November 07, 2010

The fall (?) of WeBlog

There has been a discussion going on in a part of Indian bloggers' world. This post is just about throwing more light on the issue by accumulating the links where you may like to read more about it and/or participate in the discussion.

First of all, this is the group that is in question: http://www.facebook.com/WeBlogg

It's a page where a few of fellow bloggers were allegedly verbally abused and blocked out of when they asked about the authenticity of the people behind the blog. Pathetic!

A comprehensive post mentioning what all has happened on and around WeBlog and it's owner (who claims to have sold it off now) here: http://mysterious-kaddu.blogspot.com/2010/11/biggest-controversy-in-blogosphere.html A few more posts by Kaddu on this issue can be read here and here.

There has been a debate going on Facebook here. See if you can go through it (Update: The picture has been removed from Facebook now).

A discussion was also going on on a thread on IndiBlogger. The thread seems to have been removed from the site. (Update: The thread is back on IndiBlogger, and again it has disappeared)

The purpose of this blogpost is just to make sure that more people are aware of this series of incidents so that people stop falling prey to scams like this.

PS: I'll keep this post updated in case the links I provided aren't enough.

Updated: Added the hyperlinks which previously appeared as plain text.

Updated (2100 hours): Made updates on the Facebook picture and discussion and on that thread on IndiBlogger site. I guess the further discussion will mainly follow there itself.

Updated (Dec 5, '10): Current/Final status of things as on December 5:

(i) The WeBlog Facebook page and its site on .co.cc domain, of course, still exist. However, 5 of my Facebook friends 'like' the page now against the figure of 20 when the controversy just came up.

(ii) As far as I know, no active discussion or activity against WeBlog seems to be going on anywhere on Indian BlogSphere.

(iii) The thread regarding this controversy which was opened by a famous blogger Mohan was closed, reopened and closed again. The probable reason behind the closure of that thread is IndiBlogger moderators/officials' belief that the discussion going on there was not very healthy.

Updated (May 18, '11): IndiBlogger blog mentions about Sourav Pandey's plagiarism here. A good move indeed.

9 comments:

  1. Awesome dude. Please keep updating as and when things happen.

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  2. Hi Haresh, I was not aware of these things taking place. This is quite shocking to me. Anyways, thanks for sharing this information here and many thanks for sharing those useful links. will check it out ;)

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  3. @Haresh: Thank You for bringing the post to my notice :) I clearly was unaware of it until now..else would have shared my POV earlier.

    1.The efforts weren't entirely futile since the chickens finally came out in the open and accepted the ownership..If they had some sensibility they'd have done it beforehand rather than staying in darkness and operating in a clandestine way.

    2.The appearing and the disappearing of the thread on the forum was an attempt at 'Political Correctness' as we all very well know. As far as I know nothing will happen wrt to voting system that everyone is so unhappy about.If something ever changes then it will be a welcome change!

    3.WeBlog's 'bigger and better' promises are as hyped as the website itself! Owning a platform is one thing and running it efficiently without landing oneself in soup is another thing! It is a matter of caliber that some people are simply not gifted with. My pity rests with such souls.

    4.The discussion sure helped me distinguish between people who speak in two languages(hard core hypocrites) and those who speak their mind out.

    5.I also discovered the power of manipulation that some people are gifted with! How some people say something one moment and contradict the next moment due to reasons unknown(being warned by well wishers to withdraw from being a part of controversy that would sabotage their reputation could be one of the reasons,is my guess)

    It is nice to see that you took the initiative to come up with this post. Appreciate it :)

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  4. @Raksha,

    I'm glad that you share similar views too. Yes, the efforts didn't go futile. I would have loved to see the site facing more troubles. I don't think enough damage has been done provided the history and way of functioning of WeBlog.

    And, I would have loved if more people could have been more active to raise awareness about this. I wonder why the issue calmed down so soon given the power WB has to trap more people. The blogsphere is ours and we need to take care of it, I believe.

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  5. Haresh,

    You need to be appreciated for having said whatever you have said but buddy let's face it, not everybody cares or thinks like you do. Ask people for one reason and they'll give you ten for not voicing their thoughts! They have their own businesses to take care of and a reputation that needs to be 'clean' considering they are under scrutiny of the public eye(I suppose or that is what the claim is at least??).

    Well as for the damage,that was never the bottom line, to damage their functioning. Whatever was done was to 'get them functioning' least to the extent that they could say their names in the public. They went HIBERNATING(and they still are)and it was a WAKE UP call.

