Raising the Impact Factor: PF Posting and Hoaxes

[BarakzaiAbdali]

The impact factor of a journal in the scientific world implies the weight that it carries (and hence the caliber of its studies) in the scientific community.

There are folks who spam the forum with innuendo and garbage depleting the overall impact factor and muddying the issues for all those that are truly trying to identify the root cause of an issue. If a root cause of an issue is not properly identified (i.e. the basis for the pathology) then the targets for therapy are merely treating symptoms and are often not curative.

I would like to offer this example. One particular member has posted a series of articles of late that have been traced to the Assad regime propaganda arm or to Iraqi Shiite activists attempting to draw the West into yet another conflict.

Here are two of these threads that were subsequently shown to be based on forgeries:

[/COLOR]http://www.pashtunforums.com/showthread.php?t=44606

Where the poster refers to genital mutilation allegations being done by militants. This is of course a part-and-parcel of the strategy and algorithm laid down by the Red Cell CIA Memo released by Assange that details ways to shore up public support for unpopular wars:

http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/CIA_re...e,_11_Mar_2010

The Guardian investigated the matter rather thoroughly:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...gm-girls-mosul

Doubts grow over UN report, seemingly reliant on year-old document from Syria thought to have been doctored

This poster then went on here to allege Edward Snowden leaked information regarding the training of the militant leader in Langley by Mossad.

http://www.pashtunforums.com/showthr...t=snowden+ISIS

Glenn Greenwald, the very reporter who Snowden has been offering up documents and leaks to, has heard about this issue now and has in no uncertain terms DENIED the authenticity of this report:

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statu...05756342247426

The investigators Greenwald refers to link to the very first rebuttal of this story in Time Magazine:

http://time.com/2992269/isis-is-an-a...lot-says-iran/

The IRNA story appears to build on, or may have even started, an

Internet rumor that has assumed truthlike proportions through multiple reposts and links. No mention of a “hornet’s nest” plot can be found in Snowden’s leaked trove of U.S. intelligence documents, and even though Snowden has not publicly refuted the claim, it is safe to assume that the quoted interview never took place. (IRNA has been known to report stories from the satirical Onion newspaper as fact.) Yet Iranian government officials and independent analysts in Iran alike cited IRNA’s report as definitive proof of ISIS’s American and Israeli origins.

Iran's propaganda military arm became upset and laid out a blanket reference to Greenwald's news organization, The Intercept, as the source for its allegation, yet we see the following issue with that::

The problem is that journalist Glenn Greenwald's online startup

The Intercept , which since its February 2014 launch has posted 295 pages of NSA documentsleaked by Snowden and numerous articles based on those leaks, hasn't said a word about Israel's national intelligence arm, the Mossad, grooming ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as chief stinger for the Hornet's Nest. In the 30-day run-up to July 6, when the story first surfaced, The Intercept published just four articles, none of which mentioned Mossad or al-Baghdadi. "Hornet's Nest" occurs twice on The Intercept's website, in comments posted by reader Kelly on July 21

and July 29—weeks after the hoax began—both in the context of Hamas being ill-advised to stir the metaphorical Israeli hornet's nest causing the "entire swarm" to attack; her comment had nothing to do with a secret U.S., British and Israeli op involving ISIS. It's also significant that in rebuttal to Time , IRNA neglects to include a single hyperlink to The Intercept or any of "several other news outlets" that IRNA claims "also published The Intercept story." As we shall see, this omission of links to sources is de rigueur for articles spreading the hoax.

The author Greenwald links to goes on to expose the earliest source on the internet of this fabricated story:

. The earliest available evidence of the Snowden Hoax is a July 6 post in Arabic with a title that roughly translates as "Snowden: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the result of a three-nation intelligence cooperation."

What is even more impressive is that they trace even farther to an actual source of this of this fabrication in the form of a face and a name:

Its pseudonymous author is "shababek," which is also the name of the website where it is posted within a German domain

The Fars News Agency that would go on to distribute this story to multiple language news agencies has in the past spewed Snowden Centric Nonsense:

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext...13921021000393

As we can see, Fars's headline there is "US-Alien-Hitler Link" according to Snowden.

Hardly, reliable... but very laughable if you ask me.


