Comments on: “Tartan Hero” Grant Thoms on deleting your blog

By: IainM

IainM — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:39:50 +0000

The past will always come back to haunt you! Especially with our muck raking infantile Press and Media. Our politically correct hypocrits.
It is particularly dangerous to be a blogger in Scotland if you have Independence leaning thoughts. For the rabid quislings of Scottish Unionism will twist and slander anything you say!
We live in a country where it has become dangerous to say what you mean and mean what you say!

By: Colin

Colin — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:07:48 +0000

Writing a blog seems to be a terrible career move for politicians. Didn’t Tom Harris get fired from the government because of his?

By: jameshigham

jameshigham — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:56:07 +0000

16 – does such an age still exist?

By: Stuart Winton

Stuart Winton — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:13:24 +0000

Mark, I think perhaps the problem was that the blog disappeared (rather than merely being dormant) when the Glasgow by-election became a certainty rather than before or after, thus raising the suspicion that it was removed because of the prospect of Grant standing in the election rather than for other reasons and, as mentioned earlier, why delete it because it’s dormant rather than just saying goodbye and/or just leaving it as it was before deletion – as the Doc compellingly argues, deleting it served little purpose other than to question Grant’s motives and encourage the consequent media and internet speculation.

But I’m sure many of us lesser mortals would love the chance to be considered sufficiently newsworthy that we have to worry about what’s been written on our blogs!!

By: The dangers of being a blogger - Scottish Roundup

The dangers of being a blogger - Scottish Roundup — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:34:10 +0000

[...] I was confused as to why anyone things deleting their blog would work, as it surely only brings attention to the [...]

By: doctorvee

doctorvee — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:38:41 +0000

Hi Mark, thanks for the comment.

I can sympathise with someone deciding they don’t have the time do blog. I certainly struggle at times to keep churning out articles when I have other things on my plate.

But I don’t understand why you have to delete a blog rather than simply write a goodbye post and keep the archives up. For one thing, it creates a trail of dead links through the web, which ain’t good.

It is true that Grant Thoms stopped posting in March. But he had a much longer hiatus last year, lasting from June until sometime late in the year. He didn’t delete the blog then.

I just don’t understand why someone would spend so much time outlining their vision only to attempt to destroy something they put so much effort into. It would be like writing a book, getting it published then trying to burn all the copies once it got into the shops.

By: Mark McDonald

Mark McDonald — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:00:44 +0000

Gosh! If I had realised deleting my blogs (firstly to create something new in its place, secondly as an admission I no longer had the time to blog) would lead to intrigue and speculation over my motives I wouldn’t have bothered.

It is a sad day when EVERYTHING a politician does has to be via an ulterior motive.

Grant had long since ceased posting to his blog, I suspect he came to the same conclusion I did regarding available time.

I look forward to some intrepid opponent/journo trotting out my blog posts from days gone by at some future stage.

By: doctorvee

doctorvee — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:14:09 +0000

Yes, I think we are in a transitional period just now where the rules around this sort of thing are being written as we go along. Not so long ago the worry was that your Facebook or Bebo profile, complete with embarrassing drunken photos, would be used against you. But now that almost everyone growing up has some sort of online presence, soon it will be the people who don’t have Facebook profiles or blogs who will seem suspicious.

By: last year's girl

last year's girl — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:10:07 +0000

What I’m looking forward to in maybe ten, maybe twenty years time is when the teenage Bebo profile of a rising political star gets dug up by a tabloid complete with ancient, scandalous photos. As social networking becomes a fact of life rather than the preserve of the nerds, it has to be only a matter of time. It amazes me that these seemingly web-savvy politicians (well, maybe not – but savvy enough to start a blog at least!) don’t realise that caching and RSS readers make deletion a futile exercise – and one which, as you so rightly point out, only encourages those investigating to dig deeper and see what the person thought they had that was worth hiding.

It would be great to think that as this stuff becomes more prevalent one’s political enemies will take a pragmatic approach… I suspect not, when it makes point-scoring so easy!