The Reverend Stu Campbell - I worry in public.

This is what the hero of the modern revolution had to say: The Revend Stu Campbell, yes that hero

"You are barred, yes.

Wings Over Scotland is not a democracy. It has a very open comments policy compared to anywhere else, but it is not without rules, and the one absolutely cast-iron one is that my word goes - if I explicitly tell you not to do something again and you tell me to fuck off and do it again several times, you're out.

You were warned repeatedly when you were already testing my patience (and had been unambiguously told as much), and you chose to continue acting like an arsehole. As such, you're no longer welcome in the comments section. I hope that's clear and unambiguous."

It is, It is. I said:

"Thanks for clearing that up,

I am disappointed that you would see my comments as worthy of a ban. Still, your web-site, your rules.

Frankly I didn't see the barriers. Call me blind or summat. Quite why you saw it as a challenge to your authorty is a bit beyond me. Not a side of your personality that has been evident to me in the earlier, hundreds of posts that I have made.

And, quite why you support someone that has, AFAIK, never written or commented on your web site before, or apparently since, as though they were your long lost brother, defeats me. It is perfectly possible for people to play identity fraud anywhere. As a victim of that in the past, though not in the current fandangle, I would alert you to the possibility that you are being conned.

I thought, obviously wrongly, that you were up for a bit of banter.

Fold?

Apparently not.

We are on the same side. As a long time follower of your blog I regret this parting of the ways.

Best wishes.

douglas clark."

I worry for the Rev Stewart Campbell's health. I most certainly did not tell him to 'fuck off'. He has taken on a huge burden of expectation. His genuine bravery in not backing down to a misplaced legal threat was and is completely admirable. Contrary to what he might think, I would have helped pay his legal fees over that had it come to it. He probably runs the worlds second most successful Scottish Independence blog. (He could probably argue that Newsnet Scotland is not a blog, and I am not sure I would argue with that, so first.). I know that he was genuinely impressed with the financial support he got. His output is prodigious. But the degree of humourless, or as he has said himself, anti-democratic sentiment, that he has expressed here to me is quite concerning. This is, usually, quite a funny guy.

This is not the first time I have read similar sentiments - not a democracy - from blog authors, though never directed at me before. Quite what is it about success, because they never say that when they have one or two correspondents, that allows them to trivialise the media that they have developed and / or benefitted from? What new found numbers allow them to treat us as a, well number, rather than a person?

A different side of his nature, perhaps. Not to make too big a deal of it, but on their way up blog authors appear quite accomodating to criticism, then they get as sensitive as any main stream media journalist. Who are, despite this, still the worst. In relation to the mainstream it appears to be an ego thing, or a projection of their idea that journalists as the only voices worth listening to. Had they not made the horrendous mistake of having comments the old model could have continued ad infinitum. Else we could have retained the dead tree press and their 'Letters to the Editor' with it's huge delays in actual criticism of whatever was now in a chip wrapper.

But the point about blogs is that they ought to be, with the usual caveats about trolling and lies and the Scotsman and stuff like that, to be a two way process. Which have the all the advantages and disadvantages of speed.  It is that that makes them dynamic, different and useful. It is absolutely great to have a discussion started off by a post of quality, and, usually, the Rev Stu's posts do that.  That, not to put too fine a point upon it, is the difference between the mainstream and new media. Misunderstanding that, is to misunderstand the game you are playing.

When contradiction, in the mildest of ways, becomes a challenge to ones 'authority' what is going on in ones head? Who, exactly decided that blogs were - not a democracy - it certainly wasn't their users. It is obviously a truism, but it is anti-democratic (by definition). Is that how Wings over Scotland wishes to be seen?

Is everyone that comments there to avoid any criticism whatsoever of his ideas or  philosophy or what? Is everything perfect in the best of all possible worlds?

It is the genuinely lazy idea that you cast aside contrary views, just because you can. 

I will have no impact whatsoever in his soaring flight into the stratosphere. I am a tad annoyed however that someone I had serious time for seems to have no idea what this media is about. I am also a bit worried that success will bring about it's own failure. It tends to do that when you don't remember where you came from.

Just saying.

douglas clark

Glasgow

13th May 2013