Let me begin with a disclaimer: I am not a regular blogger let alone a quality one. Since I have joined Iranian.com, I have only blogged five times in the last two years, four of which were in the last four months. But in this relatively short period I have noticed that a number of serious, dignified and knowledgeable bloggers have either left us or simply not bothered to join us!
Case in point: Hafez for beginners. This lady is the latest casualty of the cult of Iranian.com. She once announced her intention to leave and thanks to the persuasive powers of a number of contributors she carried on for a further month or two. But she has not published a single blog of her most educational “Learning from Hafez” blogs for nearly a month now. In her last blog she explained the reasons why she was reluctant to come back to Iranian.com and her disappointment with the site in general.
Personally I miss her a lot. She was highly literate, erudie, polite, civilized, cultured and extremely fair. And yet despite all these great attributes she was driven out of this site. Why? I tell you why. Because she took, as any sane and dignified person should, the business of blogging seriously. The message that I have received in the last two years of mainly being an commenters on Iranian.com is that, as a general rule, if you want to survive on this site you shoud write cheap but popular stuff and be an entertainer as opposed to an educater. This is a general rule but there are a very few excpetions. For example Dr M Saadat Noury’s blogs are both entertaining as well as educating. But the good Dr Nouri knows that if he wants to write some the stuff he writes for serious and more substantive publications on Iranian.com, he will be even less popular than he is at present.
I do not intend to mention any names but the more lewed the language of a blog, the more popular the blogger is on Iranian.com. Some of the contents of one such blogger’s blogs remind me of the graffiti you read on the walls of the public toilets. And yet he is regarded as one of the sages of Iranian.com!! This guy will surely receive a lifetime achievement award in the next anniversary celebrations to be held in Texas (oops I meant in California).
As for myself, I have been the target of much abusive comments and even threats on this site. But I never budge and at the same time I have never flagged any of such abuses. My faith has saved me. I guess I am too thick-skinned to be bothered by (for the want of better words) “moshti khass-o-khaashaak.”
There is only one piece of advice (no not ten pieces as is the fad these days) I can give to the newcomers on this site if they intend to survive it here: Never take others seriously and never expect to be taken seriously by others.
The true motto of Iranian.com should be: Nothing is Serious.
For an Islamic democracy
