Half-life

Awww… looks like the site died. Now where will I get my morning laughs?

It’s actually a shame, since it really had the potential to be a “good” critic site. People will always have their opinions on the anonymity issue (or the sheer significance of a “rant” site, which is pretty much exactly what it was) – so I won’t even touch that with a 20-foot pole.

One thing I’ve noticed however, is that the author of that blog, seemed like a chap who had a somewhat level head – which I can give the time to listen to. To me, you don’t have to be wrong/right to be interesting… as long as you make sense. The blog had many posts I disagreed with, but I liked reading on how the author’s mind operated.

An example would be a post he had about “profile stalking”… how he, and other commenters accused the poster of being “full of himself.” On reading the post (and the few comments that tried to be constructive) I totally realized the validity of their claims. But I didn’t agree with them simply because I thought it was the type of issue where you think you can claim otherwise… until you’re put in that same situation.

I can say it’s wrong to steal, but who am I to pass judgement on a marginalized man who is forced to theft out of desperation in order to feed his family, or get much needed medicine for his ill child? Can I claim that I myself won’t steal when put in a similar situation simply because I know it’s wrong? Maybe, maybe not. My point is Di ako magsasalita ng tapos.

As far as “audacity” in the stalking post was concerned… I have been stalked, twice at that – probably more, but I really think the others were the same person, so I’ll stick with twice for the time being. So I can honestly say that depending on how paranoid this guy was, I really couldn’t blame him. I could’ve easily echoed his concern, but didn’t, because I wasn’t that paranoid, and didn’t feel the need to post a seemingly arrogant post of a seemingly egocentric concern… but nonetheless, I understood his concern. And I just hoped that the author did too.

Still, I frequented the said blog, because he made sense – regardless of what I thought. Had that earlier poster read the blog entry, he probably would’ve realized that it would’ve been better if he’d just handled his concern on his own and not bring the community into the picture.

Given that I had disagreed with the author on numerous views/posts… I still thought the issues he addressed were worth discussing at the very least. I guess the most articulate statement to describe him and his posts would be that though his methods are debatable, his heart is definitely in the right place – hence his blog would’ve been an interesting read. If it had been anyone else, the content of the site would’ve probably been as lousy as the comments.

But that’s all over now.

A bunch people proved the point that anonymity and freedom can easily lead to anarchy – as they purposely posted shitty, nonsensical, non-constructive, worthless comments. Not because they were INSERT DEROGATORY TERM(S) HERE, but because they wanted to show that any credible site can lose its credibility when given this level of freedom. As one commenter implied, there was so much noise, that it was so hard to look for the sensible comments from the garbage – and this was assuming that the commenters were all from PhilMUG.PH alone. What more if other communities joined in on the slam-fest?

I have no doubt in my mind that now that the e-mail commenting system has been established, that he has basically killed the site. I’m guessing no one would bother e-mailing him now just to get a comment posted. The best he could’ve done was put on comment moderation where it would still be easy to post, but your comment won’t be displayed until he approved it… that or if he stuck to the old scenario and just vigilantly deleted worthless posts. And we’d just have to trust that he keeps the posts that make sense, wether he agrees with them or not.

The only thing I got from the experience, which I don’t know if it was good or bad thing: I noticed how worthless we can be as people. The Apple community here in the Philippines has tried to establish (almost to a fault) its being “elite” in the sense that the people were all INSERT POSITIVE ADJECTIVES HERE. And going to the official forums, that certainly seemed to be the case.

But seeing these same people, how when given the cloak of anonymity, can go so low – it just goes to show that they aren’t any better than the people they attack – and are NOT the people they claim to be at all. You would think that being MUGgers would’ve made a difference. But there you have it, the proof that Mac users aren’t any better.

I myself have posted anonymously there… I can even point them out. One is the useless comment of “100!” because I was the 100th post hahaha ¹ You have to have some fun too you know heheheh. And baka kasi maunahan ako sa 100th post kung tinagalan ko pa magtype ng pangalan et all.. And the other was my concurrence of the email system suggestion – which I regret now, since I realize that it killed the site. Regardless, I may have posted “useless” stuff, but I never posted anything with the intention of being malicious. I hoped that these people would’ve responsibly used the freedom they were given to talk about stuff that would otherwise be banned from the official forum.

The challenge I posted on one commenter was/is still left unanswered though… I really wanted to make him realize how inferior he was to me hahahaha. It may be arrogant of me, but the fact that he attacked me, who only posted concerned comments and never attacked personally, obviously put him (and anyone who echoed his sentiments) beneath me right there and then. And now we’ll never hear what he has to say… lucky for him I guess.

Oh well, we can’t have it all… and most people in the world are retarded. You can write that down hehehehe.

It was fun while it lasted though 😉

To the author: While you probably won’t hear a word from anyone anymore, but please try to keep on posting. There are still some readers (myself included) that would love to hear what you think.