One thing I absolutely love about having this blog is the ability to express myself without moderation and the fact that I can pretty much write about anything I choose without having to adhere to rules and regulations which are made up on a whim seemingly only for me. See, I was once part of an online forum where the central theme was Carnival. There was a place where all Carnival lovers could mix it up, no matter which island you came from. Apparently the “freedom” to say what ever you liked there meant not pissing off any of the moderators with ties to the band you were speaking of; so certain bands were immune to “ole talk” while other bands could be bad talked as much as you like. Well you know I really have no cover for my mouth, as they say, I will call a spade a spade and since I was getting no free costume from any band I pretty much said what I had to say. Consequently I was banned from the forum, which in hindsight was the best thing that ever happened because I would never have this blog without that action.
So I was quite surprised when I received an email from a member of said forum last March asking me back:
By the way... I know you might have been a bit turned off from ___, but I have it on good authority that if you were to rejoin that you would find your previous obstacle have been more or less removed... lol. ____said to please rejoin if you'd like cause your banning seemed to have been unjustified. He said that your old user name ______ is no longer available, but you can feel free to sign up as any other name... you won't be banned.
I know we in ___would love to have you back. ...Just don't advertise that you've risen from the dead. They can figure it out themselves. :)
At that time I was pretty much not interested in going back to the forum since I knew what had happened before but then I got another email from the same person:
Hey girl... long time and ting man. How yuh been?
You need to come back on ___ ______is gone,
they asked her to resign... ;)
I made the decision to rejoin the forum and post pics from all the band launches and not only TRIBE as I had done before, this was my response to that request:
I plan on going back to ___ next month when the bandlaunching fever starts! Hopefully I can make it to all and I will be taking pics of course.
Just let me know if you what you may or may not need in terms of pics for the launch and I will get back to you.
The thing is I also had plans to start my blog but thought, being the forgiving individual that I am seeing I was banned for no reason, that I would extend the charity to this forum and let them have my photos for their use. It really was nothing big to me and I wanted the other members who could not be in Trinidad for the band launching to have that little excitement, as I would post the photos from the band launching as soon as I got home. They did not have to wait for days to see what costumes looked like, I know the feeling of wanting to see costumes and decide which one you want to play in so I got photos to them as soon as possible.
Well, it now seems that Karma is indeed a bitch because it looks like I have pissed off some moderator AGAIN and though I am not banned as yet (though it seems as if I was threatened) I have been given special treatment apart from any other poster!
I have now been accused of advertising my blog because I have linked to specific articles that I have written, in response to either a question or to direct someone to the blog for more information; this is the message I got in my mail box last night:
Just FYI:
Over the last few months I have simply been deleting the unnecessary links to your blog where ever I find them, but please be aware that there are a large number of people on ____ who have their own websites (including myself and every other moderator) who would have received a warning after a first infraction. The average member would have been suspended a long time ago for advertising their website by constantly posting links to it; which is why I've already received a few complaints.
If you persist I will just have to deal with the situation in whatever manner ___ rules dictate.
Feel free to keep the link in your sig if you'd like.
Thing is I do not make a profit from this blog, so it is not like I am “advertising” my product for sales and I have seen lots of people linking to
their websites including said person who sent me that message. I have seen six (6) links to photos of the Carnival band they were involved with posted on the same said forum!! I guess
THAT is not considered advertising but when someone wanted more information on TABOO the band and I gave them the link to my post it was removed.
And what makes me feel as if I am yet again being victimized is that I was given different instructions in respect to placing links to my blog in posts on the forum. The same person told me it was okay to do so by sending me this piece of information prior to that infraction when they deleted one of my threads:
Hey chick,
Had to delete your thread.
You can post a thread discussing a topic, post material about the topic, then link it back to your blog, but _______ won't let you post a topic with only a link to back to your blog.
Now I have visisted numerous forums and I have seen people but links to their myspace, blog and wordpress journals even their own personal websites without any censure from a moderator. And I know that each forum has rules but it really stinks when you give me one set of rules yet I see others doing the exact same thing without reprimand.
So I have made the decision, before it is made for me, to divorce myself from said forum! Before I am banned yet again, I am requesting that the account be deleted, focusing solely on this blog as Carnival Central. They say fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me and I will be dammed if I get myself in the same position again especially when I was asked to come back to the forum when it was not a decision I made on my own.
I know many persons who are members of that forum visit this blog, sorry guys I will no longer be adding to excitement “over there”. And as much as this is my little utopia I still give pretty much everyone free reign to say what they want unless they start getting disrespectful in the comments by using obscene language. I have had to delete a few comments for that reason but you will notice I still have the comments un- moderated and I have been put on blast many times by the anonymous posters, some I affectiontely call my trolls.
Let me just say that there is nothing like being free to speak your mind and even this post is testament to that; let freedom reign!!
