Happy New Year.

Related Comments (My Space):
http://market2garden.blogspot.com/2008/12/comments-on-online-citizen-singapores.html

Let me just begin by saying, I thoroughly enjoyed our discussion. I will dive in to the points, let’s all try to remain calm and not jump to any conclusions or begin running wild with conspiracy theories galore. I really don’t see that as a constructive way to make progress; really I don’t.

Having said that, I do understand fully your concerns Eiro and even sympathize considerably with many readers. No one likes to watch a football match, where the referee is whistle happy or if suddenly the satellite connection just goes on the blink for no apparent reason; there is no flow to the game; the rhythm goes and at the end of the day, it’s just makes for a truly lousy internet experience. I see your point, it just a turn off and its no good. As I said, I understand.

However, let’s all give TOC the benefit of the doubt; there is after all a prodigious quantity of comments coming in and I am sure at times, it can be overwhelming; as posters and readers, my feel is sometimes we may not really appreciate the amount of time, effort and dedication it takes to run a site such as TOC.

For me personally, it’s a non issue – I’ve just set my blackberry on auto mode and it will resend till it gets through. I never ever sweat the small stuff, but for others who may wish to put their point urgently across only to suddenly find out rudely; for whatever reason; they cannot; it can indeed be a very exasperating and frustrating experience, so I understand.

Moving forward, it may be a good idea for TOC to look seriously into this issue. It would be very difficult to build readership trust and loyalty otherwise. Meanwhile it may be a good idea for all of us to think of an interim solution to plug this problem.

Thanks all and happy anniversary.

Do have a productive week ahead.

SD (Internet Liaison officer of the brotherhood)

The article, for which you provided a link, has 139 comments so far. I am not sure which of Singaporedaddy’s comments you are referring to.

As for why his comments were under moderation, it was not on purpose. Other commenters too have had their comments put under moderation automatically. There are several reasons for this:

1. If there are more than one url link in the comments, the post will be under moderation. This is to prevent spamming on TOC. We receive many spam everyday due to the high traffic of our site – and most of them are from porn websites. TOC’s anti-spam mechanism catches such comments automatically.

2. If there are personal attacks against fellow commenters, we will put the comments under moderation until we have edited them.

3. Sometimes it takes longer to release the comments which are under the moderation queue simply because we are busy and haven’t had time to sieve through the slew of comments on TOC daily. We release them as soon as we have gone through them.

Regards,
Andrew Loh

Only two brief points. A few days ago, a chanced on debate with one character called Singaporedaddy in this thread.

Do you happen to have any info on this person by any chance? Does he have a website that I can go too?

Anyway, allow me to get straight to the point. As I was following this debate. I noticed that in one of his replies with eiro, his post was put under “moderation mode” – I believe it is this one for nearly 3 hours from the time of posting. I have a mirror copy, if you want. Its this one number 82 comment by singaporedaddy on November 28th, 2008 7.00 pm, here

http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/11/100000-signatures-so-more-people-will-step-forward/#comments

I subsequently noticed the following day, when he was having a debate with Ho cheow seng in the same thread.

Again his comments was placed under moderation again. This time, I believe, if you scroll through it, you can even see the “moderation” tag. Its here: comment No. 119 by singaporedaddy on November 29th, 2008 7.36 pm .

The question, I would like to pose to toc is twofold.

a) can you please explain why on two occasions. Singaporedaddy comments was placed on moderation mode. I have read those comments, nothing improper about them. The reason why I feel strongly abt this is I dont understand why is the man being discriminated and why is his one hands tied behind his back. It doesnt see a fair way for him to even have a fair fight.

[---deleted---]

I hope to get an answer either from Andrew or Choo. Many thanks and once again best wishes toc.

Comments edited by moderator.
Dear eiro, the second part of your comments are edited (deleted) as it has nothing to do with the announcement above. Also, please take your personal grievance against fellow commenters elsewhere. TOC is not the place for it.

I believe that its a milestone achievement for you guys who has been working hard behind the success story of TOC.

Keep up the good work you guys been doing in enlightening and leading Singaporeans to the TRUTH, from which they will never know from the state media.

Congrats once again!!!

Thanks for giving us this site to exchange our views and comments however bias it is. I only got to know about TOC from the newspaper feature article two months back.

I always thought TOC is just a site for netizens to fire away but it’s well written articles are a breath of fresh air here and attracted my attention. I have also contributed some articles to TOC.

In fact, TOC site has overtaken my priority over ST online in terms of coverage and balance. In many countries, some people read online newspaper and there is no hard copy. Maybe, who knows, given some time, TOC may evolve into a respectable international newspaper site with proper journalistic reportig.

I am also warm to the feeling that TOC is adopting a socio-political stance giving emphasis on the poor and needy. This underpriviledged group needs all the assistance it can get as many fall through the net here.

I still find many sleepless people napping at the Airport T1/2/3 and underneath the Benjamin Bridge at night. This is sad as being a First world country we are rather backward in how we care for our aged and poor.

As TOC progresses, let us hope that there will be more political figures that will show their faces in the near future. Besides TKL, people like Andrew, Gerald and others here are all good people that SIngapore needs to bring us forward.

Congrats TOC for it’s second anniversay! You all have done well!

You’re running a great site too, do drop us an email so we can meet up to talk about collaboration soon. It will be great to have you on board our team.

Someday,

We’re very proud of our fully volunteer model, it’s made every single article we receive from our team all the more meaningful knowing its been contributed by Singaporeans who believe in active citizenry enough to be part of the national discourse without renumeration.

keep up the good work.

now toc should look for donation to make it even bigger.

like those city something church of those loyang temple.

all the best

I hope in future, I would be able to contribute some articles in this award winning site too!

Happy 2nd Anniversary!

Keep up the good works!

I personally feel that TOC has many credible members. Please consider joining APs so that our voices can be heard, loud and clear, in parliament.

Thank you.

God bless.

I’ve only found out about this website recently and would like to say that it has some great content.

The stories published are always very provocative, challenging and intelligent. Most importantly, the stories with substantiated examples really strike a chord – judging from the number of comments – with citizens. Kudos to the writers.

Even the comments left by readers are thought-provoking.

Keep up the good work and carry on providing Singaporeans a wider perspective.