You wrote on KMB:
Viqar Minai said pretty right on Pakistaniat. com about the attitude of site managers. I think that, with every issue, the ATP moderators should either publish a list of acceptable opinions that we are allowed to express or, better yet, put out a standard message to express the reaction to the atrocity in Karachi yesterday. All the rest of us can dutifully rubber stamp that approved statement and go home. When Hypocrisy and biasness are at peak, it’s folly to raise voice.
The bold statement should be applicable on this and other forums as well.

But saying the RIGHT thing is not the criteria at ATP, you must also fit the mold.
BTW that Viqar Minai post you mentioned above has been deleted by the CENSOR at ATP. Here is what another commentator AUK said: Raza, Owais. Are you now becoming part of the establishment too, by blocking comments that don’t seem to state the obvious, and that try not to look at this incident as an isolated incident, but part of a big picture? If we can’t have an open discussion here then where.

But that’s not all, they simply don’t tolerate view that contridicts their opinion and agenda, not just on Islamic issues but most any issue. Just recently a commentator calling himself/herself Pa(kiss)tani who was offering an alternative view on Al Gore and the Noble prize and therefore the research of the IPCC panel, wrote at KMB:
following links have been censored by All things pakistan,

http://www.kansascity.com/news/world/story/313405.html

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23416151-details/Judge+attacks+nine+errors+in+Al+Gore%27s+%27alarmist%27+climate+change+film/article.do
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/12/gore.nobel.reader.feedback/index.html
POSTED BY: PA(KISS)TANI AT OCTOBER 16, 2007

But that’s not all, they simply dont tolerate view that contridicts their opinion and agenda, not just on Islamic issues but most any issue. Just recently a commentator calling himself/herself Pa(kiss)tani who was offering an alternative view on Al Gore and the Noble prize and therefore the research of the IPCC panel, wrote at KMB:
following links have been censored by All things pakistan,

http://www.kansascity.com/news/world/story/313405.html

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23416151-details/Judge+attacks+nine+errors+in+Al+Gore%27s+%27alarmist%27+climate+change+film/article.do

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/12/gore.nobel.reader.feedback/index.html

POSTED BY: PA(KISS)TANI AT OCTOBER 16, 2007

As for not having a beard, he shaved it off to mingle with the moderates.

To the point raised in your post it self, I do not who was behind the attacks, there are plenty of theories doing the rounds and I am not an expert on this subject matter so I wouldn’t know. It may well be that the Bibi is right and this is master plan of ‘Zia elements’ as she has termed them, and it may be possible that it was done by Taliban; some others have blamed Bibi her self for engineering this, so, as I said, no shortage of theories. They’re all theories at this stage, one would hope things clear out whenever the official inquiry is complete (though you never tend to associate too much hope with any ‘official’ inquiries). Having said that, I do think at the same time that militancy and some people taking up arms in the name of religion is a growing problem. We should recognize this, and work towards solving it, rather then living in denial about it. Condemning such ideologies is in the better interest of Islam it self. I repeat I do know such ideologies were responsible for these attacks, but that I do recognize that they’re a problem that exists and that we ought to deal with.

If the Bibi indeed send that letter of Musharraf, then it is binding on one of them to inform the public of the names of the people mentioned in that letter. A security analyst would be better equipped to analyze the other facts presented in your post, so I will refrain from further commentating on that.

As for the discussion about Pakistaniat, as some one whose struggled to cope with the often crude nature of comments that people put forward at the Karachi Metroblog, I can, at some level, relate to why Pakistaniat may be doing what they’re doing. If you start a post on chickens, you don’t want to see the discussion in the comments start off from eggs, and proceed to omelettes and eventually to curies of eggs and potatoes. That’s what usually tends to happen, both on Pakistaniat and at KMB, people drift and drift into completely off topic discussions. Some commentators have the misconception that every thread is a canvas for them to discuss their own socio-political ideologies. Blogs are not “public space”. They’re people’s blogs and the people who own them have reserve the right to set forth any terms for what kind of discourse is acceptable and what its not. Just like we’re entitled to have our own rules in our own homes.

Having said that, that does not mean one should disapprove differing opinions made in civil, dignified way, just because they present a differing opinion. I have tried my best not to do that in my moderating attempts at Karachi Metroblog, allowing comments about atheism and hadith rejection in a post about an Islamic lecture, editing out profanities, swearing and personal attacks wherever possible (still I get labeled by some commentator as having a ‘PEMRA’ like attitude). But moderating is time consuming excersize, especially for high-traffic websites like KMB and Pakistaniat. So it wouldn’t be surprising if at some point in time, an author just loses patience and filters out every comment that presents a differing view point. That would be sad.

There were no irrelevant comments on those sites made by others. If you read responses of atp users on my site, you would realize that ATP management had blocked many comments which were valid. I would add further that I have access to management so I can figure out what’s going on so please, don’t make efforts to justify something which you have no idea at all.

as far as disclaimer, i had no idea at all, would need guidance of yours what kinda disclaimer are you talking about.

Thanks

By a disclaimer I meant something to the effect of a message to your readers at the top of the post warning that the post contains images that some may find disturbing and so read ahead with discretion and only if you’re not faint hearted. That’s standard ethics for posting images of mutilated body parts and corpses.

I don’t see why the tone in your proceeding post should be as confrontational as it seems. In any case, apologies if I cause offense, none was intended

you got it wrong neither you have offended me anyway. I was just disagreeing with your comparison of two weblogs. KMB is a free style blog where rules are not followed , neither readers NOT authors as well so KMB is the worst example for such case.

Zainub, please put it on Metablogging Karachi.