Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Out with the old, in with the new

• Mark Mardell
• 16 Apr 08, 10:14 AM

Thanks for all your comments about Italy. Here's a quick reply to some points and some news about changes to the way you make your comments.

First an apology. Georg and others are right and I was wrong: it wasn't the left wing parties which pulled the rug on Prodi, but the justice minister and his small centrist party.

Sorry, I shouldn't have got that wrong, I was thinking of an earlier crisis.

Brian, I fail to see how a post on the Italian media "promotes the EU": as most eurosceptics point out, Europe and the European Union are not the same thing and taking an interest in European politics is not the same as "promoting the EU".

Andrea: TG4 is the news outlet on what was the first TV station that Berlusconi owned.

I didn't write that it was the first in Italy.

Journalists' guild

The Italian constitution may well allow everyone to write everything but this is not the same as having it published in the mainstream media.

I am given to understand it is very difficult to get a job in TV or newspapers unless you are part of the journalists' guild. The description of their rules was checked with the organisation.

Mark Nelson: I was not being over-dramatic in suggesting Emile Fede said Berlusconi brought the Cold War to an end.

The actual sentence is: "He has a certain prestigious standing on the world stage. It was he who brought Bush and Putin together and it was he who ended the Cold War."

As I write out his words, I confess he might have been talking about a Cold War between Putin and Bush but it doesn't really make much sense and he didn't make that distinction himself.

Changes afoot

Now to the changes to the way you can send comments in.

It's been clear to me for a while that a technical overhaul is well overdue, with frequent complaints that people can't get on to the site and find their postings blocked, which some interpret as censorship.

Now all the blogs are getting new software, probably from Thursday onwards. It does mean that you have to register.

Why register? The official answer is because "the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ website is generally moving towards registration for services in most cases" (because we say so) and to "enable better community management".

This sounds like it is something to do with putting out the dustbins or re-painting flats so I really have no idea. Personally I find it off-putting having to register for any site.

I am writing this in a Rome hotel where I have to buy a new connection and code every three hours so, the man on the desk tells me, "the police can monitor terrorists".

This of course isn't true because it didn't apply to the hotel in Milan. But it may be part of the same general argument. Anyway I am sure it will be lot easier to post comments. One down-side is that you can't post comments on threads published before the system was introduced.

It's a shame: I rather enjoy the argument on, say, "European Islam" which veers wildly away from what I was writing about and going strong months later.

It's a bit like giving a party and after a few weeks finding there are still a group of people in an attic room clutching cans and shouting at each other.

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