Susan, sorry, but I am so full of myself with trying to find peace for this crazy world, I did not comment on your conception of our OLO, but agree with you that we are allowed to verbally slam each other far more than allowed in public schools or universities.

Further, though I am only Westralian born and bred, now going on 88 have otherwise mixed well with British migrants, particularly in a large country wheatbelt district.

A district where we received not only British migrants, but many colourful other European characters, some having jumped cargo vessels and proved so colourful and popular in our district, we were glad they were never caught and tried, especially as their descendants are still farming in our area.

Susan, I myself, originally as a Davis, have not only Welsh in my line, but my own mother happened to have an Irish born mater married to an Aussie Sussmil born from German migrants.

The worry about not allowed a say in a new country before you have a vote, Susan was certainly well voiced in our district when I was a nipper, as you can imagine.

Your very interest in our voting system, shows you are going be very interested in not only your own welfare, but also our own.

So welcome, Susan, from one whose early forebears were also non-Australian

1)

It's been interesting watching this thread develop. It presented an opportunity for some to show that those whose views they oppose, were posting in the wrong manner! Inevitable I suppose.

I'm ambivalent about your opinion here, Ms Giblin.

I admire the fact that you posted this. It shows some courage in talking about response to your original piece. I don't think that's been done before..

And yet?; you show such a vulnerability to those responses. And that IS what your piece here is about;-responses.

Certainly up to yesterday: you had 16 responses to your original article. 16!

My point? Last year I recall a fella called Keysar Trad submitting a very emotive piece. He took a fair belting from many (not all) posters, for page, after page, after page! He involved himself in the thread and held his own against all comers. It must have been an exhausting process, but he did it.

In my view he did it because he wrote an article; and he was prepared to stand by his views, and accept the slings and arrows of those views.

Continued.

2)

With the greatest of respect;-you fell at the first fence!
If you choose to submit an opinion on a forum, where response is wanted; you cannot then choose HOW that response should be. It IS classic 'heat in kitchen' stuff.

You must surely have taken a squizz around the old homestead before you submitted your article...surely?

This is OLO. The good, the bad;.....and 'vile Ginx'..'the dike(!) with hairy armpits'!!

You did not like the WAY people responded. Surely as an author you should be more concerned with what their opinion was, and not the way they expressed it. Opinion. That is what is required. Don't be upset by the way it was expressed. Because if you do; there is no point in submitting an article.

You WILL need to toughen up if you submit another piece, because not only will posters respond,-some will disagree-and do it in their inimitable style!

(For the record: I read your original piece and admit that I was surprised that one poster in particular could be so cutting towards YOU, in his condemnation of your VIEW. BUT: please do not submit articles if this gets to you. Sixteen responses do not a lynching make).

Good luck to you.

Well said, Leigh, for both of your posts. You’ve summed up Susan’s article soundly and succinctly.

Some may agree or disagree. Some may think you were informative, objective, interesting, insightful, while others may feel you were too colourful, heavy handed, abusive, or off the topic. Who’s to say? It’s all part of the beauty of sharing opinions.

The best part about OLO is that it’s made up of the opinions of real people, uncensored. The emphasis is on constructing an argument and putting it out there. People do that in different ways, but it’s more interesting and informative than the narrow opinion of newspaper editors.

If you value the opinions of others, you’ll be willing to sift through the shenanigans to find that which is worth keeping. The well reasoned and well articulated thought will rise to the top.

I feel a bit for new migrants such as Susan. It takes a while for new comers to get a feel for any new place. After a while she’ll get a sense for how we communicate and what we think is important.

If anyone wants to look at 'A NON FARMER''S various intrusions on this piece of netspace - they may have noticed my absence of some months.

That is because a certain electricity utility in our good northern state has managed to fry the Non Farmer's e-communications setup.

He is back temporarily with a vengeance - until they fry my show again - when they try commissioning what they've recently been attempting installing here in our district.

I only mention this since that circumstance could just possibly be construed as one way of stopping a socially conscious bloke from writing the truth about his particular hate of the incumbant before the recent state election.
Yep. I'm Doolally; more below.

Now since the, then, incumbant happened to be re-elected but remains in opposition, I find it difficult to understand why I'd been accused of expressing 'conspiracy theories' to one of this erstwhile member's staffers yesterday.
She suggested that I'd been representing that my business PC blew up in result of a state conspiracy - in order to rob me of the opportunity to write letters to my editor about the inadequacy of our state representative.
The slightest reflection might lead a person to consider that the winner of the poll - the predicted winner of the poll might gain advantage from me lambasting the non-performance of our incumbant in the press.
In this regard and in so many other ways I may have become somewhat frazzled by their collective stupidity.

So what does this have to do with the thread?
Firstly - I've become out of practice.
Then next -= I have quite a lot to say in a society that increasingly seems to be closing down on -
the truth as expressed by individuals -
expressing that in a forthright way - then -
finding the means to get that across without ridiculous censorship -
making known such issues as are important to the citizenry -
managing that in a timely fashion -
and avoiding being accused of being ordained a nutter in that process.
Any comment?

Hi there. Susan Giblin here.

Thanks so much to everybody who has contributed to this thread. I have found it really interesting to read the opinions.

I agree with posters such as Tristan Ewins and RObert who wrote positively about the lack of censorship on OLO. I’m instinctively against censorship and like the light touch of the moderators.

Secondly, my deflation wasn’t so much related to people disagreeing with me. I’m very happy for people to disagree with me. Rude comments and hostility don’t affect my self esteem either. Rather than being hardened or toughened to such things (I don’t want to toughen up or become hardened) it’s more like water off a duck’s back perhaps.

Anyway, my deflation was more like what Brian Holden has said. I just wondered if that was it. I didn’t feel moved to join the thread because I couldn’t work out how to do it in a respectful way given the tone. I will read Keysar Trad’s article and thread as suggested by Ginx. It’ll be very interesting I reckon.

Ginx also wrote: ‘surely as an author you should be more concerned with what their opinion was, and not the way they expressed it’.

I think both are very important. I think that if we take care about how we communicate, as well as what we communicate, then what we say is more likely to be heard.

I also think that just because journalists and politicians sometimes speak in aggressive ways doesn’t mean this is the most useful way to carry out discussion and come to the best outcome