Hit the road, Zach
Our old commenting friend Zach has put in another appearance on the Stop Boris blog today, flooding us with 13 illogical, error-ridden pro-Boris comments in a half-hour period earlier.
Interestingly, these were all posted via an Australian internet service provider. Could he have been brought along for the ride by Lynton Crosby, by any chance?
Apparently this bloke’s persistent trolling has forced a number of other anti-Boris blogs to switch to moderating their comments in an attempt to keep the debate operating at a sensible level.
Ideally we don’t want do this ourselves but really, if he keeps up the rate of one comment every two minutes for much more than half an hour next time, we might have to have a rethink.
April 6th, 2008 at 18.20
Jeez - you’re now singling out bloggers who have an opinion on an important subject?!
Just how low are you stooping?! Grow up. People are entitled to their opinion on a city of global importance - and are entitled to disagree with you.
Zach may or may not be in Australia (judging by Labour’s door-step-lying tactics you’ll forgive me if I don’t believe someone so obviously in the pay of Ken) - what does it matter?!
You’re promoting mistruths and blogging allows others to comment on those mistruths. Guess those left of the political spectrum aren’t up for Freedom of Speech where it suits them.
Keep up the good work Zach.
April 6th, 2008 at 19.40
“obviously in the pay of Ken”? Have you read the FAQ? I’ve never so much as spoken to Ken and I certainly don’t run this campaign on his behalf - let alone get paid to run it (if only!).
The closest anyone from this campaign has come to being anything to do with Ken was when someone slapped a Stop Boris sticker on his coat at the Time Out hustings! (Siân Berry also took a load of stickers – is she paying us too?)
I have no problem with freedom of speech. It would be far easier to delete Zach’s comments than it is to take the time to argue back against their idiocy, but so far I’m adopting the latter approach in the interest of free speech and debate.
However, if he or anyone else oversteps the mark from free speech into trolling/spamming by e.g. posting the same thing repeatedly on several posts (as Zach posted a copy-and-paste comment onto two different posts earlier), that’s not free speech any more, that’s bad netiquette which is asking to deleted.
Zach is posting via an Australian ISP but I don’t know if that means he’s in Australia or not. If he is it would make me wonder why he’s particularly bothered about the outcome of a Mayoral election on the other side of the world. If he’s not then I’d assume he’s over here as part of Lynton Crosby’s campaign team. Certainly some of the comments I’ve seen him post here and elsewhere sound like they’re coming from the Boris campaign team - supposed corrections of things that have happened at Boris’s events and so forth.
April 8th, 2008 at 08.47
Zach has also been posting comments at Dave Coles blog but strangely he seems to forget his name and types in Ryan. Funny that.
April 8th, 2008 at 09.30
Ryan, eh? I guess that clears up who lobbed this particularly soft ball promoting the Back Boris campaign’s scaremongering over crime.
I wonder which Team Boris member posted the same question in slightly different words earlier on on the same page…