To the Sanjana – Malinda exchange I can only confirm that some of my best friends are Sinhala racists.

As for the plagiarism thing, I don’t usually find myself in disagreement with David Blacker but i think he’s taking the stricter and narrower view of things
(copyright). Rajpal is right about plagiarism. I would understand it as passing off as your own product, someone else’s stuff, i.e. copying in a classroom or lifting chunks from a book unacknowledged and including it in your tutorial. So far Rajpal has not been found guilty of that deadly charge.

I do think though that Rajpal’s manner of expressing himself on this and occasionally other matters has been even more sophomoric than Malinda’s usually tends to be.

Anyone who is a registered author (just registering on the site does not make one an author) on this site can see all the comments on the site. WordPress lists the IP against each comment. Wasn’t my or by design – just WordPress for you.

This is water under the bridge. I’m sad that his comment was of the this nature in response to my own missive to him (http://www.groundviews.org/2007/07/12/bloggers-and-mainstream-media-media-ethics-in-a-digital-age/#comment-16239) but have no regrets that it was I who drafted the FMM statement against his removal from the post of Editor at the Observer back in the day (http://www.dailymirror.lk/2006/10/13/news/09.asp). He doesn’t know this.

Take care,

Sanjana

For some reason an earlier response to your comment re me didn’t go through….I said something on the following lines:

At the time I wrote the piece (there was a back-and-forth over several weeks if I remember right), I did not know Dayan. Met him later and we became friends. Still friends. Collegaues, close colleagues…depends on how one sees such things. There are more things we agree on today than we did before, true. Does this make me take back what I said? No. Not unless I found that what I wrote was somehow wrong.

I don’t subscribe to the theory that a political enemy cannot be a personal friend. I consider you a friend although we are ideologically at odds with one another in more ways than Dayan and I are or were.

Histories do matter. They teach us to be wary. Does it mean that if common ground is found one must choose to be grumpy and scowl? What if you and I at some point in time come to share the same ideological position(s). Should we refuse to work together becaue I was once associated with NMAT and you with the CPA?

Tomorrow, Dayan and I, by the same token, might have differences of opinion and will no doubt call each other out. So what?

It’s a judgment call too, of course. It depends on the person. I think you (and Dayan) are fundamentally decent individuals. As such histories, although they do figure in assessments, will be less raucus factors in the overall view. There are always those we learn to treat with utmost suspicion, even to the point of rejection. One does not play with vipers.

For the record, I still have my disagreements with Dayan and Rajpal. They both took issue with me with respect to Sivaram (I wrote in http://www.theacademic.org as did Dayan; Rajpal wrote in the Sunday Times and Dayan’s piece was carried in the Sunday Island at a time when i didn’t have access to any newspaper). We still disagree on that score. Didn’t stop me from defending Rajpal, editorially, in The Nation, when the Sunday Observer fired him (see under ‘Media Machinations’ at http://www.nation.lk/2006/10/15/edit.htm.)

Malinda

p.s. by the way, can you email me that article you’ve picked the quote from? it was an interesting exchange and Dayan got the last word SINCE I was a staffer at the Island. Prabath refused to carry my final, 7 line rebuttal.

re ip addresses….if A and B are networked your research will still give you one ip address. does not mean A=B. In this case, Rajpal may not equal ‘Lakbima’ (if that’s where he’s writing from) and there’s nothing to stop others at Lakbima posting something, is there?

And Sanjana, since you are hot on democracy and stuff, howhat’s your take on the privileges accorded to some to trace back posts?

Malinda

Dayan was not a friend then, for I had never met him. Friend a couple of years later, even though we disagreed about many things. Friend still. Rajpal is a friend even though he has taken issue with positions I held/hold. I consider you a friend, although there are lots we disagree about.

The comment on Dayan is still valid, even though we think alike on a lot more things now than we did before.

