Monday Dec 19, 2005

This is my webspace! Respect it!

Posted at 09:04:15 pm by hari under Site management (188 views)

A member of my forum LiteraryForums.org, Azrael, decided to declare war on me. Rather than go down to his level and fight, I decided to do the graceful thing and quit from the field. I am too busy in my life to engage in futile online battles and do something that is so distasteful.

I'll tell you how all this happened. Azrael, who's up to now, been a very good member of the forum and a good contributor, started a discussion on google adsense. I merely felt that it would be out of place on my forum (which is my space, by the way) to discuss it because I was a google partner and I felt it was in violation of their TOS.

Now I explained this in a polite manner to Azrael in a Private Message, explaining my point of view. Rather than reading the message, he chose to react in a shocking manner by deleting all his earlier posts and reviews. This is a blatant lack of respect on his part to do that without informing me. I was shocked and not a little saddened because he has been so good up to this point. Being busy with my examinations I decided that I didn't need all this shit. I decided to get rid of my forum for good because managing it has become a pain with guys like him thinking that he owns the place.

Now I left it at that and having made the decision, quietly informed my moderators of my decision and why I did it.

Not satisfied with carrying on like a little child who tears up newspapers for the fun of it, Azrael decided to continue this war against me by posting in my blog with a rude comment calling me a liar. I will *NOT* take this any more. For somebody who calls himself a school teacher, he has lowered himself in my eyes beyond the point of recall. He has burnt his bridges and that has nothing to do with my conduct.

To Azrael:
This is my webspace. I reserve the right to using it the way I want to. You have no rights except what I choose to give you on *my* forum. Because I chose to be lenient you took advantage of this and decided to challenge me so blatantly. Please leave me alone, because I don't want to have to do anything with you. Your declaration of war has ruined my weekend. You took a simple moderation action personally and decided that I was the villain without understanding my point of view.

And if you wanted to delete your posts, you could have requested me and I'd have wiped your presence off my database with pleasure. What really annoyed me was your sneaky, underhanded way of doing it. Never ever show your nose here, please.

To everyone else:
Please forgive this decision of mine, but I am not going to stand this. I have no time or energy to deal with people like Azrael who think that posting in my blog calling me a liar is supposed to be an insult. It's not. It's pathetic and shows a degenerative mind.

I'll probably re-open the forum with upgrades later on if I want to, but don't count on it.

Regards.

30 comments, 1 pingback

Pingback from: Hari’s Corner » LiteraryForums.org indefinitely closed [Visitor]

[...] Update: Please read this post here. [...]

Monday Dec 19, 2005 @ 21:07

Comment from: thennavan [Visitor] · http://chennaicentral.blogspot.com

Hari, sorry to see this shut down. Hope the decision is reversible :-)

Monday Dec 19, 2005 @ 21:51

Comment from: azrael26 [Visitor]

Who's the little child here, not being a man enough to have left my former post explaining why I quit this pathetic site of his?
This is $your$ webspace, little weeping child unable to stand any proper debate and asks for mother to have a look on it to see if everybody behaves rightly.
Come on, hari, grow up !
Open your eyes, you're not even able to have an opinion on books and wnat to tell me who has published more than 5OO posts on your site, among them more than 70 reviews you would not have been able to do yourself that I am a child
You're so pathetic it makes me lauugh !!

Monday Dec 19, 2005 @ 22:02

Comment from: trickykid [Visitor] · http://trickykid.org

You shouldn't close down your site based on one member and their actions, but rather block them by all necessary means until a resolution is made if possible.
Or perhaps if your busy, hand the site over to a trusted moderator or the like for the decision making until your ready to step back in to administer the site when you have the time.
Sucks when you have to deal with some bullshit but that's life, not everyone will agree with you but you only hope when they can agree with your own actions on the sites you own and maintain, which clearly by this example isn't always the case.

Cheers,

-trickykid

PS. The name calling or personal messages should be kept on the down low though, it doesn't solve anything by making them public, but that's my own opinion on the matter.