Hoaxer Zero (i.e. the source of the Hoax) is displayed in all his Iranian linked glory:

Social media puts a face to "shababek." The Twitter account @shababekTis active but contains only three tweets, in Arabic, all from August 2012 and two containing busted links to the website www.shababek.de. The profile photo shows a well-groomed, black-haired man in his 40s with goatee, dressed in a conventional business suit with necktie, above the name Kareem Al baidani. The same photo adorns the Facebook page of Abosamir Albaidani, who posts in Arabic, most recently in October 2013, and self-identifies as a graduate engineer. Some of these posts too contain broken links to www.shababek.de. A different photo of the same man, taken later judging from his graying goatee, is on the Facebook page of Kareem Al-Baidani, who likewise posts in Arabic, mainly about Iraq and most recently in March 2014, and again with nonfunctional links to www.shababek.de. Without reading Arabic,one can glean from the Internetthat Kareem Al-Baidani is an Iraqi Shiite writer based in Munich, Germany. His Facebook photo is copyright Irak Heute Programm, which is German for Iraq Today program. A TV show by that name—"Al-Iraq Alyom" (Iraq Today)—appears on Al-Alam, an Arabic news channel broadcasting from Iran by the state-owned media corporation Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.

Additionally, here is Greenwald's personal response on twitter:

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statu...58967026429953

Emphatically saying:

I've never heard him (Snowden) say any such thing (ISIS-Mossad-Langley connection), nor have I ever heard any credible source quoting him saying anything like that.

FONT]
Snowden's ATTORNEY then adds this:

https://twitter.com/benwizner/status/498480294945894400

Its a one word tweet that says:

HOAX

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Here once again, per Greenwald's links are potentially Hoaxer Zero:

https://www.facebook.com/abosamir.albaidani

The source goes on to write:

Without reading Arabic, one can glean from the Internet that Kareem Al-Baidani is an Iraqi Shiite writer based in Munich, Germany. His Facebook photo is copyright Irak Heute Programm, which is German for Iraq Today program. A TV show by that name—"Al-Iraq Alyom" (Iraq Today)—appears on Al-Alam, an Arabic news channel broadcasting from Iran by the state-owned media corporation Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.
These tenuous connections between an Iraqi Shiite writer and Iran's state-controlled media are at most suggestive. We cannot say definitively that Kareem Al-Baidani is Hoaxer Zero, whose three-part inventions about the NSA, MI6 and Mossad hornet's nest exposed by Edward Snowden found a ready audience, initially in the Middle East but soon around the world. Nevertheless, we can note that a day after he posted the hoax online, it was picked up—word for word—on the Arabic website Iraq Now, with an expanded title: "Snowden: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the result of a three-nation intelligence cooperation and trained by the Israeli Mossad." The following day, the Arabic version of Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency (FNA) ran the story, again identical to Al-Baidani's original but with a snappier headline: "Snowden: Baghdadi underwent an intensive course at the hands of Mossad."

[BarakzaiAbdali]

What are our possible solutions to increasing the impact factor here at PF? Well Admin Khan already tried to stave off misinformation being spread through PF about 4 years ago:

http://www.pashtunforums.com/showthread.php?t=489

What are the ramifications of this misinformation? Ethically, we should do our best to uncover lies and distortions that are being spread through social media early on and debunk them forcefully.

In the past, such approaches have been used to fleece a populace into supporting an unjust war of aggression. I will cite a few poignant examples:

1) Some of us are old enough to remember Gulf War 1 when a young girl named Nayirah of Kuwait went in front of the US Congress and manufactured the oft-told myth that Saddam Hussein's invasion forces in Kuwait were ripping babies out of incubators:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p25s02-cogn.html

It turns out that Nayirah was the daughter of a Kuwaiti government official and was working with the US to use her speech as a form of emotional blackmail.

2) 99% of us here recall the Gulf War 2 lies perpetuated by Bush and Blair's government. These lies included nonexistent nuclear weapons and ethnic cleansing (despite the fact that Saddam's semi-secular baathist government was probably more even handed amongst the ethnicities than subsequent and former governments).

3) We saw the ratcheting up of this sort of war rigor and war fomenting fabrications just earlier this month regarding the Yazidi communities:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/14/military-launches-covert-fact-finding-mission-yazi/

Details of a covert fact-finding operation that took place on a mountaintop in northern Iraq began to trickle out of the Pentagon late Thursday....Pentagon officials said the scoping expedition yielded unexpected results. For example, the amount of Yazidi on top of the mountain topped out at about 5,000 — a significantly lower number than the 20,000 who were there last week, the officials said.

