Does the Mail & Guardian Forum undermine the M&G brand?~Sarah Britten
20 November 2007, 16:37 GMT + 2The M&G is both a newspaper and a website, the M&G Online. Ferial Haffajee is the editor of the newspaper, and Riaan Wolmarans is the editor of the website.
If you have ever visited the Mail & Guardian’s home page, you might notice a link entitled “Forums”. Click on it, and it will take you through to a strange little club of which I have been a member for some seven years.
I first signed up for the Forum back in the early days of my career in advertising, when I would occasionally have to stay at the office until midnight waiting for my boss to finish with a document, and there was nothing else to keep crushing boredom at bay. Part of my attraction to the Forum in the first place was the Mail & Guardian brand. Its left-of-centre viewpoint appealed to me for the most part, and back in those days, there was a wide enough range of viewpoints to keep debates interesting and fresh.
The Forum is now a shadow of its former self. Most of the less extremist participants have left; its active regulars are now heavily skewed to right wingers who rant on about liberals, the ANC and people of low IQ (which, as some of them see it, are one and the same thing). Of course they have a right to express their views, but without much in the way of a counterweight, the Mail & Guardian Forum has inevitably become a rather stuffy little bolt-hole for the bitter and the alienated. The occasional purge - participants are banned and generally return under other nicknames - has done little to improve the standard of interaction.
Frankly, it’s all rather boring.
Now we have Thoughtleader, which appears to be successfully triggering debate (mention Ronald Suresh Roberts or Deon Maas and the chattering classes come running) and, moreover, appears to be much more in line with the core values of the Mail & Guardian brand.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Forum regulars for the most part have no interest in Thoughtleader. Take this point of view:
“The purpose of talking heads is to entertain, really. And if they don’t, they really have little purpose. Apart perhaps from spinning an expedient point of view into something palatable for the gullible masses, who will perhaps buy into a ‘presentation’ that casts them (the talkers) as ‘intellectuals’ - dispensing wisdom and truth to the unwise and the ignorant. My personal opinion is that, if you’re looking for honesty, accuracy, truth, and the real thoughts of real people in a real world, you’re much more likely to find it right here.”
Or this one, from a participant - one of the few liberals left - who is resident in the UK:
“The one problem I do have with this sort of venture is the self-importance of it all. You have a bunch of mainly pretty average people writing under the banner of “thought leadership” and it’s all done as an elitist exercise among putative “intellectuals”. I have come to understand that this silly, unsophisticated brand of elitism is, in some respects, peculiarly South African. It is, in any event, profoundly un-English.”
The resistance seems to stem in part from the perception that, because Thoughtleader is moderated, nothing controversial will get through, and that it is the intention of Thoughtleader to peddle pro-ANC myths. So the Mail & Guardian is in the bizarre situation of accommodating a blogging platform that by and large accords with the leftish views of the paper itself, and a chat forum which to all intents and purposes would sit more comfortably with The Citizen.
In fact, though the Forum carries the Mail & Guardian branding, it has very little in common with the motherbrand. The newspaper publishes rude four latter words (including the c-word) in full; the Forum censors just about everything, including relatively innocuous terms like “kak” and “darkie” (even self-proclaimed darkies, for instance, may not refer to themselves as such).
In the past I have complained to the moderator and the administrator about the disconnect between the Mail & Guardian and its Forum, but they argue that since the latter is not actually hosted by the former, my argument is irrelevant. This argument is kak, to use one of those naughty words that is not allowed. If there is no real connection to the Mail & Guardian, then why is the Forum there? Does loyalty to the Forum necessarily mean more newspaper sales? Would it not make sense to separate the two completely and give the Forum an identity of its own?
The establishment of Thoughtleader effectively consigns the Forum to the status of anachronism. Yes, its continued existence makes sense to those who participate in it. But does the Mail & Guardian itself benefit from it in any way? I can’t see how.
Comments so far:
Vincent Maher on November 20th, 2007:
Your observations are very succinct Sarah and much appreciated. I may not be allowed to say this but will say it anyway - the forum is soon going to be laid to rest in a shallow grave with its head pointing downwards.
The reasons for this are both political and practical.
Richard P on November 21st, 2007 :
As someone who posted on the M&G forum on and off for the past 7 years (mainly under the nick UKRichard), and who finally flounced from the forum a month ago, I can only agree with Sarah.
The M&G forum has become a bolthole for extremists of all hues and persuasions. What has particularly set my teeth agrind is the increasing number of nasty unreconstructed white South Africans on the forum (expat and resident) who like to pretend that their petty kneejerk racism is “realism”. These are the sort of people I would walk a mile (or more) to avoid in real life.
There are a very small (i.e. one or two) handful of liberals who still attempt to hold the light of reason aloft, but their number is fast diminishing in the face of the relentless onslaught of small-minded bigotry and racist pseudo-science. By the time I ceased posting a month ago, I had long since given up any attempt at reasoned debate (which was simply bashing ones head against a very thick wall) and had resorted simply to giving those whose views I despised a verbal kicking.
As someone who did not participate in the forum Coffee Klatch (which is its main purpose for many) but in order to engage in decent debate with sane individuals, this was all rather dispiriting.
I hardly think that the M&G forum is what the M&G had in mind, and I think that it would be no bad thing if it were consigned to oblivion.
Riaan Wolmarans, Editor of the online edition of South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper, on December 7th, 2007:
The M&G forums have indeed become a problem. We simply don’t have the resources to roll out full-time, properly organised moderation for them — Thought Leader is already proving to be a bit of a nightmare in the making in terms of keeping it all together (and keeping out the crazies).
But what to do with the forums? They still get quite a bit of attention, so we’d have a rebellion if we shut them down. On the other hand, as has been pointed out here, what’s on the forums doesn’t really reflect the M&G’s values any more.
Also, we are looking at implementing (moderated) comments below articles on our main site in the next six months or so, which would provide a discussion platform for readers. Maybe we can retire the forums then (and keep them as a static archive so all the content on there is not lost).
So, as Vincent has said, the forums’ days may be numbered. Perhaps we’ll just have to endure the vitriol that will come our way from the remaining forumites.
http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/britten/2007/11/20/does-the-mail-guardian-forum-undermine-the-mg-brand/http://1life.yuku.com/topic/398/t/Evolution-of-an-online-community.htmlhttp://openforum.mweb.co.za/ubbthreads.php?Cat= 
We could do with some publicity!!!
.gif ":)")
