Wednesday 16 June 2010

Pissing on the Palace


Earlier this year I wrote a blog about blogging on another blog site, one I share with other bloggers! I called the piece The Happy Blogger, added to my contributions to My Telegraph, a reader’s forum run by a British national daily. Amongst other things it was intended as an indirect swipe at people coming from another multi-author site only to solicit recruits, because in their gloom-and-doom estimation nothing was right with My Telegraph, which seemed to mean that it was not the same as it was, not the same as when they were yoofs. This is part of what I said;

I have to say that I for one find it immensely irritating when people criticise this site, looking for goodness knows what forms of perfection. If you do not like the place the answer is simple – leave, go somewhere else. But please, please don’t keep coming back only to solicit recruits for this faction or that gang. I know if I were a moderator that is one thing I would come down on quite heavily. Please do not misunderstand me; people have every right to blog elsewhere as well as here. I just think it really bad form when the only reason for being here is to talk the place down.

The person who runs that other site, which I did not name then and refuse to name now, decided to rein-in his gang – and it is his gang-, making a general statement based, in part, on a perverse misinterpretation of my words. He also told them that I should be treated like “any other troll.” The whole thing was just too, too funny.

The site itself is a bit of a joke, mostly with shallow and tedious contributions, though there are some decent people there with some interesting things to say. But there are others, bears of very little brain and two-faced clots whom I encountered on My Telegraph and quickly dismissed for their obvious lack of intelligence and basic comprehension. Yes, there are decent and thoughtful people in the place, people, I have to say, who are strangely blind to the awful matey cliquishness.

I stopped going there to look over shoulders, so to speak, weeks ago but recently another blogger told me that he had joined – against my advice, I have to add- and that he was coming in for some fairly rough treatment. I had a look and it was as much as I expected. It’s a bear-baiting pit, and he was the bear. Although he attracted some support there are those who clearly went out of their way to make fun at his expense, to make him feel uncomfortable and unwelcome, first because he was something new and different and second because he has a style that does not easily lend itself to blog small talk, and the site he joined is most definitely a ‘small talk blog.’

So, is there any point to this? No, not really. I’m just venting some annoyance over stupidity, insularity and small-mindedness. But if Gulliver will visit the land of Lilliput what can he expect? The best thing to do is to piss over the palace and leave.

9 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. 'The best thing to do is to piss over the palace and leave.'

    Indeed ... or get kicked out, as in my case. :-)

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  3. Good morning, Ana,

    MyT has had its serious, humourless, literal-minded detractors since the day it was born. I have lost count of the number of spiteful and libelous comments made to (and about) other bloggers (including myself). But then, open discussion sites have always attracted the Fat Controller types who imagine they have a mandate to dictate what others may write and even what they may write about.

    Just let go of them ; they have made their own hell, and long may they enjoy it.

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  4. Too highbrow for the Cave Dwellers, but worthy of taking on board. Most importantly, in a free society that grants freedom of speech and expression, no blogger should be subjected to criticism or editorial control for his style or opinion.
    I have to say Ana,in this blog, you certainly showed what mateship means.

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  5. Brendano, you're such a rebel. :-))

    Jamie, it's an odd thing that blogging often seems to bring out the worst in people, people who would for the most part behave decently in face to face interactions. I suppose it's the relative anonimity that is to blame, the almost total absence of normal social conventions.

    Rainer, my thanks. :-)

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  6. Hi Ana

    An interesting take on the site and one with which I do not totally agree, being one of the happy band thereon.

    What you describe as 'awful matey cliquishness' I regard as a group of individuals who choose to try to 'behave decently' when blogging.

    I have disagreed with some of the castings out and have said so. The fact is, however, that the site was Bearsy's and is now Boa's They are free to set whatever rules they wish and I am free to leave as and when I wish. For me, the two great strengths of the site are that there are no multi-ID's and that it is completely open with all our dirty linen being laundered very publicly.

    For the avoidance of doubt, I have never forsworn or badmouthed MyT, although I am, I admit, finding it difficult to love the latest version.

    On the event which prompted your blog, I have to say that I thought that nearly everybody was supportive of the right of the author in question to stay on the site and to continue to contribute, including those who started the rumpus with their criticism of style rather than content. I personally think that to describe the incident as 'bear-baiting' is a wee bit OTT.

    While I am at it, I think that you are, in my opinion, wrong about Madame Cymbeline who is, by the way, undoubtedly a her. Mind you, she is, again in my opinion, equally wrong about you.

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  7. John first of all let me say that it’s a delight to see you here. Please do be assured you are one of the decent people. :-)

    I make no comment at all on that site's policies, or, indeed, the desire of people to maintain simple internet friendships. The cliquishness to which I refer comes out, at least for some, in a kind of gang mentality, which I rather think the former moderator encouraged. He may not have liked the style of the new contributor but he should have stood back and held the ring not participated in what I saw a rather unpleasant campaign launched by one two-face idiot I have in mind, a bear of exceedingly little brain. Yes, as I said, some people were supportive, but the negative remarks were cutting in the extreme, compounded by the fact that a silly ‘wanted’ poster of the author then appeared. I could have put up with this; I could have put two-face back in his box - I did on MY T-, but some people are a lot more sensitive. It’s rather a pity that wasn’t recognised.

    As far as Cymbeline is concerned I can only judge on the basis of what I read, and what I read was unbelievably stupid.

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