Interesting that they somehow had to send a fact finding mission that confirmed 1/4 less than the original estimate, and then it turned out that even more than 1/2 of these that they encountered already lived on the mountain... yet how did they dare to claim 20,000 pre a fact finding mission? Where there satellite estimates? Where the estimates provided by Bhagdad and Peshmerga friendly forces?? None of this is addressed.

Yet this sort of thing is being used to once again fleece the British and the Americans into fighting yet another war for Iran and the proxy Bhagdad government.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Why does this matter, this whole utilization by this poster and some others of false and fabricated propaganda?

Well, as I said, it deluges the public and non discerning readers with falsities that are geared to illicit an illogical and emotional response.

Can anyone honestly say that the 2.5 Iraq Wars (.5 counting the current one we are now entering again) have resulted in a more stable and prosperous Iraq for all Iraqis? To the contrary, when these sorts of fabrications of spread, the real root causes of the insurgency are ignored and the wrong approach is again taken by all involved to deal with it.

What one sees from the approaches take to date in many parts of the Muslim World... whenever emotional and illogical responses are undertaken to dealing with these insurgencies that often have multiple drivers, the situation worsens and a more radical and stronger subgroup survives with enhanced fighting capabilities out of the Darwinian environs of war. As an example, the relatively moderate northern Nigerian leader of Boko was killed a few years ago and what emerged was a stronger, more facile, more capable guerilla force. In the Syrian and Iraqi adventures, the same things have occurred. Out of the chaos arose a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites that outside states were more than happy to push even harder so as to weaken both groupings - and various wrongs done by both sides drove civilians and tribes into the arms of militias.

So when we sit back and ignore all these emotional propaganda pieces and lies perpetuated by various posters we find more realistic information that gives a more nuanced and balanced perspective of what the true legs that ISIS stands on are:

http://rudaw.net/mobile/english/interview/06072014

In this interview the paramount tribal leader of the Dhulaim tribe makes it clear that Sunni consternation has made his decision to tell the Dhulaim super confederation to not oppose ISIS because Maliki's government was worse for Sunnis.

Therefore, instead of initiating the cascade of events that is bound to occur with more intervention:

Increased military intervention in Syria and Iraq ---> Increased perception by Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis and Sunni states that the West is increasing Iran's regional power and ability to potentially put them under the yolk (and there is history from the Safavid era to show that shiites have a history as much as sunnis of religious-ethnic cleansing the opposite sect) ---> Worsened fighting and insurgency ---> The group adapts and advances even more ---> Disaster for the region

Another option is to promote the truth and not intervene so that the tribes can deal with the ISIS issue themselves.

Other proposed solutions:

2) If a poster is discovered propagating these sorts of malignant hoaxes moderators and the forum leaders (tor khan and Admin Khan) can consider whether these sorts of actions should be classified as infractions worthy of a warning to the poster since it is in the least war spamming and damaging PF's credibility.

3) Perhaps a group of moderators should vet sources when serious discussions are underway. We can see from the reference site that Greenwald provides that a large part of perpetuating the hoax was to get sites like PF to be the unfortunate vector through which such parasitic war propaganda would spread. We should perhaps take a "not in our name" approach to such matters since we are more educated and better than that.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

The other issue that then needs to be raised is does this poster have a CENTCOM style role that the poster themselves play since about 95% of said poster's articles are equally dubious and promote the Russian-Syrian Regime-Iranian propaganda?

On a side note, I am not taking special aim at Russia since the US and the West Europeans are as guilty in Ukraine of muddying an important set of details that has resulted in destabilization and loss of life in that country as well.

Are they also located in Germany and linked to this Al-Baidani individual in some way or fashion? More likely they are serving as a willing patsy and cherry-pick the data to fit their narrative that they believe in earnest. But nonetheless, there are countless such postings and threads here that serve a CENTCOM style purpose for those aforementioned global/regional players.

[Admin Khan]

[MENTION=1772]BarakzaiAbdali[/MENTION] I try really hard to ensure this site remains a neutral between folks -- but I do understand your point and am open to suggestions.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

@BarakzaiAbdali I try really hard to ensure this site remains a neutral between folks -- but I do understand your point and am open to suggestions.

I think you do a great job. You were also prophylactically trying to ensure such things didn't weigh down our discussions here with your demand for evidence basis, which I commend.

