I was reacting to Chenthil’s non-commital blogpost on the recent plagiarism accusations on The Hindu. Few arguments touched upon rogue blogging. I have some strong comments on rogue blogging and how blogs can be mis-used as anti-fame machines. Here is the extract from the comments that me and Chenthil had on his blog.
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From Chenthil’s blogpost –
This incident set me thinking about this sharp tool called blogging. Take Mr. Bhaskaran. He has been writing for about 20 years. Assuming 20 reviews a year, that makes it 400 reviews. Even if say, 20 of his reviews were inspired, he will be painted as a plagiarist for all 400 of them. It is a little harsh on him. Again I stress, I am not batting for anybody, just thinking out loud how this tool called blogging can be used.
lazygeek said…
//Even if say, 20 of his reviews were inspired, he will be painted as a plagiarist for all 400 of them. It is a little harsh on him. //
Chenthil, I don’t get this logic. How do you say its a little harsh on him. its a matter of integrity when it comes to fourth estate.
Chenthil said…
Guru, the issue I was concerned more here was how blogging can be used to bring down somebody.//
lazygeek said…
Yep !! There are rogue bloggers every where and the idea of rogue bloggings sucks. I agree. Now lets take this analogy to the IIPM case which is very recent. Do you also think that IIPM literally raped by bloggers. Imagine IIPM has been around for a while and they might have given great education even for atleast 200 people, they were ragged by the bloggers for screwing up with one AD on newspapers. Do you think so ?
Also, imagine the tamil nadu police captures so many criminals on a daily basis. do you think they were ragged by bloggers when they were condemened for moral policing with just one hotel.
Are we being balanced here ? If you are saying yes, i’ll have a bigger reply.
Chenthil said…
Guru, of course I am not being balanced. I myself have participated vigorously in IIPM issue and Moral Policing. But of late I am getting this doubt, whether we are using blogging as a tool to bring down things. When I was participating in those issues, I could feel the mob mentality engulfing me, making me feel the potency of power without accountability.
In such mobs, some of those who are shouting along with you won’t be agreeable to you on normal days. But since all of us are shouting for an issue, we tend to forget this fact. To put it in Engineering College slang, whenever there is a fight in collge, there will be a group who will be standing invisible but creating a big noise. We call that “Sound vidarathu”. I am wondering whether blogging is going down that road.
lazygeek said…
Obviously its going in that road. Remember those days when you had asked why I was keeping off senstive issues. This was the reason. Its because we have bandwith and a keyboard that listens to your whims and fancies, by means of senstive topics and sticky posts, we are just becoming rogue bloggers, to the core.
Ofcourse there are people who react because they feel dejected or upset of some issue. i have to say i felt very dejected when i saw the plagiarism. two reasons. one the lazygeek blog is a victim of plagiarism. donno if you know but the reviews and posts are intelligently stolen and some interesting thoughts are added to it make seems like a original post. second, i am a long term reader of hindu. infact right from the start. so i felt dejected and hence that post about hindu.
There are bloggers whom even you can spot so easily who are just waiting for to kick someone and waiting for a prey. those dudes are pretty new and have no clue of the immense satisfaction blogging gives. if its all about eyeballs and page hits and comments gallore, blogging ceases to exist. but thats what we have today and it really sucks. really sucks.
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And before you start to comment here is a quick note. These were comments and they were written with an urgency. Hence they may not really bring out the essence of what i mean. I was trying to compare Chenthils’ logic of argument in Bhaskaran’s case with the IIPM and moral policing issue. My take on moral policing and IIPM remain intact despite these conversations for the sake of an argument. While this argument continues so does the concept of rogue blogging.
