Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Following yet another run of problems over the last few days we have moved to another hosting provider. Update: password system now fixed.

It would appear that the system is failing to send out passwords for new accounts etc - and we currently can't work out why: if you have registered but not received a password, email  admin@webdiary.com.au and I will set a new password for you ...

March site statistics and financials

February statistics and financials, plus news on Project Syndicate.

We ceased publishing P-S-sourced articles at the end of February. Webdiarists interested in following the writings of messrs Singer, Sachs, Stiglitz, Rogoff, Nye, DeLong and others can do so at the Project Syndicate site.

January statistics and financials.

December statistics and financials.

We won't be publishing any new articles from 22 Dec through to the first week in January. Most editors are away / out of net contact, so comment publishing will also be intermittent. Have a good time doing other things (as we intend to) !

November statistics, financials, and technicals.

Margo founded Webdiary for the Sydney Morning Herald in July 2000 and took it independent on August 22, 2005. She related her view of the saga in a lecture to the South Australian Governor's Leadership Forum in February 2006.

October statistics, financials, and technicals.

Webdiary is an open community site. With very limited exceptions set out in the Editorial Policy page, we publish every comment we receive that is coherent/comprehensible and not abusive to others. If you think the balance of the comments submitted has veered away from your position to the left, right, up or down, thensubmit some comments on the other side: what we won't do is start censoring comments simply to 'balance the debate'. We leave that up to you.

Similarly, unlike sites who moderate comments after first publication, we don't remove comments after they are published, unless a strong case is made out that they are abusive or against editorial policy and should not have been published. In the first ten months of 2006, we removed only two comments on those grounds. [Whereas the Guardian estimates that it removes up to 25% of all comments submitted to its Comment Is Free site after they are reported as offensive or unsuitable.] So, if you think a claim or reference in another comment is factually inaccurate, write in to say so (preferably with backing references to your view). We don't have time to fact-check everything, and anyway in many cases there are strong views and references on both sides of a dispute or debate.

Webdiary apologises for the problems we are currently experiencing with comments.  Our tech team is currently working on a solution and we hope to have the problem fixed soon.

SQL DB repaired.

Solomon locks coffee-cups for a soft-hitting interview with Noel Hadjimichael

September statistics and financials

August statistics and financials

July statistics and financials.

June and Financial Year statistics and financials.

Some notes on why comments might not be published.

Details on how the comments box works, and what happens when we edit / moderate comments

Webdiary state-of-play - and some significant changes and questions for Webdiarists.

Some people have e-mailed asking what's happening: Hamish has taken some well-deserved time off (his first actual break other than Christmas in the last twelve months). Meantime, we seem to have hit a couple of days when the volunteer editors all have been busy on other stuff, so comments editing etc has been a bit intermittent. This is likely to continue for the next few days, so, if your favorite remark doesn't appear for a while, it probably will come round eventually ...

There has been much debate on Webdiary over its nearly 6 years of existence about the merits of moderation and registration of comments and commenters. Most serious sites either moderate or require registration or both - we do both. Today's Crikey accuses the SMH (moderation without registration) of systematically not publishing critical comments on blogs. Meanwhile, over the Guardian's new Comment is Free site (registration without moderation), a debate is under way about the need to tone some of the abusive comments down ... what follows is the view of Guardian Online Editor Emily Bell.

Peter Singer discusses his latest book, The ethics of what we eat, at City Recital Hall on Saturday 27 May 7pm, and joins Naomi Wolf on a panel discussing What makes a civil society? at Sydney Town Hall at 4pm on Sunday 28 May. Haifa Zangana joins several panels discussing Iraq and War: at Parramatta Riverside Theatre, 6:30pm Thurs 25th; at Sydney Theatre, 11:30am, Fri 26th; and at Sydney Town Hall, 6pm Fri 26th. She also discusses the problem of murders of academics in Iraq at Sydney Theatre, 11am, Sat 27th. Add any other recommended spots in comments!

Webdiary GM David Roffey's wrap-up of the Webdiary state-of-play for April.

"Why not harness the asset that Webdiary is not only to its own community but to society as an whole. We have State and Federal budgets coming up. What do we, as Webdiarists want to see happen in those budgets? What would be the cost, how would we balance the competing interests and how would we fund it all?" Malcolm B Duncan

Webdiary GM David Roffey provides our monthly report on site statistics, finances, registrations and Margo.

Equipped with the ethical guidelines for good journalism, there is no reason why citizens with all sorts of expertise and experience can't worm their way into the closed club of media-politics-business and seek and get answers now hidden because the questions are never asked. Their accountability would come from the fact that their reports and pieces are themselves open to scrutiny and corrections from other readers through comments. And that before they become citizen journalists they must earn the trust and respect of other readers and contributors.

Webdiary GM David Roffey provides our monthly report on site statistics, revenue and sundry.

We do not store details about you on this site unless you register to make comments. Any details you may supply in respect of payments, donations etc are not stored on this site or in any place accessible to the public.

If you register to make comments, your e-mail address is retained by us so that we can communicate with you in respect of site content. We will not supply that address to any other parties, and it is only available on this site to authorised editors. Your complete registration record is available to be viewed by you online at all times. No other personal data on you whatsoever is retained by us.