Public relations man Rani Rahav declares talkbackers 'contemptible'

Censorship, or "editing", as you call it, would defeat the whole purpose of asking readers' comments. I believe that there should be guidelines, such as no profanity and no incitement to be allowed. Everything else should be printed as is, the good and the bad. And we are free to read it or not.

If journalists work is subject to editing then certainly talkback should not be exempt. Editing should ensure that talkback is allowed to reflect genuine diversity of opinion presented responsibly. The media should be interesting, informative and constructive without subjecting readers to the filth and abuse of irresponsible talkback.

Another jab at democratic airing of opinions that does not suit the agenda of the state. If the MFA was not completly inept it would use its resources to organize its own desired PR instead of relying on common talkbackers to align themselves with state policies.

I agree with #21. I really enjoy reading these talkbacks sometime/ It reminds me what a smart bunch of people we Jews/Israelis largely are. Also that there are a lot of not so smart people about.

I agree with your comments. I don't normally read all 300 comments on Haaretz articles, only those with catchy titles or those with names I'm familiar with that I know are good. I read talkbacks on other Israeli websites as well, and I can say that I often learn more from those well-educated, thoughtful talkbackers than from the biased reporters themselves. The good talkbacks make it all worthwhile.

All those in "control" or "authoritiy figures" always want to dominate opinions and information. The web blog is a true form of democracy and search for truth. Anyone against these blogs is just an enemy of freedom of expression and thought. For example, the media always portrays the Palis as innocent victims of Zionism or land grabbing settlers. Here it is possible to voice the truth that the Palis were part of the Jordanian, Egyptian and Syrian armies that in 1967 fought an attempted race war of extermination that sought to murder and evict all Jews from the Land of Israel. Here one can express the opinion that the Palis are not innocent, but are apartheid, antisemetic Arab racists that will not tolerate anyone but Arab moslems in their midsts. Here you can ask the question, "How many Jews did the PA tolerate in Gaza after the pull out by Israel?" and "Is the PA xenophobic and reactionary?" Yes, there is a lot of crap on the blogging boards, but the truth also gets a good hearing

an excellent example of what was stated in the body of the report "talkbackers needing psychiatric help" Here's one that craves attention so much IT begs to be added to a list of ignorant morons. All upset coz IT wasn't included. What a SICKO!!!!!

First of all, I agree with Rani Rahav, although we have never met, that anything commercial should be taken out of talkbacks, as long as it not pertaining to news issues. As far as these other fools that were mentioned by Vittorio, we need them: they are a great source of amusement and entertainment. People like them will always hate Jewish people and Israel, so what is the point in trying to educate them.

Those who strap themselves with dynamite are the only ones who are members of a Voodoo religion. No doubt there. Zionism is the aspiration of Jews to build a democratic country on the land of their ancestors. It was noble in the past, it became more aggressive once violent Muslems decided the Jews are to be thrown away to the sea...

You can add my name to your list.

- Among HAARETZ articles we see anti-Israel publications of Amera Hass and Gideon Levy. - Among talkbackers there are several mentally chellanged persons for whom hatred towards Jews and Israel is a real obsession. Here are some of them: - "Dutch" (a.k.a. Doris Cadigan); - Merilyn from Australia (full name Marilyn Shepherd, to see her orientation please GOOGLE: "Marilyn Shepherd" Australia Israel); - Maureen Ann from Bathurst, Australia; - Hannah; - Clickfool; - christa. Actually, there is a certain justification for their publications: One can see how unfair anti-Semites can be in their argumentation. The real problem is the general amount of such anti-Israel and anti-Jewish publications. TOO MUCH - TOO BAD.

What if I post something that someone thinks is anti semetic or something here on our Talkback forum? Do I get sent a Worm or Malware in my email?

Zionist Entity posters, no matter where they live! These are merely members of a Voodoo-like religion!!!

Newspapers and their columnists publish pretty much what they want without any real reign on their misuse of facts, selectivity (called judgment) and tone. The main difference is that journalists are a "club" and the public are outsiders.

Slashdot is one site that attracts mostly unhelpful user submitted comments on stories. They deal with the crap flood by moderating comments. Although, I am not sure that is really an effective solution for simple article talkbacks here on Ha'aretz. On contentious articles on Slashdot, even the act of moderating comments becomes infused with politics where various comments are moderated down or up based purely on the political positions expressed than on the intrinsic quality of the comment. I guess one has to ask oneself whether from a business perspective do these talkback features result in more revenue for Ha'aretz. If there benefits outweigh their downsides then it makes sense to keep them. The volume of talkbacks on an article here on Ha'aretz does act as an indicator of how contentious an article is. I regularly purposely read the articles that have an excessive number of talkbacks just to see what the fuss is about.

So often the talkback comments on controversial articles, such as those dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict here on Ha'aretz, are incredible toxic and unproductive. It's a shame since I think that anyone who takes these talkback comments as a serious indicator of societial opinion will only come to the conclusion society is filled with angry and extreme characters. I avoid reading and posting any talkback comments on contentious articles as it just isn't worth my time. I hope that others are aware that talkback is often a mud pit that most normal people avoid, otherwise you might just loose all hope in humanity.

Exile contemptible bloggers to Siberia. Send Canadian ones to Hawaii.

REUBEN YOU ARE VERY ANGRY. MAYBE IT WOULD PROVE BENEFICIAL FOR YOUR HEALTH AND WELLBEING IF YOU AVOIDED SUCH SITES. FAILING THAT A GOOD WOMAN MIGHT BE YOUR SALVATION. GOOD LUCK WHICHEVER METHOD YOU ATTEMPT. SMILE AND THE WHOLE WORLD MAY SMILE WITH YOU ONE DAY, BUT CRY AND YOU WILL ALWAYS DO SO IN ISOLATION. TRY AND AVOID THE RAT TRAPS, BECAUSE EVERY TIME YOU FALL IN ANOTHER ONE YOU ARE ONE. SOUNDS LIKE YOU WILL NEED ALL THE LUCK YOU CAN GET, SO I WISH YOU AND YOURS A HAPPIER FUTURE AND PESACH KASHER AND SAMEACH....

every time there is a "report" that is actually some reporter practically copy-pasting a PR communique, at least one talkbacker will expose that, and write about the underlying agenda behind the "report". That's why Rahav opposes this - in a matter of seconds, a "good" PR tactic/strategy can be crushed by anyone with a brain that just happened to be passing by. That makes it harder on him to play his little obsolete games of dinosaur PRing. And since he doesn't know how to do any other type of PRing...his only other option is to wildly attack the talkbackers (in the same violent manner that he claims talkbackers tend to respond).

I rest my case, lol :-)

Oh my! And to think that I always imagined that stuff like democracy, including freedom of expression, was a good thing!

I believe all tlakbackers are illiterate scum who should rot in hell!

Wouldnt go as far as banning the talkback idea. true you do get a lot of morons, bigots, lunatics and just plain silly people sounding off on it. but good and fair editing should take care of it. and it is a good way of expressing an opinion and starting debate. corner stones of free press and democracy. wonder which of the above do i fit in with?:-)

the quality of the talkbackers is no different than the quality of the journalists. I employ 300 people, know many journalists who employ more than their laptop ?

I agree that the talkback posts are generally quite ridiculous, and many of the posters are uneducated, uninformed morons. However, if there is really a concern, a practical solution would be for the online publications to NOT make this feature available on their websites. If someone has a concern, they can write a letter to the editor or the author of the article, not to the whole world. Furthermore, if the article generated by the reporting agency (online newspaper, etc) is questionable, they probably shouldn't publish it to begin with.