obsenities. There’s no mystery as to why the complaints come about - some of these trolls are so active they can’t even remember where they left them in the first place, so when they “return” and can’t find their precious spewings, they accuse the owner of deleting them - with all the self-rightiousness of a tagger complaining that the fence has been repainted.

Jay - and I say this as someone who surfed into the debate without any pre-existing “allegiances” to one or the other - just stop. It doesn’t look good on you.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com jay
#4. August 8th, 2005, at 11:11 PM.

Kate, I’ve got no problem at all with Colbert deleting comments on his blog for any reason or none at all. But to come up with a silly story about how his “anti-spam software” either deleted them or didn’t notify him and then deus ex machina being able to restore them and tag even the ones which had not been deleted with the tag “Deleted by unknown user.” That’s what’s silly and Colbert needs to know that.

More seriously, Colbert flat out stated that I was “making up a story” with respect to the deletions at my blog and stated that I used drugs. I appreciate neither remark and expect an apology.

Now Colbert is saying his blog has been hacked. which is very serious and well past a bit of comment deletion. He’s stated he’s getting in touch with the RCMP. Which suggests that he takes this seriously. I look forward to providing any assistance I can to get to the bottom of this. But, frankly, with all of his spins on this issue I have difficulty believing a word he says.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Kate
#5. August 9th, 2005, at 1:57 AM.

Jay - if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think I have ever posted to Brent’s blog before this episode. Now that I’ve done so a couple of times, it’s beginnign to arbitrarily delete my comments as well - in addition to “not found errors”, one comment that previously appeared has gone *poof* and there is absolutely no indication that it was removed manually.

What is most certainly an issue of quirkly blog software (you should see the problems in trying to refresh a page) turned into a blogosphere incident because so many of you jumped to conclusions and levelled unfair accusations at Brent.

That was the starting point, and as you seem to be the one who intially accused him of hacking your site in his email, then I’d suggest you make the first move and withdraw it.

The best thing that could happen is for all of you to delete these posts so that their stupidity is not preserved for posperity.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com MWW
#6. August 9th, 2005, at 4:23 AM.

“Now that I’ve done so a couple of times, it’s beginnign to arbitrarily delete my comments as well - in addition to “not found errors”, one comment that previously appeared has gone *poof* and there is absolutely no indication that it was removed manually.”

Prove it.

You word doesn’t mean anything. Especially when you are defending a godamn liar.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com MWW
#7. August 9th, 2005, at 4:24 AM.

Are you suggesting Kate that Colbert’s site wasn’t hacked, as he claims that it was?

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