Candide, I'm as sure as I can be that Julie writes this column.

There was one incident in 2008 when something that went under her name was written by her chief of staff who apparently plagiarised. I note that a number of posters want to endlessly recycle that as some sort of rebuttal of anything that Julie says.

So you'd like to see anything under her name billed as "from the office of"? So any politician, or anyone else for that matter should probably be similarly billed. As Kevin Rudd's celebrated essay "Howard’s Brutopia: The battle of ideas in Australian politics" was actually written by his office, I assume you're recommending the same demeaning treatment of anything he writes. And I guess if two do it, they all do it, so why not all politicians, just to be on the safe side?

So who writes your posts and how should we bill you?

‘I'd also be interested to know why you didn't complain about them before so I could at least make a decision as to whether they should be moderated or not.’

I’ve sent comment alerts to the OLO moderators, but these have all been ignored so I gave up. And anyway, citing one-off abuse examples taken out of context is an inadequate way to try and prove long-term bullying patterns.

I tell you what, Graham. Why don’t YOU prove to ME that misogynistic abuse towards women on the gender threads does NOT go on, so that I can at least make a decision about whether to continue as a commenter or not.

I suggest that the burden of proof rests with OLO to prove that there is NO causal relationship between the extremely low to non-existent female participation rate on the gender threads and the disgraceful way that women are treated there, especially feminist oriented women.

Killarney, there is no evidence of you ever complaining. Can you provide some? I think the onus is on you, after making claims, to substantiate them. In this case it is a fairly serious claim against moderation and if you can't substantiate it I will consider what penalty might apply.

Graham

Graham and Killarney: why don't you two gentlemen carry on your dialogue off this comment stream. It is frankly a diversion from the original article. The point of my original comment and picked up by some others is that Ms Bishop's analysis is wide of the mark. It does not matter whether she wrote it or not. Her name is attached to it and it is therefore "hers". The concern I and others have is that someone who aspires to be the next Foreign Minister and Deputy PM should be better informed on the topics she writes about. Her article was full of errors of fact. It is not just a case of having a different opinion. There is always scope for people to disagree about the inferences to be drawn. As Keynes said: you are entitled to your own opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts.
In all likelihood Ms Bishop did write this piece, althought her staff probably provided the bones. That does not excuse the errors. You say that you dislike the attacks upon her and that it is hard to get politicians to write for online sources for that reason. You confuse attacks upon the ideas with attacks upon the person. As moderator you are perfectly free to delete ad hominen attacks. I often wish you would moderate some comments on the basis that they are too profoundly ignorant to justify the space, but I suppose that is part of the price of the Internet. I am sure that the people whose opinions I respect do what I do: simply ignore them.
As much as you obviously like to give Ms Bishop space, perhaps you might invite comments from, or reproduce commentaries of people who are better informed on these topics. Peep Escobar, Gareth Porter and Robert Fisk are among many who actually add to the debate.

James, I've just scanned the thread and I cannot see anyone pointing out a single fact that Julie has got wrong, including you. Perhaps you might point out what these errors are?

Graham

I've clicked the 'X' (Recommend deletion) box under your comment of Saturday, 1 September 2012 5:26:19 PM and written: 'This is a test message from Killarney' in the box. Then I clicked Submit.

This is the process I've used at least twice before, and given my pseudonym in the message. If there is no record of these messages at OLO, then perhaps you should look into why these messages are not getting through and/or why I am not receiving any replies.

Having said that, however, due to the thinly veiled and unwarranted threat of a ban in your reply to me, plus my ongoing frustration and disgust at the levels of unaddressed misogyny and harrassment towards feminist-oriented commenters on the gender threads, it's no doubt time for me to bow out of OLO altogether.

This is not a huffy kneejerk reaction, but something I've been considering for a while. The truly regressive level of discourse on the OLO gender threads poison the otherwise high standard of debate on all the other threads.