My Demise on www.blogladder.com
Bismi'llah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim...for the sake of Prophet Muhammad saws and Sheikh Nazim may Allah protect his secret.
I was thinking ...of writing something in here about my demise on Blog Ladder .. it is not so much what happened as the way it was done that has upset me .. and the loss of contact with several good friends.
However I found the e.mail of one member on one of my posts on one of my other blogs. Ramandu as he is known on B.L. Matt as he is known on his Blog. Adventscribing is the name of his blogs.
He's a very good writer and sensitive and a believer so I wrote him an e.mail. Perhaps it is just easiest to post that e.mail where I more or less expressed what I feel about all this.
I also thought it would be amusing and interesting if anyone who feels anything about this should sign up to B.L. and (perhaps after a post or two) start asking what happened to Grego .. saying how much they miss him and his stimulating interesting posts etc .. www.blogladder.com
Can anyone be bothered? .. If you can I would appreciate it .. a small campaign for justice and clarity and transparency over a cyber issue .. stuff like this .. trust between human beings on the web is pretty important to me .. maybe I'm just a naive fool ?
The administrator "Greedy Bull" can also be e.mailed here ..contact@blogladder.com so any hassling or agitation can go straight to him if you like .. or if he just starts wiping everyone's stuff of in his megalomaniac way.
Anyway , here's the text of that e.mail;
Hi, It is Ramandu isn't it ? Browsing around my old blogs for some new outlet for my stuff ..and saw a comment from you.
I've written an e.mail to Debbie .. I don't know wether she will say anything on my behalf. The latest is G.B. has blocked me from even entering B.L. now .. (I just get a blankpage html thing in the address bar)
I'm not so bothered about coming back .. in that G.B. can do what he likes in the end .. but I think his behaviour was shockingly unreasonable.
No explanations .. no willingness to draw some guidelines for members and users of the site .. like some mad fascist dictatorship. I think members should know of his tactics ..every time I wrote a comment or a suggestion, he just wiped them off .. crazy stuff! Do people really want to be on a forum like that?
Funny that his entry in Yahoo says "a clean member controlled style" .. it would be good to point that out.
What do you think of his autocratic style ?
Was I really spamming anyway ? Others don't seem to think so. You and Anna and Anthopophobe all seemed to think I had something to contribute .. as did Nisanthrope ..that I was not like the bible bashing fundamentalist Christians etc etc ..
I would like to be so independent and strong as to just walk away from it .. but I must say I am hurt.
It seems to me to be just youth .. but another voice says it is to do with belief directly .. I have been quite surprised to see how many people don't really believe in anything beyond what their five senses tell them .. and will not rise above that more than to the realms of the intellect at best.
There was almost a general consensus of opinion that anything spiritual or religious should be kept quiet as if even talking about it was socially unacceptable .. There was a time when belief in God came before all else and informed everything, including politics and political debate.
Nowadays everyone wants to seperate everything into spiritual and secular .. as if there is a world where God has no place .. "God is dead" is indeed the general tenor of our society these days and I think that is directly related to the way the world is going .. i.e. rushing to the edge of the abyss which may well end in a horrible nuclear war (Armageddon).
I for one think it is very important to think about and do something about these things and draw people's attention to them.Burying one's head in the sand or looking the other way won't help much to solve the problems of human life on earth will it ?
Can we really stand by and watch while everyone just talks about holidays and books and music and food and filling in quizzes?
My point is that in a balanced blog community there must be room for every type of voice ..If G.B. wants a totally secular site .. where no spiritual view or discussion is allowed , he should say so from the outset.
I am not so upset at leaving (or rather being pushed out of ) B.L per se .. but I am upset by having my interaction with kind and sensitive and thoughtful people like yourself and Anna and Debbe and Anthropophobe and Nis .. cut off.
You already know about my blog .. at http://www.sufistuff.blogspot.com/ maybe you can get Anna's e.mail for me discreetly? .. I should like to say farewell to her after all her kindness and attention ..
If I can find another forum where we can meet I'll let you know .. what a drag that G.B.makes such a damn good little site and then behaves like a ten year old jerk in the playground!
Say something on my behalf if you like. You're much more clever and subtle verbally than I am.
Maybe just ask what happened to me ?
Hoping you care a bit about this piece of apparent injustice and that you are writing and contributing to (not only in a literary way .. but in revenue for G.B via his advertising which needs traffic) a site whose administrator behaves in this autocratic dictatorial fashion, something which is seen by the outside world as becoming the hallmark of American life since the rise of that other G.B.
Forgive me banging on but I have been well hurt by this .. my only consolation being that God loves me enough to cut me off from time wasting and too much connection with unbelievers, so that I actually and sincerely turn back to Him and make Him my only real goal and Friend.
Your brother in belief,
Uthman Gregory Collins, (aka Grego).
I was thinking ...of writing something in here about my demise on Blog Ladder .. it is not so much what happened as the way it was done that has upset me .. and the loss of contact with several good friends.
However I found the e.mail of one member on one of my posts on one of my other blogs. Ramandu as he is known on B.L. Matt as he is known on his Blog. Adventscribing is the name of his blogs.
He's a very good writer and sensitive and a believer so I wrote him an e.mail. Perhaps it is just easiest to post that e.mail where I more or less expressed what I feel about all this.
I also thought it would be amusing and interesting if anyone who feels anything about this should sign up to B.L. and (perhaps after a post or two) start asking what happened to Grego .. saying how much they miss him and his stimulating interesting posts etc .. www.blogladder.com
Can anyone be bothered? .. If you can I would appreciate it .. a small campaign for justice and clarity and transparency over a cyber issue .. stuff like this .. trust between human beings on the web is pretty important to me .. maybe I'm just a naive fool ?
