Written By: - Date published: 9:01 pm, February 12th, 2008 - 59 comments
Categories: dpf -
Tags: dpf
You’ll probably know about the rumour around the traps that blogger David Farrar is running his polling company Curia out of National Party HQ. This information first came up when Newzblog blogger James Sleep posted on a conversation he had with a young Nat in which the lad in question told him that he worked on the phones for Curia and that they did so out of the party’s Wellington HQ and that in fact they are ‘the National Party’s market research company’.
Sleep contacted Davey on MSN to find out if this is true and has now been locked out of Kiwiblog. In fact the situation is slightly stranger. He can log-on but every comment he makes just disappears. At first I suspected this was a technical glitch but after Sleep gave his log-on to a mutual friend of ours to test it, it does indeed seem to be the case.
As far as I’m concerned DPF can run his business from wherever he likes and run his blog however he chooses and all kudos to him. But if he is getting his income from the National Party and is being resourced by them then he has a clear conflict of interest when he appears in the mainstream media as a political commentator.
Farrar doesn’t mention anything of this in his disclosure statement and I would suggest that if this rumour is untrue then he needs to clear this issue up as soon as possible.
Hattip: Out of Bed for the pun-tastic title.
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Burt: Is DPF weird and dangerous or is he a chinless scarf wearer? What denigration should we paint him with so we can squash his evil dissent?
I don’t know Burt, what would you suggest? You labelled Helen Clark a “lying bitch”, so you’re pretty good at this sort of thing…
That there is some similarity between some of the things said on the site and Nat policy is due to overlap of interest.
They use exactly the same focus group tested words and messages. You don’t seem to have a lot of knowledge about how spin works Kent. Farrar isn’t a lone operator- he’s plugged directly into National’s spin machine and the chances are he’s paid to blog full-time as well. Just look at the volume of posts he churns out.
Yeah James, he’s obviously working for National full time while touring the Taj Mahal. Pillock.
Still, why not keep up you witch hunt. I’m sure Teh Party will get lots of votes from it. After all, Hodgson is doing such a great job of stalking John Key right? And Helen is all ready to denouce searching through trash cans.
Just look at the volume of posts he churns out.
I think that’s got more to do with ego than anything else…
rOb
I might have done that, have you a link to show where you get your reference to where I’ve used “lying bitch’?
Burt – quit while you’re behind…
burt: “show (me)…where I’ve used “lying bitch’?”
I distinctly remember it burt, and in fact commented on it as it seemed so out of character. I’m pleased to say that I haven’t seen anything similar from you since (but must confess I don’t read all your comments – masochism for seniors is overrated in my opinion), but surely you must realise that consorting with these maggots-on-acid doesn’t exactly enhance your image? Gambol in a sewer and you’re bound to reek after a while.
Well done on the improved grammar and spelling though burt – now try reading wider!
Rest of the link, to put Sod’s little outburst into perspective.
Note the rewritten comment at 1.34pm.Jan 31st
Note the offer to kill himself at 12.10am Feb 1st
Who am I to stand in the way of progress.
Kimble on moderation. Ohh ahhh.
ak – You do realise that anyone can put ‘burt’ as their name here right? It is only common courtesy that prevents this, and unfortunately such courtesy is sadly lacking in a few of the commentariat here. So, if you see something that looks wildly out of character, it might be someone faking.
[lprent: I've started keeping an eye out for that. Will probably put some php in place to counter that type of identity theft. It would be easy to fix using a required registration policy.]
Prophet- So now you’re admitting you are Legio-X after all? Why did it take you this long, and why the denials? Your dishonesty knows no limits.
I don’t know why you’re bothering Prophet. It’s not like you’ve got any kind of a reputation left to defend. I’m pleased to see you have some sense of shame though – it might even grow into a fully fledged humanity if you’re lucky…
I might have done that, have you a link to show where you get your reference to where I’ve used “lying bitch’?
http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?p=907#comment-11057
Hate to say it but the random bold looks like Burt, back in the day (TG that phase is over, he’s much better now, although the random linking has become the new fad…)…
TDS – I don’t know anyone who has fake posted short of D4J. It’s also pretty stupid – not sure if you have thought of this yourself, right, but if someone did that, it would be pretty easy to mention that it wasn’t you. Especially if the comment was clearly out of character.
