At Last Angry Arab Has Had It
While I wasn't looking Angry Arab did something truly drastic. A day or two ago, with scarcely a snicker, he suddenly left his numerous commenting constituents high and dry.
On the 17th he said this:
People who are close to me have been urging me for years to shut down the comments' section. I finally reached that conclusion. I mean, why should I give a free platform to Zionists, Harirites, and Lebanese Phalanges? I am going to give this a week, if the spamming and the repetitious postings and the falsification of names continue I will close down the section completely and permanently. It has become a festival of hate and venom--from both sides.
Yet, when I chanced to look late the very next day, he had already shut down the section.
I'm not surprised. The chances are that that week lasted for just a few hours because the guilty parties among his commenters didn't take him seriously, any more than they had when he and others had advised them on many previous occasions to cool it. I guess also that they had become so addicted to showing their backsides there that they were powerless to keep from doing what they had always done.
I had already posted earlier on how his comments section was almost unparalleled in its unapologetic grunge content, complete with regular personal attacks on him, and it was a wonder that he let things stay that way for as long as he did, to the point where I wondered if he read the comments. After all, he hadn't named himself "Angry Arab" for nothing.
Still, for all of that section's often stomach-turning content, I can't help feeling that now something important is missing from the site. Along with all the nastiness, there was also often some illuminating content. Angry Arab posts so much that his remarks are often overly cryptic, and he is too given to sarcasm, and both these factors frequently obscure his meanings so much that, if I wasn't up to clicking on all the links he gave, I would instead turn to the comments to see if they could throw some light on what he was trying to say. I admit, that worked only occasionally, but along the way the comments also had a certain entertainment value, complete with a regular though confusing cast of characters, half of them named "Anonymous."
What happens when this happens? What do people like them do when their always dependable avenue of the most unfettered expression is no longer open to them? Where do they go? Because there can't be many weblog proprietors who, even over much shorter periods of time, are as lenient as Angry Arab suffered himself to be.
On the 17th he said this:
People who are close to me have been urging me for years to shut down the comments' section. I finally reached that conclusion. I mean, why should I give a free platform to Zionists, Harirites, and Lebanese Phalanges? I am going to give this a week, if the spamming and the repetitious postings and the falsification of names continue I will close down the section completely and permanently. It has become a festival of hate and venom--from both sides.
Yet, when I chanced to look late the very next day, he had already shut down the section.
I'm not surprised. The chances are that that week lasted for just a few hours because the guilty parties among his commenters didn't take him seriously, any more than they had when he and others had advised them on many previous occasions to cool it. I guess also that they had become so addicted to showing their backsides there that they were powerless to keep from doing what they had always done.
I had already posted earlier on how his comments section was almost unparalleled in its unapologetic grunge content, complete with regular personal attacks on him, and it was a wonder that he let things stay that way for as long as he did, to the point where I wondered if he read the comments. After all, he hadn't named himself "Angry Arab" for nothing.
Still, for all of that section's often stomach-turning content, I can't help feeling that now something important is missing from the site. Along with all the nastiness, there was also often some illuminating content. Angry Arab posts so much that his remarks are often overly cryptic, and he is too given to sarcasm, and both these factors frequently obscure his meanings so much that, if I wasn't up to clicking on all the links he gave, I would instead turn to the comments to see if they could throw some light on what he was trying to say. I admit, that worked only occasionally, but along the way the comments also had a certain entertainment value, complete with a regular though confusing cast of characters, half of them named "Anonymous."
What happens when this happens? What do people like them do when their always dependable avenue of the most unfettered expression is no longer open to them? Where do they go? Because there can't be many weblog proprietors who, even over much shorter periods of time, are as lenient as Angry Arab suffered himself to be.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 12:11 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home