guff in the irish press

no, thats the full article, baring the little bit of headline that was cut off.
That is complete and unedited.

The full headline should read:
ANGER OVER ATTACK ON OAPS OVER CITY DEVELOPMENT

Irish Examiner article. The wording is, for one, inaccurate. Secondly, not to say that it isn’t there, but I genuinely don’t even recall reading some of those comments. In fact, the 1st comment quoted as being on the website belongs to the website http://www.ageaction.ie and was NEVER quoted on Archiseek by any user and any time. It is an utter mistruth. See the quote by CSD representative Mick Murphy in the Inside Cork article proving this – the Irish Examiner article has falsified this information. Also, the 2nd and 3rd comments were made as 1 post by 1 contributor and are NOT seperate user comments – the article portrays these comments as being seperate – thus representative of the other users.

The 2nd last apparent comment was not a post condemning the members of CSD, it was actually a defence against another comment by a prominent Archiseek contributor (who generally doesn’t involve with the thread in question) and who was defending the OAPs. This is another twisted portrayl and is entirely inaccurate and misleading.

I however accept responsibility for the last highlighted point about ‘the local butcher’ as I remember posting that, however it was taken out of context in a discussion about objecting to plans based on their impact in depriving a community of local services and was in NO way related to an attack on the elderly, but the effects of development on community. It has nothing to do with the portrayed description in the Irish Examiner.

In total, of all the comments made apparently by users criticising the elderly, about 2 stand – one with a question mark over it. The remaining quotes would seem to be either falsified, misrepresented and/or misquoted.

Inside Cork article. Paul, Inside Cork is a free local circulation paper now owned by the Galway Independent. Its circulation averages 25,000. Please note that the quoted comments are completely inaccurate and that it claims Archiseek.com did not avail of the opportunity to respond – which is a blatant lie. Katie Mythen’s e-mail address is printed. Her editor is Eddie Lyons at eddie@insidecork.ie

Apologises for the late posting.

i’d politely suggest we don’t discuss this topic further until the owners of the site make a decision on how they intend to deal with the matter.

Unfortunately I wont be able to upload a copy of this second article due to prior commitments. Perhaps someone else could oblige.
It is basically the same article with a suggestion that the LADSOCL thread was shut down due to yesterdays article. Quotes from members of aforementioned pressure group welcoming the ‘shutdown’ and there are also extensive quotes from Lexington’s posting on THIS thread.
It does try to row back by mentioning that the ‘offensive’ postings were made by a minority of users.

@AndrewP wrote:

Am curious what problem people have with that article.
If the site wasn’t asked for its side of the story, then the article is unbalanced.
But Age Action Ireland might take the view that what’s on the website is already a publication, so the article is their own right to reply. I can’t see how anyone would be surprised that OAPs would be offended at ‘take their pensions off them’ jibes.
That said, I doubt they called the paper with this story – I think the Examiner is basically shit-stirring and is probably delighted at the response here.

Are the quotes attributed to the site accurate? If not, then the site has been misrepresented, and that’s a different matter and should be followed up.

@AndrewP wrote:

Am curious what problem people have with that article.
If the site wasn’t asked for its side of the story, then the article is unbalanced.
But Age Action Ireland might take the view that what’s on the website is already a publication, so the article is their own right to reply. I can’t see how anyone would be surprised that OAPs would be offended at ‘take their pensions off them’ jibes.
That said, I doubt they called the paper with this story – I think the Examiner is basically shit-stirring and is probably delighted at the response here.

Are the quotes attributed to the site accurate? If not, then the site has been misrepresented, and that’s a different matter and should be followed up.

Just saw that article there Radioactiveman.

AndrewP – indeed 2 of the comments were genuine and that is unfortunate. More regretable however is that many of the other comments were misrepresented, including one which was taken by the Examiner from a quote by Mick murphy of CSD who was himself quoting a phrase on the Age action ireland website that basically said ‘they (the elderly) shouldn’t have a voice regarding the future because they will disappear’. This was not posted on archiseek – see an earlier post outlining the inaccuracies.

Id really like to see this get no more coverage and get back to work on the cork thread (whichever one) and get back to what this place is suppose to be all about. Not this phooey. Why should such a good thing suffer because of about 2 people and a newspaper thingy.??

Ive no more to say on this subject lets get back to work!