Histories are important for they tell us something about what we can expect. But I am not fixated on such things and don’t subscribe to the Trotskyite dictum ‘political enemy can never be personal friend’. Tomorrow, Dayan and I might disagree vehemently. And we will probably call each other out. Tomorrow, by the same token, you and I may find ourselves on the same ideological page. Should we let suspicions on account of me having been associated with NMAT and you being in the CPA get in the way of working together?

I guess it’s a call about how one chooses to relate to people, isn’t it?

There are people we learn to keep at arm’s lenth. People we shake hands with. I would shake Dayan’s hand any day. Yours too. Regardless of the ideological positions you may take up on Day X, because at some fundamental level I think both of you are decent people. The same goes for Rajpal.

There are others I would hesitate to go near. One does not play with vipers.

Cheers.
Malinda

“About Dayan’s history, let me say it all in one line: it includes a particularly funny way of handing over nomination papers, a funny way of popping in and out of the country, offering an abject public apology to J.R. Jayewardene, not to mention defending the party lines of the various groups in power (nationally and regionally). It would suffice to say ‘Danno Danithi’ at this point.”

“Some mild thoughts on Dayan Jayatilleka”, The Island, Colombo, Oct.9, 2000

Sanjana

As far as I know, no one on this thread has suggested that this website should “blow any bloggers cover”. That some authors use public information that cannot be barred from them because of the manner in which the underlying technology that Groundviews uses is built upon (WordPress) as they see fit is a matter for open debate. As a technical issue however, it is beyond Groundviews to address and needs to be addressed as a fault, if one thinks it such, to the creators of WordPress. The manner in which some authors use information they are privy to as authors in the public interest (such as to expose those who mischievously adopt multiple personalities on this fora in what is obviously a schizophrenic approach to debate online that attempts to obfuscate one’s true agenda and opnion) will be accepted since I am of an older camp that does not believe anonymity is an adequate defense against the promotion of hate, disinformation, partial analysis, parochial bias and personal agendas that seek to use this forum for ends less than and vitiate what it is intended to support.

Clearly, this is not a set belief and I am open to debating it. But may I suggest that those who choose to be my interlocutors educate themselves on the realities of managing and editing multi-author blog on highly emotive issues such as those that Groundviews deals with before pontificating on the proclivities of this website or those of my personal bias.

For exmaple and contrary to your belief, perhaps on account of a partial reading of this site and content herein, Groundviews does welcome divergent opinion – and that which it refuses publication to on account of its guidelines often find immediate publication on the blogs of those the comments came from, making the SL blogosphere on occasion one big Groundviews beat-em-up!

Your viewpoint is also based on a necessarily partial reading of the comments this site generates as an outsider to comment moderation on Groundviews. For example, I receive dozens of vituperative comments against the principal protagonist mentioned in this post which I opted to not publish. That which I have, as you have noted, attempts to push the debate forward whilst at the same time marginalising the idiotic blather of those who cannot engage in constructive discussions.

Clearly, on occasion, Groundviews has stumbled and fallen short of its avowed goals – I must and will take full responsibility for these shortcomings which I see as necessary and inevitable in the creation of something sui generis in the SL blogosphere at the time it was launch and indeed, to date – a multi-author, alternative blog for news, analysis and information in English, Sinhala and Tamil. Overall, I think we’ve pretty much defined what a site such as this can achieve and it is a testimony to the maturity of content herein, the number and calibre of visitors this site receives daily that mainstream media now pulls content off it and points to articles as well.

Having been associated with the SL blogosphere for well over 2 years now, may I also add that as a whole, there is a rich tradition of great writing in it. Even my worst critics, such as Voice in Colombo, come out with some compelling reading on their blogs when they choose to write in an engaging manner. When Groundviews was launched, it did not see itself in the role of acting as a watchdog of media ethics. That it has done so on two occasions in the past month alone, with one expose facilitating a public apology from the Editor of another leading English daily, suggests there is merit in looking at how such initiatives can be expanded and strengthened by mechanisms such as the PCC as well as by other media freedom organisations. In the meanwhile, Groundviews will continue to report in the same vein.

