I was just reading a little on this a few minutes ago and was totally baffled as I had no background.
Then comes your post.
I'm still fuzzy on things but I can tell you this. A couple of years ago when I was first blogging I made a post on the computer game, America's Army, and its history, and used the Operation Yellow Elephant insignia on a graphic. I got a comment inviting me to join the Operation Yellow Elephant blog, which is run by "General JC" (Patriotboy). I made a couple of posts there...
Then scrammed and never looked back.
I didn't see the point of what was going on. The commentators appeared to be used to no discourse, not even wanting any, just making ugly and what I considered rather bizarre comments. It also seemed to me a case of leaving the field wide open for trollers and having no quality control in that way just for the sake of wild and woolly commenting. All of it was weird to me and I felt slimed and slimey just for having posted there a couple of times on issues that I really was concerned about.
Since General JC was the head over this, though not making appearances (he was busy somehow and had largely left the running of that particular operation to the faithful), I felt that this must reflect something about him and his attitude to the internet and how to use it. I'd the feeling he didn't have much use for keeping things from degenerating into the dangerous (i.e. Saturday matinée at a rubble filled coliseum).
As I said, creeped out, I withdrew to my own little blog and made no more simultaneous posts there.
Clarification.
"The commentators appeared to be used to no discourse, not even wanting any, just making ugly and what I considered rather bizarre comments. It also seemed to me a case of leaving the field wide open for trollers and having no quality control in that way just for the sake of wild and woolly commenting."
I don't know if I made myself clear but I was referring to comments on both sides of the fence, not just what seemed to me to be obvious trollers. It was all out of control, or so seemed to me.
Juli, thanks for the comments. I feel kind of slimed and slimy myself, as I always do when, indignant at perceived unfairness, I flush years of Buddhist training down the toilet, in this case to stick up for a blogger I had never heard of before who quit her job under fire from people who seemed to me punitive as hell even _after_ they knew that she was not on Smantix's side. Her "stupidity" then was grounds for their condemnation.
I get sucked in. Anyway, I wrote this post to sort of clear my own mind as to what bothered me about all this.
I am sorry you got sucked into this blogger vortex. I have to admit I did not know about any of this, but I've made it a practice to avoid blogs that get into screaming matches about other blogs and bloggers. I have always thought that it is enough to just link to an offending piece and let readers come to their own conclusions. I am suspicious of bloggers who use the original offense as a platform for their own vituperative rants and egotistical dissertations. I tend to look away.
my ignorance of this episode is quite blissful. sorry you got sucked in. there are drama queens everywhere (not to be demeaning other sorts of queens).
om mani padme hum.
om mani padme hum
Maybe if I'd taken a few calming breaths, recited the heart sutra, and burned a juniper incense stick for Quanyin, I would not have gotten sucked in.
The benefits of hindsight.
thanks for the comments, roger and robin.
Censorship is very bad. Threats and coercion are worse. Ignoring this is by far the worst possible thing that can happen.
I know how you feel, I felt the same way, in writing a post similar to this one. In the end, I am just going to write about the big picture and just send readers to your post because I feel your post is very balanced and fairly unbiased from all the posts I have read and I have read a lot. Even though in the end you do state who you are siding with, a large majority is very unbiased.
Paz
Commenting by HaloScan