The administrator "Greedy Bull" can also be e.mailed here ..contact@blogladder.com so any hassling or agitation can go straight to him if you like .. or if he just starts wiping everyone's stuff of in his megalomaniac way.
Anyway , here's the text of that e.mail;
Hi, It is Ramandu isn't it ? Browsing around my old blogs for some new outlet for my stuff ..and saw a comment from you.
I've written an e.mail to Debbie .. I don't know wether she will say anything on my behalf. The latest is G.B. has blocked me from even entering B.L. now .. (I just get a blankpage html thing in the address bar)
I'm not so bothered about coming back .. in that G.B. can do what he likes in the end .. but I think his behaviour was shockingly unreasonable.
No explanations .. no willingness to draw some guidelines for members and users of the site .. like some mad fascist dictatorship. I think members should know of his tactics ..every time I wrote a comment or a suggestion, he just wiped them off .. crazy stuff! Do people really want to be on a forum like that?
Funny that his entry in Yahoo says "a clean member controlled style" .. it would be good to point that out.
What do you think of his autocratic style ?
Was I really spamming anyway ? Others don't seem to think so. You and Anna and Anthopophobe all seemed to think I had something to contribute .. as did Nisanthrope ..that I was not like the bible bashing fundamentalist Christians etc etc ..
I would like to be so independent and strong as to just walk away from it .. but I must say I am hurt.
It seems to me to be just youth .. but another voice says it is to do with belief directly .. I have been quite surprised to see how many people don't really believe in anything beyond what their five senses tell them .. and will not rise above that more than to the realms of the intellect at best.
There was almost a general consensus of opinion that anything spiritual or religious should be kept quiet as if even talking about it was socially unacceptable .. There was a time when belief in God came before all else and informed everything, including politics and political debate.
Nowadays everyone wants to seperate everything into spiritual and secular .. as if there is a world where God has no place .. "God is dead" is indeed the general tenor of our society these days and I think that is directly related to the way the world is going .. i.e. rushing to the edge of the abyss which may well end in a horrible nuclear war (Armageddon).
I for one think it is very important to think about and do something about these things and draw people's attention to them.Burying one's head in the sand or looking the other way won't help much to solve the problems of human life on earth will it ?
Can we really stand by and watch while everyone just talks about holidays and books and music and food and filling in quizzes?
My point is that in a balanced blog community there must be room for every type of voice ..If G.B. wants a totally secular site .. where no spiritual view or discussion is allowed , he should say so from the outset.
I am not so upset at leaving (or rather being pushed out of ) B.L per se .. but I am upset by having my interaction with kind and sensitive and thoughtful people like yourself and Anna and Debbe and Anthropophobe and Nis .. cut off.
You already know about my blog .. at http://www.sufistuff.blogspot.com/ maybe you can get Anna's e.mail for me discreetly? .. I should like to say farewell to her after all her kindness and attention ..
If I can find another forum where we can meet I'll let you know .. what a drag that G.B.makes such a damn good little site and then behaves like a ten year old jerk in the playground!
Say something on my behalf if you like. You're much more clever and subtle verbally than I am.
Maybe just ask what happened to me ?
Hoping you care a bit about this piece of apparent injustice and that you are writing and contributing to (not only in a literary way .. but in revenue for G.B via his advertising which needs traffic) a site whose administrator behaves in this autocratic dictatorial fashion, something which is seen by the outside world as becoming the hallmark of American life since the rise of that other G.B.
Forgive me banging on but I have been well hurt by this .. my only consolation being that God loves me enough to cut me off from time wasting and too much connection with unbelievers, so that I actually and sincerely turn back to Him and make Him my only real goal and Friend.
Your brother in belief,
Uthman Gregory Collins, (aka Grego).
posted by longgone1 at 12/11/2005 10:17:00 AM
2 Comments:
I too got bumped from Blog Ladder, four times. I would guess you were posting pro-Isalmic bits whereas I was posting not-so-pro-Islamic bits. I tried emailing "Greedy Bull" at contact@blogladder.com but recieved no reply.
Blog Ladder is a cool concept. I wish I had the software GB has to run it so I could start one of my own where the only things that would be banned would be porn and censorship.
Cheers,
Clovis
Clovis is an Idot (locked out) at Blog Ladder
I, too, got cut, actually twice! The first time, I was anonman. I came back as bnonman, and was more careful in my use of language. The first time, I was supporting the idea of a lack of censorship related to any talk about God. I joined after the previous expulsions.
Recently, as bnonman, we had some good discussions about God and no one was cut, so I thought GB was making progress. He kept quiet, and the group normalized and got back to good discussions without any big problems.
Now this last time, the issue I raised was that GB had not really put together a good FAQ or some other form of instructions for new people [and existing blog ladderites] on how to use all the new features on the BL 2.0. GB did a fantastic job of creating an even better BL, technically, but many of the features were obtuse and not easily understood. Anyway, there was a lively discussion on this topic, and then, poof! I was gone.
In my opinion, GB is immature and will never see a growth in the number of BL users beyond the few who are willing to live with being "careful" to not touch upon the sensitivities of GB.
Before this, I thought the problem was issues like politics and religion, and that GB was thinking it best to not allow too much discussion of these sensitive subjects, so as not to cause turmoil within the ranks. But with this current deletion, its now clear its not the subject, its the person running the show, who cannot stand to be critiqued, who feels he has to protect his group of fans from becoming deeply involved in any discussion. I understan0d the need for being careful and not intolerant of others views. I support others expressing their views in a calm, collected manner, and think that "missionary' activities are not appropriate on a blog. But at the same time, freedom to say what you think should be allowed, in a civil and temperate manner, should prevail.
It has not, on BL.
Bnon
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