Sanjana

On the issue of pseudonyms: anonymity appears at the core of much blogging. That “Groundviews” as a site, does not publish IP addresses seems to indicate that anonymity is deemed a positive vehicle for an exchange of ideas: allowing persons freely and openly to express their point of view(s) and engage in discussion, where otherwise they might not – under anonymous pseudonyms, if they so choose.

Effort on the site to publicly ‘blow any bloggers cover’, may not only send shudders throughout this site’s current and potential blogging community, – deterring some from entering debates.

It may also signal potential repercussions for “Groundviews” to consider internally. The seemingly arbitrary manner of exposing blogger-identity, if s/he holds diverging views from a member of “Groundviews” – with access to IP and email addresses of incoming comments – appears to compromise and undermine the foundation the site – as a whole – wishes to uphold.

There seems much to be considered on the issue of ‘Blogger Rights’ – in its relations with the traditional printed media, and within the ‘blogging sphere’ itself.

ps- i’m not Rajpal, and I’m not familiar with his writings other than his eulogy to Sivaram.

Thank you for pointing this story out. Firstly, I didn’t pen that article. Secondly, Groundviews is under a Creative Commons license as noted on the homepage (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/) the conditions of which allow DM or even Rajpal (or whatever he likes to call himself online) to use content herein provided they keep to the conditions of this particular CC license.

Best,

Sanjana

Take a look at this: http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/07/18/opinion/02.asp

Did the editor of Daily Mirror get in touch with your prior to publishing this article? I am just curious here.

For a while, I personally believed blogging to be a large part of the future. In SL, Kottu and Groundviews have taken this to new heights. At least this fact alone (the richness of blog content) has been acknowledged in print. Better understanding and media interaction will serve at least one objective: better access to information. Under a Govt dishing one-way tickets to hell, is this not a crying need? Small steps to higher ground….. let the information revolution unfold.

There is evidence to suggest that Rajpal, Tempy, Amithdis, and Kanishka, in the above comments, are in fact the same person (or at least sharing computers or email addresses). “Facts”, my grandma is fond of saying, “are stubborn things”. Here are the facts:

* 1 amithdis post comes from the same IP address as 2 posts of Rajpal.
* 1 Rajpal post comes from the same IP address as both of Tempy’s posts.
* 1 email address used by Tempy is the same one used by Kanishka!

Reason to think: Rajpal = Tempy = Kanishksa = amithdis

Blogs tend to log IP and email addresses of incoming comments as a matter of course — like the default caller id function on mbile phones. Some blogs publish the IP address, groundviews does not. But because I am an author on groundviews I can choose to view these fields and though it was a bit tedious to check, the result has been rather entertaining! — The longer this drama goes on the more it is making me laugh.

You may choose to submit, post, and display any materials on or through the Blogger service or Blogspot.com under a public license (e.g. a Creative Commons license), whether by manually marking your materials as such or using Blogger service tools to do so. For avoidance of doubt, Google is not a party to any such public license between you and any third party. Also, for avoidance of doubt, Google may choose to exercise the rights granted under (a) the public license or licenses, if any, you apply to your materials or (b) this Agreement. \” from blogspot Terms of Service
Read more here
http://www.blogger.com/terms.g

Anyway intellectual property law is the highest authority. Not the terms of service of this or that blog service.

In addition I have posted a detailed entry explaining the legal situation when it comes to copyright law. Internet has no exceptions, unless otherwise explicitly noted by the copyright holder of the content.
http://webalochana.blogspot.com/2007/07/this-is-law-you-dont-need-disclaimer-to.html

[Editors note: I once again urge all those who comment to do so in a spirit of engagement and avoid the use of language that undermines progressive communication. Thank you.]