Monday Dec 19, 2005 @ 22:41

Comment from: aysiu [Visitor] · http://www.psychocats.net/essays/

Hari, sorry you're having so much problem with a forum member--and it's obviously your prerogative to shut down the forum if you'd like--but I'm with trickykid on this one.

Ban Azureus, sure. It almost seems as if you're punishing all the other forum members AND yourself by closing the entire forums just for one member's action.

If I were you, I'd shut it down for a while. Then, reopen it, banning said user, then setting up so users cannot delete their own posts (only moderators can). Of course, ultimately, it's your call.

Monday Dec 19, 2005 @ 22:50

Comment from: ray [Visitor] · http://www.lostaddress.org

It is sad that the forum had to be taken down. We joined the site for the enjoyment and pleasure that posting gave, not because of any other reason.

You should be able to ban by IP range and not just by name, I'd look into that for the future to prevent this sort of thing happenening again. You could also restore the posts and reviews (should you wish) from a back up - so from that point of view, no harm done.

But, it is a pity when one member of the group goes off the rails in that way. The first rule of adsense is, you don't talk about adsense

so you were completely in the right, Hari.

Looking forward to the new version.

Monday Dec 19, 2005 @ 23:56

Comment from: Marco [Visitor]

Hey Hari, as a new member of Literaryforums I wanted to place a supportive message. I can understand the negative feelings a 'war' like this summons, but when people behave like this, it is best to firmly ban them.

Of course, I don't want to lecture on how you should handle this, but I really hope the forum will be back online soon. It is a very interesting place to talk about literature, and not only thanks to Azrael. He just posted a 500+ messages because he was there earlier than me

Also, to remove those messages means totally not acknowledging the main purpose of a forum: that people can read about other people's thoughts.

And I think that that's what should happen now: a quick reopening of the forum, just because other users DO want to talk about literature, and not because only ONE user has an ego too big for literaryforums.org.

Sincerely,

Marco

Tuesday Dec 20, 2005 @ 04:26

Comment from: floppywhopper [Visitor]

Time to concentrate on your course Hari
concentrate on paying the bills and getting by

I'm disappointed it ended this way
I've learnt so much during my time at LF
Had a bit of fun, few laughs
now the party is over
time to move on

Maybe come back when your course is done
do something different, change direction ....

Thanks to everyone who contributed
who made this mod's job a little easier
Thanks to the authors who took the time to talk about their books
Those who reviewed books and discussed them
Those who stopped by for a chat

A "lager-bomb" in the face to all the trolls and spammers

floppywhopper

Tuesday Dec 20, 2005 @ 04:40

Comment from: hari [Member] · http://literaryforums.org

Thanks for all the supportive messages. Yes, I'll probably reopen LiteraryForums.org after my examinations are over.

Aysiu, thanks for dropping by.

Ray, I'll probably do a conversion to another forum software, but I'm still hunting for converters.

Trickykid, thanks for your supportive message. You can see who fired the first low-blow by taking it public. I was forced to respond because Azrael didn't have the decency to send me an e-mail.

Marco, thanks for the message of support. I appreciate it. You will understand the suffering I've gone through thanks to this member's indecency. And because it's a busy time for me, I just didn't want to involve myself deeply into a feud which can have no constructive result. While I don't promise to reopen it, I will try my best. Sadly he's continued his war with me. Don't like my site? Why doesn't he just leave quietly?

Floppy, thanks for your message again. I really appreciate your work in moderating the forums with Ray. It's been a good time as you said. When (and if) LF reopens, I hope you can moderate again.

Azrael. Well, I'm leaving his message here so that everybody can see how low he's stooped to personally attacking me. He talks about having more than 500 posts. That shows how big an ego he's got.

I may not be as knowledgeable as him, but I respect others better than him and I don't have a king-sized ego. I leave it to you to judge who's pathetic. Stooping so low to attack an individual...

Tuesday Dec 20, 2005 @ 07:04

Comment from: floppywhopper [Visitor]

Hari
at the moment clicking on "Literary forums" just brings up a 404.
How about a quick page saying the forums are down until further notice.
there are probably many people who are unaware of what is going on.
I dont think going into detail will be productive just a page to say "watch this space" sort-of....

floppy

Tuesday Dec 20, 2005 @ 08:20

Comment from: hari [Member] · http://literaryforums.org

Floppy, when you type www.literaryforums.org, it should redirect here.