Perhaps the report button can also be utilized to identify spam to the moderators who can then vet the source and decide if its authentic or balanced. I would assume that it doesn't have to be deleted, but perhaps at least some sort of delineation could be made that identifies low quality evidence for what it is and at least alerts the reader or engages the poster to defend their evidence.

Or perhaps you guys could decide or weigh if its worth it to flag or weigh or assign an impact factor, label of sorts to various posters if their evidence repeatedly turns out to be either malicious propaganda (as it was above) or severely weak.

[tor_khan]

[MENTION=1772]BarakzaiAbdali[/MENTION] Saab.

One area that needs strengthening is having an active moderator team. Obviously the forum 'editorial' is easier when we are on the same page, but having diverse thought on the moderating team can allow for open debate. I feel that our personnel needs bolstering, but we are also dependent on active posters. The ratios have to match. But I am open to suggestions if there is a better model.

We have lurkers and posters, some of whom may be described by others as 'trolls'. Sometimes giving people enough rope so that they catch themselves out is the best tactic, but I realise that this has to be checked. Frankly, you did a very good job at dealing with 25% 75% TajikPashtun or whatever his name was. I'm caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to people making ridiculous statements about the Prophet's marriage. Do I rise to the bait, or do I engage in debate? There are mischief makers who often have no intention of listening, so why take the hook? On the other hand guests who come into your house should know their place. Strong argument for a zero tolerance editorial.

But mostly and largely Pashtuns are a diverse people. Whereas our body politik is conservative/traditional, that is not our only defining feature. Indeed the extreme conservatism that has characterised the Taliban or the reasons that we have been in a state of war for 30 something years is actually very far away from most Pashtuns I know in reality or online. That said, what we are or what we should be is not for others to decide. I understand why Members might be frustrated at [MENTION=5349]Hallo[/MENTION]'s constant cultural chauvinism. I don't think it is right for me to discuss the private messages that I have with Members but when [MENTION=5349]Hallo[/MENTION] (or others have broken house rules), I have issued infractions or bans. I am not the only one to ban; Moderators have the option to impose a time ban. Suffice to say, during my time on this forum, I have learned to filter a lot of the background noise. I know that that isn't always right but it takes me back to what I said at the beginning. We need a strong and active Moderating team and I am a man who can listen.

PS On the matter of the marriage of Mohammed PBUH and Aishah RA. I don't think it was out of context for its time or its political significance. This is not something that even needs 'apology' but thank you all the same for sticking you neck out.

[gadoonwal]

manana dr saib barakzai and tor -khan lala
Many members now have more then one acounts.
They act differently and sometime write answer to eachothers.
I get hate mails and abus everyday for deleting their stuff.
Their main aim is to close this websites.
One of them was acting like pashtun nationalist but in reality he was the son of pak army officers who was threatening members for exposing pakistani policies.

[Smarty]

[MENTION=2]Admin Khan[/MENTION] , @tor khan [MENTION=1772]BarakzaiAbdali[/MENTION] your site is going down to drain and gutter with appointment of a new moderator. He cant even write a sentence properly and has been involved in calling names and personal attacks. Is the situation so desperate?. At this level, you dont have to appoint a mod of your ideology. Any person with clean record can do the job. [MENTION=1585]Shehbaz Khan[/MENTION] has clean record but is mostly inactive. [MENTION=1547]khushal[/MENTION] is another one. But has on and off level of activity.@dabannumazdigar has clean record, as well as he is very active. He has grip on himself and has never resorted to name callings and profanities. At this level, forget about personal liking and appoint @dabannumazdigar as mod to save your sinking forum. I have observed him on defence.pk too and i can tell he would do the wonderful job.

[tripledouble]

[MENTION=1068]gadoonwal[/MENTION] is very immature and incoherent, he is giving a bad name to the Pashtun race -if you continue to keep him as moderator, PF will turn into a gutter.

[Kushan Prince]

[MENTION=2]Admin Khan[/MENTION] , @tor khan [MENTION=1772]BarakzaiAbdali[/MENTION] your site is going down to drain and gutter with appointment of a new moderator. He cant even write a sentence properly and has been involved in calling names and personal attacks. Is the situation so desperate?. At this level, you dont have to appoint a mod of your ideology. Any person with clean record can do the job. [MENTION=1585]Shehbaz Khan[/MENTION] has clean record but is mostly inactive. [MENTION=1547]khushal[/MENTION] is another one. But has on and off level of activity.@dabannumazdigar has clean record, as well as he is very active. He has grip on himself and has never resorted to name callings and profanities. At this level, forget about personal liking and appoint @dabannumazdigar as mod to save your sinking forum. I have observed him on defence.pk too and i can tell he would do the wonderful job.