Your right to express your opinion on the issues is your utmost entitlement. But I would ask you, to please consider the situation in the context that it does not need to be roused unduly any further. What goes from here, as sw101 suggested should be left to those in charge to deliberate. That’s my final comment on the matter for the time being. A new thread is now active – and I hope it will be positive on all counts.

I agree with ewankennedy ‘s sentiment expressed above – proactive action (for Archiseek, CSD etc etc).

Well – if you value archiseek, it is time to step up and defend it.

Sent to: katie@insidecork.com, eddie@insidecork.com, eoin.english@examiner.ie and features@examiner.ie
Subject: Archiseek.com – not for publication
Dear Mr. English, Mr. Hobbs and Ms. Mythen,

It is with no little disquiet I read articles in recent issues of Examiner and Inside Cork relating to archiseek.com.

I am in no way qualified in any form of urban design, merely an interested expatriot who enjoys reading about developments in Cork and Ireland as a whole. Apart from reading and contributing to discussions I have no position of management or material contribution to the Archiseek website.

Interested watchers of any human activity will offer opinions and sometimes they will be over the top to the point of offensiveness. This is the nature of public fora of any sort. It is to the management of archiseek’s credit that the “signal to noise” ratio is actually creditably high compared to other internet forums. Reading the one-sided nature of the articles in question, it must have taken no little effort to seek out the posters who take less care with their words and to so completely ignore the extremely useful information provided by several contributors regarding development in Dublin, Limerick and particularly Cork’s “look at de state of Cork, like”, a discussion thread which at time of writing comprised 1,870 separate contributions alone. Being a subforum about Cork, with the hysteria and the insight comes banter, something that should not have to be explained to Cork newspapers, especially in an era of peoplesrepublicofcork.com or wheresmeculture.com.

While some developers in Cork over the years have made dreadful errors, residents groups have done so too. It is unsurprising that feelings run high. However, we have surely not seen a quantum leap in Irish development since Lemass and this development must be fully debated by the public as we must live with it for the next half century. To oppose an OAP group like CSD must seem like opposing motherhood and apple pie but while they are entitled their opinion, they cannot hold a veto either on planning development or indeed on commentary as to their motivations and the effect their lobbying may have on the progress of Cork development.

Free speech comes with a high cost but it is a cost worth paying compared to than the alternative. A New York Times journalist has just been imprisoned for defending this principle, at a time when Ireland has revisited the Doherty phone taps. If the Irish media take such a dim view of freedom of speech by blithely reprinting pressure group press releases they will find themselves without defenders when Government again seeks to limit press freedom in Ireland.

The publication of these articles and the hysterical responses of certain parties have led to the withdrawal of contributors from the discussion who had provided much light on the often puzzling nature of development and planning in Cork. I encourage you to revisit Archiseek as a normal reader rather than using the Search tool to find quotes to fit the frame you wish to fit on this matter. I also ask that proper facilities for comment be given to the administrators of Archiseek rather than claim they “did not avail of the opportunity” when they themselves were trying to find out what they were being accused of.

Yours faithfully,
Mark Dowling
(address supplied in original)
Toronto, Canada

There is no mention from what I can see – but maybe the powers that be have heard different. I seems as though it was a matter of ‘stain and walk-away’. An apology would compromise their reputation in terms of reporting. My problem is, that they have compromised the reputation of this website and that irritates me something un-natural. I would have thought, given the many inaccuracies and mistruths that they solicited, at the very least a printed apology would have been in order. But they seem to be ignoring it.

What bugs me is that they seem to think they have won a victory over the website. I think I set up the CAD thread to allow some form of discussion continue regarding Cork while the powers that be deliberated and while a chance was enabled to go through the thread to see if there was any truth in the article – but they have since proven to be false and misleading. The article which followed in the IE claiming that Archiseek.com had ‘pulled’ the thread in response to their article bugged me – that too was misleading. I would love to re-continue the LADSOCL thread if only to show that they were wrong and that their claims were hollow. New visitors to the site would be able to see that the IE reports were false when viewing the thread still active for themselves – but it has to be one or the other I suppose. Hmmm.

Is Archiseek.com actively seeking an apology themselves might I ask, or is consideration being given to just rising above it and getting on with things? Just curious.

i doubt that an apology will be forthcoming.