I guess it doesn't redirect when you try with the URL to the forum index. I'll fix that. Thanks for the heads up.

Tuesday Dec 20, 2005 @ 14:47

Comment from: Anantha [Visitor]

Thts life hari. As they say, in the journey of life, we were in one forum for a few short months and when we look back, we will remember only the good moments. Hope the same for Azz and all the others.

But don't look back.

Tuesday Dec 20, 2005 @ 17:59

Comment from: hari [Member] · http://literaryforums.org

Anantha, thanks for the supportive message. I am very heartened that people have understood why I did what I did in the right way.

I don't think I can do anything but wait for a few days till I can concentrate on re-opening LiteraryForums.org if possible. I'll probably make my decision over the week about bringing back LF.org.

In case I come back with the forum, I'm 100% sure that it won't be phpBB. I will need a bit more control and I will need to convert to another forum software. So, all in all, it will need some work before it's ready for re-opening and for that I need time.

Hope everybody will understand.

Regards.

Tuesday Dec 20, 2005 @ 19:15

Comment from: Ankh [Visitor]

Hari,I certainly wasn't directed to this site when I clicked on the website. Floppy sent me this link.

I would just like to say that your argument with Azrael aside, I think the decent thing would have been to keep the site open long enough for its members to say goodbye to one another. For a lot of us, we only knew each other on that site and therefore do not have one another's email.

You're taking out your debate with Azrael on nearly 200 members.

Ankh.

Wednesday Dec 21, 2005 @ 00:20

Comment from: Ankh [Visitor]

After reading your last post Hari, I would like to say one further thing. I happen to think you did the wrong thing with regards to scrapping Azrael's post. You chose to take the dwindling prospect of being paid a few dollars, instead of helping to alert others to an obviously dodgy business scam. To help cloak a wicked large corp who screws with little guys, is just cowardice.
You can decide to place me in the same barrel as Azrael if you like. Maybe you think anyone who disagrees with you deserves to be made a fool of, but you should know that not everyone found your selfish actions to be impressive.

Ankh.

Wednesday Dec 21, 2005 @ 07:02

Comment from: hari [Member] · http://literaryforums.org

Well, ankh. I have no issue with debating. It's just that I didn't want to discuss some things in the open. Adsense for instance. I have already made it adequately clear that it was in their TOS that I could not discuss it on my site. In any case I've written to google and have opted myself out of the adsense thing. Whether it's right or wrong for me to choose to be associated with them is entirely my own business since I'm paying for the hosting of this site and you don't contribute a single penny.

I don't want to debate on Azrael's original post. He may or may not be justified in feeling angry against google. But what he did after that was plainly indecent and abusive towards me especially when I had sent him a polite explanatory message which he didn't even bother to read.

He never responded to a single message I sent him. He started deleting all his earlier reviews. He then logged on to my blog and started abusing me.

How would you respond? Put yourself in my place. My actions may be selfish, but I have to pay for the hosting. You can sit on your high moral horse and preach, but it's ultimately my site and I choose to run it the way I want.

Don't like it? Just leave. But what Azrael did was to carry the war into a personal level when I was clearly not targetting him at all.

Hope this helps you understand. My main objective was not to stifle debate, but to not violate google's TOS so as to enable me to be in the right.

Why on earth should I allow somebody to abuse me on my own site? And especially when I am in the middle of writing examinations? It is traumatic to receive such messages from somebody whom I had the highest respect for. He didn't even have the decency to keep it private.

Let's forget this incident. If you want to take sides on this one, do so. But try and understand my perspective before being judgemental.