Banu mazdigar is immature and has used profanity against me in one thread by calling me a pig. Obviously he cannot bottle his emotions.

[Kushan Prince]

I don't take majority of the members here seriously and neither should you. This forum has been dead for the past couple of months because of constant trolling of some notorious members who keep coming back with tons of sock-puppet accounts that other members have had enough and have stopped visiting this site. I know this is common in a forum, but over here its gone overboard to the fact that this place has turned into a "joke."

I do believe the mod team needs a big upgrade, most of them ignore useless threads and don't reply to reports when you inform them of other members outlandish behaviours. randolph85 was a good asset to this forum who mostly dealt with spam and tried his best to keep it healthy but unfortunately, he has quit the forum.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

[MENTION=1772]BarakzaiAbdali[/MENTION] Saab.

One area that needs strengthening is having an active moderator team. Obviously the forum 'editorial' is easier when we are on the same page, but having diverse thought on the moderating team can allow for open debate. I feel that our personnel needs bolstering, but we are also dependent on active posters. The ratios have to match. But I am open to suggestions if there is a better model.

No I don't disagree. I also am with you that one-sided evidences or arguments on politics are problematic. I guess what I mean is whether its Taliban exaggerating some success in one of their reports or whether its ANA or the Pakistani Military claiming to have off'd 35 militants, or whether its **** Cheney talking about Iraq as a "success story" we should always be suspicious and critical and assume that each and every claim needs vetting.

I agree its difficult to regulate each and every claim due to the proliferation of news sources in the region and proliferation of pseudo think-tanks with agendas on both sides. Perhaps those of us in the know who are aware of the chicanery and tactics of governments and groups should report a link to one of you guys through the report button if we think that there may be some strangeness going on.

For instance, lets take examples outside of our usual discussion zone, Ukraine and the IRA. I can tell you are pretty well read and understand the complex dynamics of East and West Ukraine and that the Victoria Nuland version of events being peddled by the West is more of a chess game to contain Russia with Putin playing a similar set of moves in response (trust me I have no love lost for Putin but I still understand the history of Crimea and what it means historically to the Russian people and why they would feel the way they do). If we start seeing potentially biased links going up one way or the other we can maybe send them your guys's way for review hi-liting our concern.

Ditto for the British narrative regarding Sinn Fein or the IRA not necessarily telling the whole story.

We have lurkers and posters, some of whom may be described by others as 'trolls'. Sometimes giving people enough rope so that they catch themselves out is the best tactic, but I realise that this has to be checked. Frankly, you did a very good job at dealing with 25% 75% TajikPashtun or whatever his name was. I'm caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to people making ridiculous statements about the Prophet's marriage. Do I rise to the bait, or do I engage in debate? There are mischief makers who often have no intention of listening, so why take the hook? On the other hand guests who come into your house should know their place. Strong argument for a zero tolerance editorial.

Yeah I understand your dilemma. I honestly wasn't commenting on these undesirables but understand they may be contributing to the problem at hand.

But mostly and largely Pashtuns are a diverse people. Whereas our body politik is conservative/traditional, that is not our only defining feature. Indeed the extreme conservatism that has characterised the Taliban or the reasons that we have been in a state of war for 30 something years is actually very far away from most Pashtuns I know in reality or online. That said, what we are or what we should be is not for others to decide. I understand why Members might be frustrated at [MENTION=5349]Hallo[/MENTION]'s constant cultural chauvinism. I don't think it is right for me to discuss the private messages that I have with Members but when [MENTION=5349]Hallo[/MENTION] (or others have broken house rules), I have issued infractions or bans. I am not the only one to ban; Moderators have the option to impose a time ban. Suffice to say, during my time on this forum, I have learned to filter a lot of the background noise. I know that that isn't always right but it takes me back to what I said at the beginning. We need a strong and active Moderating team and I am a man who can listen.

