The nicest blog in Scotland
We’ve been feeling a little hurt this week, readers. Judging by the number of bloggers and suchlike who’ve huffily blocked us on Twitter for no apparent reason, or just said nasty and untruthful things about us, we were beginning to think we must be bad people. So we were relieved beyond measure when we asked website-of-the-moment Klouchebag (which marks users on four undesirable traits, with low scores out of a maximum 100 being good) to analyse our tweet history and got this reassuring result:
Just for a bit of lightweight Friday-night fun, then, we decided to run a random selection of our follow list through the machine too, along with a small scattering of wildcards and some of the delicate wee flowers we’re clearly still too awful for, and see what an impartial automated observer made of it all.
We’ve ranked the results in order, from most charming down to most obnoxious. We didn’t generally bother with party leaders or senior figures, because the mostly-impersonal nature of their Twitter accounts tends to result in high scores – Johann Lamont and Alex Salmond both score 50, for example, though Ruth Davidson was the honourable exception with just 14. (And just like most Scottish voters, the program didn’t recognise Willie Rennie at all.)
Instead we concentrated mostly on the media and blogosphere, and you can see the results below. (Hover the mouse over any pic if the Twitter name doesn’t tell you very clearly who they are, and click any pic to enlarge.)
So there you go. Who’d have thought Tom Harris was nicer than Patrick Harvie, eh? (And indeed, the least odious Labour figure of all the ones we sampled?) Or that Scotland Tonight would be so much more cordial than Newsnight Scotland? Or that Foulkes would (just) come out on top over Galloway in the Battle Of The Georges?
Or that so many of the editors of pious old Better Nation, so keen to censor their readers into “civilised debate”, would find themselves propping up most of the table? Or that the most unpleasant of all Scottish Twitterers would be a Lib Dem, a Guardian reporter and mild-mannered Kez Dugdale? And remember, folks – this isn’t our opinion, but that of a cold-hearted impartial machine. Just goes to show, eh?
Feel free to enter your own account, or that of your own personal favourites, and let us know the results. (And if you can find anyone with a lower score than 4, or a higher one that 59, we’d like to hear about those especially.) It’s all in fun.
Whew! Probably just as well that it can’t trawl old usenet posts or check Wikipedia project space.
Anyway, you’re a better man than me. And that’s official.
i luv ye’s.
Jings, I rate alongside Patrick Harvey. Is that good?
I got 39, totally outrageous!
I am a total asshat – 69 – woohoo! Must stop arguing with LibDems…..
Let’s see if this all works:
I am a bit upset with this:
We’ve been feeling a little hurt this week, readers. Judging by the number of bloggers and suchlike who’ve huffily blocked us on Twitter for no apparent reason, or just said nasty and untruthful things about us, we were beginning to think we must be bad people.
A little bit about me. I am a runaway from pre-moderation on Better Nation. I am banned on Newsnet Scotland over money I contributed being appropriated. The Guardian ‘Comment is Free’ hate me because I told them exactly what I thought of Madeleine Bunting.
The point?
The point is that the drawbridges are pulled up against comment. One sad example of stifling debate is ‘Better Nation’, which should be prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act.
Their authorial dignity – which James has in spades – is the be all and end all of debate.
To be clear, they care more about their author’s than they do about debate.
Here is an example from ‘Scotland Goes Pop!’:
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JPJ2 said…
Don McC & James Kelly
I seem to have been the only one so far (JPJ2) to be prepared to comment directly in gently negative fashion about the Jenny Kemp article at Better Nation.
I also considered for some time whether I should dare to comment but was driven forward on behalf of men by personal experience.
I agree with everything that James writes here, and I have to say on this issue-particularly by “Scottish” Labour who always speak as if it is a men on woman only issue- Scotland is running behind the views of much of the rest of the Western World.
I will express a view here which I did not feel comfortable enough to express on Better Nation with regard to how the lives of more women could be saved. There is considerable evidence from investigations into male/female student relationships that low grade violence is initiated by men or women more or less equally, but that women do not have the same inhibitions as men on the issue because they do not feel that they can inflict the same damage as men can. The problem with that, it seems to me, is that a woman initiating violence is liable to be subject to more damaging physical retaliation.
I contend that one of the actions that would definitely help to save women from harm would be for feminists and others to remind women that they should not physically attack men on the grounds of self interest alone.
My conclusion can only be that domestic abuse/ violence must not be treated as a feminist issue.
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Better Nation response? Shut the thread down.
I used to read and comment on ‘Better Nation’ quite a lot. I do not recall their new policy of ‘The comments are closed’ being there before. It is just another attempt by Jeff and the boys and girls to deny debate. I am under moderation for all posts there. That, in itself, is enough to damn them.
You could apply that rule to all the idiots that pretend to allow debate, but don’t. Better Nation is run by schoolboys who couldn’t argue their way out of a wet paper bag.
Some amusing results, but the criteria is not particularly accurate. I ranked high on English misuse, despite the fact I will painstakingly rewrite tweets over and over again to make them short enough to fit, rather than resort to txtspk. I also make sure to capitalise things properly. It seems it was my liberal use of exclamation marks for ironic purposes that saw me get quite a high score there.
Also, I get a high score for retweet abuse, due to occasional fits of retweeting. But even that criteria makes no sense, because it seems you can retweet too little, as well as too much. The only accurate section of my score is the amount of profanity and anger. But that alone should not be enough to see me reach 50! At least I rank 0 for Social App abuse…
(Incidentally, one might suggest a site measuring “asshattery” is, itself, a bit of a “klouchebag”, since “asshat” is a ridiculous insult.)
Anyone who thinks the word “criteria” is singular, should get several million points for “misuse of English”, srsly.