On the Question of Anonymity

Still waiting to find out what happened at the meeting of the Community Council on Monday 13th. The Agenda had one item "Staffing/personnel issues". The meeting was conducted in private. Have heard a few whispers but nothing definite yet and since I don't publish rumours we will have to await developments.


Manorbier left a comment on my post "A Few Thoughts on Manorbier Council (2)"

I quote:

"You obviously have no understanding of what has gone on.
I suggest you stop listening to the nonsense you are being drip fed by others and wait to see what the truth brings out.
We will then see who's fault it all is.....
Hiding behind anonymity is the cowardly way of spreading rumour.
My name is Martin Davies - never afraid to stand behind anything I have to say.
So, what is your name..?"

I thought it would be useful to bring his comment onto the main page and answer it here.

His main problem seems to be that I write under a blog name. As I am sure he knows this is quite usual in the blogging world. It is also a long tradition in journalism for political comment to be written under a pseudonym. The reason I do so is to try to get at the unvarnished truth, because as long as the people I talk to don't know I write a blog they are more likely to speak openly and honestly but if they do know there is a very real danger they will either not talk at all or feed me information in an attempt to 'spin' my writing to reflect their own views and prejudices. I am trying to get at the truth without being influenced by either side, a concept that Martin Davies seems to have difficulty in understanding. You only have to look at his own blog Manorbier Community to see a vendetta, mainly against Clr Wales, which Martin Davies writes under the blog name of Manorbier. Nowhere on his blog is there any indication that it is written by Martin Davis and what is more he doesn't even allow comments on his blog! So "never afraid to stand behind anything I have to say" begins to sound a little bit hypocritical since the blog also depicts Clr Davis as the lone hero struggling against the forces of prejudice, unreason and self interest. The only reason I know that Martin Davies writes Manorbier Community Blog (apart from the content and the appalling writing style) is that when he posted his rather tetchy comment to me he forgot that his blog name is a link to his blog. He should have used a blog name that doesn't have a blog attached like schmitblog, he/she posted just a little later with this,

"Why do you hide behind a blog title. Some of your comments are so childish your credibility has to be suspect. The implications of your text could generate great ill feelings and our society is divided enough as it is. If you are so good why not stand for the council and bring your knowledge, insight and brain power to the benefit of all the community".

I don't know who this is but his/her comment bears a remarkable similarity to Martin Davies' and arrived a few hours later. I refer schmitblog to my answer above for the reason I use a blog name, as for his comment about standing for the council, unfortunately there are no vacancies at the moment but if Clr Davies or Clr Calver would like to resign I would be happy to put my name forward to the voters of Manorbier.