Yea I agree the signal to noise ratio is always a concern. I think the only thing I can propose is what I said above which is an easy solution of reporting the link and supplying a strong reason of why its a hoax. The reporter however should not expect a blanket deletion on everything they report and should understand it may take time to vet the link since everyone is busy.

PS On the matter of the marriage of Mohammed PBUH and Aishah RA. I don't think it was out of context for its time or its political significance. This is not something that even needs 'apology' but thank you all the same for sticking you neck out.

No problem. I know our tit-for-tat was lengthy but I thought it was fair to show Randolph and others that there its easy to establish intellectual discussion parameters (e.g. The Prophet's dealings with Banu Qurayzah etc and what that means for subsequent dealings with subgroups in Islamic lands)... but that if the other party decides to proceed toward sacrilege or post missionary style polemic links- we ought not to be the first to escalate -but we have the capacity to answer in kind once they start to profane the sacred for no other reason than to expect a response.

x

[BarakzaiAbdali]

[MENTION=1068]gadoonwal[/MENTION] is very immature and incoherent, he is giving a bad name to the Pashtun race -if you continue to keep him as moderator, PF will turn into a gutter.

My intention was not at all to discuss moderators... my point was to illustrate a hoax that is bad because it is meant to contribute to the current war fever and propaganda that Tor Khan probably feels building in Britain and that is being stoked here in the US. It has come to a point where people of our backgrounds who know better and who have the ability to inform other citizens of the complex reasons for the current situation in our side of the world are unable to do so not because we do not know the facts of the matter but because these sorts of contributions are meant to muddy the intellectual waters and make it hard to have a valid non emotional discussion.

It is not just our part of the world that is affected. For instance, I know a muslimah from Donetsk in Ukraine (a convert). Her roots are ethnic Russian and she feels strongly regarding Bandera and the particular rights of Russians and threats to Russians from ultranationalists in Kiev. However, at the same time, the ethnic Ukrainians in Kiev do have some legitimate nationalists concerns such as preservation of their language and their own ethnic links to Poland and what not. Yet no one can discuss these issues now because the media is so deluged with propaganda to make Putin look like some evil incarnate (trust me I find his actions in many other instances distasteful so I am not defending him) and the Russian media pieces are as bad making it seem as if the Hitler Reich had risen again in Kiev. This has resulted in meddling and arming of both sides and destabilization of a nation to the detriment of its people.

We are as affected by these matters where people's legitimate religious and ethnic concerns are drowned out in random links to Brzenzski without detail of the background and the exact history in our own Afghanistan of governmental and militant roles. The tragedy of this is that the real solutions that incorporate the nature, identity, and history of our people is lost in the noise that only benefits a select elite and an equally select group of ideologues.

Truth is always a casualty I guess.

[tor_khan]

[MENTION=2]Admin Khan[/MENTION] , @tor khan [MENTION=1772]BarakzaiAbdali[/MENTION] your site is going down to drain and gutter with appointment of a new moderator. He cant even write a sentence properly and has been involved in calling names and personal attacks. Is the situation so desperate?. At this level, you dont have to appoint a mod of your ideology. Any person with clean record can do the job. [MENTION=1585]Shehbaz Khan[/MENTION] has clean record but is mostly inactive. [MENTION=1547]khushal[/MENTION] is another one. But has on and off level of activity.@dabannumazdigar has clean record, as well as he is very active. He has grip on himself and has never resorted to name callings and profanities. At this level, forget about personal liking and appoint @dabannumazdigar as mod to save your sinking forum. I have observed him on defence.pk too and i can tell he would do the wonderful job.

[MENTION=1068]gadoonwal[/MENTION] is very immature and incoherent, he is giving a bad name to the Pashtun race -if you continue to keep him as moderator, PF will turn into a gutter.

[MENTION=18008]tripledouble[/MENTION] One person does not make a race. The rest of what you wrote is just an emotional attempt at making a swipe at at a person. I expect wailing village women to do that, not a man worthy of engaging in debate.

[MENTION=1234]Smarty[/MENTION]. You and I go back a long way. You have the predictable habit of letting your boredom lead your responses. In short, one day you will make a valid and agreeable contribution. Very quickly after that, you will pick an issue with a Moderator and make it personal. You have done this several times before.

Not everyone can be a Moderator, but you are right, Shebaz is clean. I like the guy's stoic patience and his calm manner. Others may disagree with his politics; perhaps you and me too, but I do respect his approach.

Contrast that with the above.