Not that hard, is it boss?
A shame you missed some of those Friday afternoon free-for-alls Matthew. Just goes to show you don’t know everything eh?
Who’s to know who’s the original and who’s the copy?
(except the omnipotent lprent of course)
Another k3wl trick is to start posting using someone else’s nic on other blogs.
Yes that was me. I also notice it’s not showing up in the search? Perhaps lprent still has some MySql magic to weave on the search tables.
Anyway, speaking of the EFA, did you notice that the don’t vote Labour site is back, legal now because it’s a blog. Amazing freedoms for some things.
However the best I could do for denigrating DPF would be call him a Telly Tubby, not sure which one works best – any suggestions?
This might give you some ideas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyu5Th2eC_c
[lprent: the search in wordpress is a bit pathetic, it isn't even that good in the admin (no regular expressions for a starter).
It is on my list of things to have a look at - a plugin would be ideal. There are sites that allow external searches on blog sites. I have one bookmarked at home - will lookup if you don't get a rush of links.
Plus of course - there is google site search. For instance search for 'movie', put this into google (without quotes).
"site:thestandard.org.nz movie"]
I know Mickey will be stunned by this virtuoso display:
http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&q=burt “lying bitch” site:.thestandard.org.nz
lprent, TDS, you’re giving away all my L337 H4X0R 5K11Z!
Seriously though, proper search functionality would be nice.
Burt – at least you own up to your words. But mind who you accuse of labelling things.
Um, no sorry TDS that’s like a google search where you don’t need any expert knowledge to refine by site. I guess you’ve gone home now eh? Do you clock this as OT or is it something you feel you have to do to save face in the unit?
was that what the search was for?
The % hex chars in the url will get swallowed by the html – but that is the same thing.
site:thestandard.org.nz burt “lying bitch”
in the google seach. The quotes displayed are the standard double quote, regardless what wordpress/mysql does to them at display level.
rOb – one of these days… For some reason I’ve been a bit busy recently. Anyway off home to have a look at a smtp server
For some reason I’ve been a bit busy recently.
Can’t think why! Many thanks for your work here at The Standard.
If DPF is using kiwiblog to market-research his client’s talking points, that would make it a commercial blog.
Perhaps someone could ask the electoral commission for a ruling? Worse case they say it’s non-commercial, and DPF can’t play the matyr card anymore.
pete: It is unlikely to be a commercial site. It would be a stretch.
Reminds me, I know of at least 2 complaints about this site to the electoral commission. One was patently bogus, but the other one raised the issue about multi-poster blogs. That was unclear in the act.
Multi-poster blogs probably consist of the majority of blog sites by number of people reading them. Here for instance we have at least 10 times as many lurkers than commenters, and it is probably a lot higher than when I last looked as we get more posters on the site.
To date I haven’t heard anything, either from the electoral commission or the police. I’m the only visible name, so they’d have to come thhrough me.
“Mutual Friend”:
I was the one who tested Jame’s account and a half a dozen comments didn’t stick from two different machines/IP addresses, my account worked fine from both. This only happened after James mentioned the Curia issue.
Just in case I’m wrong though Peak, have you had all or just some of your comments go?
Ok, it’s the end of a busy day, and I’ve only just got back to this thread.
I can confirm that I’ve posted a reasonable number of comments in the last week, and of those only two have been problematic. One, as I say, appeared a couple of hours later. And the other has never appeared.
This was the delayed comment:
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2008/02/tracy_argues_clark_made_right_call.html#comment-405958
This is where my other comment should be:
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2008/02/general_debate_10_february_2008.html#comment-406474
And, as I observed, Phillip John/Roger Nome was also apparently having trouble:
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2008/02/once_again_nrt_makes_it_up.html#comment-404976
As others may care to confirm, DPF has absolutely no reason to moderate or delete my comments. I can understand why you’re suspicious about the results, but I really do think Kiwiblog has been having technical problems.
It would not surprise me. The traffic on this site has been pretty intense over the last week or so, I’d guess that the same applies at KB, and KBB.