Wednesday Dec 21, 2005 @ 07:18

Comment from: Ankh [Visitor]

I do understand your perspective..I never said I didn't. Because I disagree with your removal of Azrael's post and the subsequent shutting down of the site doesn't mean that I don't understand why you did it. I just don't agree with it.
You're right. We didn't pay "a single penny" but a lot of us invested a lot of time and very personal thoughts to your site. So bearing this in mind, I do feel entitled to have a say about what happened. I don't agree with Azrael deleting his posts, but perhaps if this had all been handled better to begin with, it would never have got to that stage. We all remember Azrael as highly intelligent and his frequent contributions to your site was a large part of any success it had.

Because I have a different view to you doesn't equate to me 'being sitting on my high moral horse and preaching'. Setting up a forum means that you accept opinions other than your own. At least one post on this board commended you on your actions. For my own principles, I chose to write and say that I had a differing view. Maybe once you calm down and get off your own moral and financial pedestal, you'll appreciate that

a) other forum members might not be happy with your actions re: closing the site (not to mention deleting the initial post)
&
b) because you are disagreed with, doesn't mean that "sides are chosen".

I wish you well with yourexams, and hope that you find the time to run the site again with a bit less censorship.

Ankh.

Wednesday Dec 21, 2005 @ 14:21

Comment from: ray [Visitor] · http://www.lostaddress.org

I think this is a great debate, if only so that the Terms and Conditions for LF.org v2.0 will be that bit clearer.

To anyone who thinks Hari was a little "high handed" over the whole deletion/closing thing I will say this: when you visit a website or a forum, you do so as a guest. This means that the host is quite right to say "my house, my rules". It may seem unfair, but that's the way it has to go. If, as a guest, you do something illegal or immoral (not that anyone did in this case), it will be the host who will bear the brunt of the trouble.

Hari signed up to the TOS for AdSense. This means he signed a contract, part of which was not to talk about adsense (the first rule of adsense is "you don't talk about adsense)

. Azrael's post appeared to breach that contract. Hari then has a choice: continue using adsense and receiving whatever revenue he gets or leave adsense and allow the conversation to continue. And breach his contract.

Now, I don't know how much money he received via adsense, nor is it any of my business. But LF.org has costs and Hari needs to maintain some sort of revenue. He was entirely correct to try to preserve that revenue.

As far as I remember, none of Azrael's other posts have ever needed to be moderated, so his response to Hari was entirely out of proportion.

To finish: if, as Ankh says, the other members are unhappy about Hari's recent actions they have a few choices: don't get involved (it's nothing to do with them), stop visiting the site, start their own forum. And that is really it, there is nothing else they can do.

This may sound harsh, but it is a fact.

Wednesday Dec 21, 2005 @ 17:41

Comment from: hari [Member] · http://literaryforums.org

Ankh, you're entitled to your opinion. And I respect that. But name-calling began with Azrael and not me. I am a human being after all and I do get upset when people call me names. I am quite entitled to feeling upset when somebody calls me names on my own board and that feeling did cause me to shut the site down.

But it is temporary. I've got over it. I am no longer feeling as I did yesterday. And since my exams are almost over, my tensions on that front are also reduced.

You have to understand that as people, we all have lives offline which take away a lot from our contributions to the online world. Yes, I may not have contributed as many reviews as Azrael, but that doesn't reflect a thing on my knowledge or intelligence.

Let me just say that I don't judge any of you based on this incident (not even Azrael). It has been unpleasant but it is highly situation specific. Probably both of us might have reacted differently in a different situation.

Ray, thanks for your very good summing up of the situation.

Ankh, I appreciate the reasonable manner in which you have conducted the debate rather than resorting to name-calling.

Regards.

Wednesday Dec 21, 2005 @ 19:42

Comment from: Ankh [Visitor]

It's not the first time someone has said "first rule of adsense - don't talk about adsense *WINK*". Do you know if their TOS extends to censoring guest's comments? Because if this is the case, it's a rather authoritarian demand considering that there might not be payment in return. I find it hard to believe that they can make it a condition that a guest can't post a free comment about their organization's methods. If they do need to stipulate this, it makes you wonder why they would anticipate so much criticism. The corporate thought police are now outsourcing their work and it costs them peanuts.

It certainly makes you wonder if the freemarket and free expression go together if corporate sponsors get to decide who is heard and who isn't. Actually speaking of freemarkets, one of the conditions of it working for all parties is access to a free flow of information. It's interesting that corporations like Google feel that can't succeed in a freemarket without subverting one of it's major requirements.

