Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

And yet it's the nature of a serious proportion of message boards and comments the world over. It's clear that certain subjects on the Guardian site have co-ordinated comment attacks from those whose view opposes the general one that the articles and readership have.

It's easier to write criticism and insults than to write credible praise or do the work to engage and consider an argument.

I know of a band whose music is really beautiful and essentially non-political, yet they've actually had to suspend message board use on several occasions because it gets too heated.

I don't like it here when people resort to barbed sarcasm and insults (even though I've done it myself), and for the most part we can appeal to people's better nature here. Explaining that chest-beating and point scoring doesn't actually make anyone agree with you - quite the opposite - makes someone choose which one they'd rather have and 99 time out of a hundred folks here do re-engage. No matter what their opinion pretty much everyone who's ever posted here has reasons for their position and is smart enough to express them intelligently, and wants that position to be considered.

I do think we should pick one another up in a friendly and respectful way on inflammatory things as they start - this thread, which is by no means the worst ever, shows what happens when we don't.

I questioned whether the authors background was suitable for the post in question

I don't think he can have it both ways when he says "these statistics disclose a complaints system that fails to identify or punish the minority who abuse their office

I also felt that the author of that article contradicted himself. His remark that the public can't call on the IPCC but that "Police officers are regular visitors to the IPCC, and staff make frequent visits to police professional standards (complaints handling) departments to discuss cases" makes the whole thing sound rather sinister IMO, whereas the reality of it is that this would be the officers leading the investigation not the rank and file, or those subject of the complaint.

Later he says "I handled the West Midlands, which has the second largest police force in the country, yet the IPCC has no office in the region, employs virtually no one from there and, since I left, has no commissioner resident in the region" which surely reinforces what I'm saying.

I guess what I'm saying is that the article is one persons view and it sounds like he has an agenda.

You presume no officers comment on cases they're not involved in, nor do they have undue influence that prejudices the investigation.

- Only one complaint in 290 is independently investigated.

- Thousands of complainants appeal against local police investigation of themselves, but over 80% of the appeals fail.

- The IPCC is financially incentivised to rely on police resources.

- As the other article I posted says, the IPCC looks to the police for its approval ratings rather than complainants.

This cosiness is demonstrated by the way the IPCC repeated the police's false, misleading and dubious claims about Ian Tomlinson, Jean Charles de Menezes, etc. (when the Guardian posted the Tomlinson video the IPCC and police together went round to their offices to try to get them to take it down).

I've been coming to HH for just over a year now, and don't know a lot of the personal politics/history etc, and I don't blog anywhere else at all.
I know that it's easy to misunderstand someone, and vice versa, and it should hopefully be equally easy to amicably sort out, but what I can't fathom on any of the sites here is trolling ( obviously I'm not referring to you, or Grufty etc, I'm just generalising here). What does someone get from going somewhere and enjoying starting a ruck or winding people up ? For example, I could never be bothered/ arsed to hang around the Spectator, talking about political issues from a left wing perspective, purely to wind them up and get personally insulting. What on earth would be the bloody point ? I'd seriously wonder about myself. It beats me, that's for sure.

What I am saying is that the police who are speaking to them are the police who should be speaking to them. i.e. the people investigating, not just casual callers popping in for a cuppa and an attempt to influence.

Well I'm not sure if you're suggesting that an IPCC deal with every single complaint or not. I would have thought it would be financially draining for an organisation to deal with the likes of "I didn't like the tone of his voice" type minor complaints that are likely to make up a significant amount of complaints.

if the IPCC are being 'cosied up' like that then it re-inforces my view that a background in housing and such-like is not the ideal preparation.

although GP's views don't mirror my own I stand firmly in the camp that he should be allowed to voice them.

how do you know that?

how do you also know that those who come in on legitimate business don't attempt to influence other things whilst there?

How do you know that they don't unduly influence the case they're involved with?

Well I'm not sure if you're suggesting that an IPCC deal with every single complaint or not. I would have thought it would be financially draining for an organisation to deal with the likes of "I didn't like the tone of his voice" type minor complaints that are likely to make up a significant amount of complaints.

if the IPCC are being 'cosied up' like that then it re-inforces my view that a background in housing and such-like is not the ideal preparation.