    We wanted the 'admins' in the open and that was eventually achieved. As for the 'damage' well don't worry,what goes around comes around so I'm sure the people behind WeBlog will sooner or later get their share of deals ;) You see, nothing lasts forever so neither will their 'Oh-I'm-on-the-top-of-the-world-and-I-feel-like-Alexander-the-Great-and-everyone-else-is-a-loser' attitude. GET WELL SOON wishes to them though:)

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  6. Haresh,
    Thanks for bringing up this post. Much appreciated!

    I concur to every word stated by Raksha. She just spoke my mind. I would love to add few of my thoughts:
    1)Weblog,much after this DIWALI Dhamaka and Fireworks broke out on FB & IB, proudly came out in open and declared their owners!!
    (hello??? as if the world didn't know who its owners were!!) If it had any idea of revealing its owners, they would have done it much before Diwali Dhamaka and Fireworks!! Also,they abused few of us,blocked us,deleted the post,unblocked us again when we questioned them about their anonymity!
    If they had plans of revealing their owners before,then why was all these "HIGH VOLTAGE DRAMA" like Ekta Kapoor's K Serial required??!!

    2)What amused me the most was few bloggers writing bad reviews about Weblog on their own blogs few months before this and ending up asking questions like,"If weblog wants to be anonymous,let it be,whats your problem with it" on Indiblogger thread!!
    Hello, if you have no problem with "Weblog's anonymity, then what are your blog posts condemning Weblog doing on your personal blogs??
    Is it that they had no posts to write? or are they confused? or are they jealous that nobody heard them when they were screaming from rooftops months before this scam was unearthed on FB & IB??

    3)Few people on FB started plotting one person against each other poisoning their ears not to team up with few people,they even called,smsed few people personally asking them to refrain from this issue saying they have no complete knowledge of it"!! Wah!! I am amused!!

    All I can say is "Corrupt politicians represent MAJOR chunk of Common people"!!

    4)Some people also had "Chance pe dance" as they left no stones unturned in seizing this "golden opportunity" to procure pending things :P

    3)Talking about Political correctness, when every commenter was commenting in decent tone on IB(after removal and putting back of that thread), I am still wondering what triggered the IB moderators to remove the post citing reasons of profanity when the discussions were going on with sanity!
    IB moderator also adviced me to continue this discussion on FB,when I followed it,he adviced me not to tag him on FB!
    OK,they first delete the IB related thread on IB, ask us to continue on FB,when we follow suit,they ask us not to tag them on FB!!
    Then where should I continue? Should I continue this discussion on the cloud using "Cloud Computing"??

    Also,when few tweeples questioned IB moderator on twitter "How many votes does it takes to remove the thread from IB", we received no response! May be they themselves don't know this answer!! :) :)

    One IB moderator verbally abused the people on twitter who raised this issue,calling them "Losers","cry babies","nasty" etc!!
    Well,if moderators talk like these to the bloggers who use their forum and website,GOD bless such websites and their moderators.

    Another moderator tried to soothe me down(and finally failed) by emailing me personally asking me for phone number so that he could talk to me over this issue,which I flatly denied.
    He also sent me few links and asked if they also had asked me for votes,to which I replied,"How does it matter to you if they did or didn't,Had it mattered,the IB thread would be still alive on IB"!
    I received no further replies..



    P.S: I have ALL the screenshots of this issue from FB and IB!!

    P.P.S: Eagerly awaiting for the date for this thread to be reported as "abuse" and removed from Indiblogger :P LOL

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  7. @Raksha,

    I don't know why there's not much done against the WeBlog thingie (and, I don't want to know either). I just want to do what I think I've got to do.

    And, I just wish it's not too late before WeBlog get its share of deals.

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  8. @Swathi,

    By the way, the way IndiBlogger has behaved in many circumstances (thread removal rules, tweets, etc), it raises concerns too. It's not fair to close and open threads randomly without notifying users about the reasons behind the same, etc.

    I have been active in a famous forum and there used to be a separate thread solely for the purpose of notifying the users why specific threads were closed. IB can think of something like that too. And, I'm really annoyed if IB people really called them 'losers', etc?

    @Swathi, can you please send me those link (of Tweet updates)? Or may be I'll find them myself on IB's Twitter account's timeline.

    May be I wouldn't mind starting a thread on IndiBlogger's role in this case either on IB itself or on my blog ;-)

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