(Quote) "To finish: if, as Ankh says, the other members are unhappy about Hari’s recent actions they have a few choices: don’t get involved (it’s nothing to do with them)" - it is do with them actually. This is an online community and in a fit of petulance with one member, it has been closed down without giving people the chance to say farewell to one another. If I have a party at my house and I have an argument with one guest, then yes..I have the right to chuck him and the rest of the guests out of my house "My House, My Rules"...but I wouldn't expect any of them to come back.

(Quote) "Now, I don’t know how much money he received via adsense, nor is it any of my business. But LF.org has costs and Hari needs to maintain some sort of revenue. He was entirely correct to try to preserve that revenue." Okay - what if he was asked to provide a list of Jewish people on his site? There does become a point where you need to consider finding a new source of revenue. "I vas just followink orders!' doesn't really fly these days.

You certainly won't get many interesting discussions in LF.org v2.0 with a host insisting on imposing a thought orthodoxy. A site like this is only as interesting as the members who turn up, and people who are willing to toe the new party policy probably aren't that interesting.

So farewell and thanks for all the fish.

Ankh.

Wednesday Dec 21, 2005 @ 19:56

Comment from: hari [Member] · http://literaryforums.org

You certainly won’t get many interesting discussions in LF.org v2.0 with a host insisting on imposing a thought orthodoxy.

That's my lookout isn't it? Feel free to go your own way. End of story.

Wednesday Dec 21, 2005 @ 20:45

Comment from: somacorp [Visitor] · http://www.oomo.se

room 101 booking schedule:

9am: Tom Cruz
10am: The Hooded Claw
11am: Hari
noon: closed - premises become soup kitchen for geckos

1pm - weightwatchers

Thursday Dec 22, 2005 @ 01:21

Comment from: trickykid [Visitor] · http://trickykid.org

The way I see it though in the end is: Hari's site, Hari's rules. Don't like them or his actions, boo hoo.. start your own site!

Thursday Dec 22, 2005 @ 01:28

Comment from: Marco [Visitor]

"You certainly won’t get many interesting discussions in LF.org v2.0 with a host insisting on imposing a thought orthodoxy."

This is an interesting discussion, but in the quote above ankh is a bit too much giving her own interpretation to the facts. Being a (former) new member of LF, I was not the most loyal to the whole thing or something. But this goes too far.

Saying that you don't want to talk about somethig does not mean that you are a fascist, imposing his own "orthodoxy". Things AND life are just not that black-and-white, something one should know when posting on a literary forum with so high a degree of international input. And even when you see life as a black-and-white thing (which is everyone's full right to do), you should not apply it to other people's thoughts. That's just imposing your own orthodoxy on someone else.

Thursday Dec 22, 2005 @ 03:24

Comment from: hari [Member] · http://literaryforums.org

Forum is now back up.

Thanks for your support, everybody!

Thursday Dec 22, 2005 @ 09:12

Comment from: ray [Visitor] · http://www.lostaddress.org

If anyone is interested, we can see in post number 20 that Ankh has invoked "Godwin's Law - read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Making something confidential is entirely different from a totalitarian dictatorship.

Thursday Dec 22, 2005 @ 18:10

Comment from: hari [Member] · http://literaryforums.org

When I click the link it says:

We don't have an article called "Godwin’s law"

But when I type it in Search manually the link works. I think it has to do with the special character in the URL you posted which should be converted properly.

Here's the corrected link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_Law

Thursday Dec 22, 2005 @ 18:37

Comment from: ray [Visitor] · http://www.lostaddress.org

Thanks Hari

Thursday Dec 22, 2005 @ 18:43

Comment from: Marco [Visitor]

Well, this law sure is interesting fro a literary point of view...

Friday Dec 23, 2005 @ 20:47

Comment from: Marco [Visitor]

That should be: 'from'

Friday Dec 23, 2005 @ 20:48

Comment from: ray [Visitor] · http://www.lostaddress.org

and is as true now as it ever was.