I am completely split between siding with the moderators who decided to ban MIMH from the site and with MIMH who was unilaterally banned.
As to the moderators, I have been the victim of their wrath myself quite a few times. I have seen my comments being deleted, edited and warnings being sent against my otherwise innocent posts. I have seen many people being disallowed from the site for seemingly trivial matters. However, it is not as simple as that. I have been a moderator of many web forums in the past and I can only imagine how tough the responsibility is. It is extremely difficult a task to strike a balance between allowing freedom of speech and disallowing infringement upon others' rights. Sometimes, the moderators themselves are very hurt (yes, hurt) when they decide to ban someone because there is simply no other alternative.
Qatar Living is a site not restricted to just a certain group. Almost everyone living in Qatar is on this site. The sheer size of the audience warrants legal obligations. Qatar, al-hamdulillah, is a secure and safe country and its intelligence agencies are always on the guard to curb any unlawful activities. Something which may not be permissible by law here is obviously not wanted on this site either. Although the moderators would not be held directly responsible for any such material, they can still be viewed as tacitly allowing such materials to be presented if they do not actively take steps to stop it.
I am sorry to mention it but in case of MIMH, most of the person's posts centered on Saudi Arabia and how it is unfair in so many ways, how common prostitution is in Qatar, why Atheists are not allowed to raise a voice and all the flaws present in many nationalities.
I personally do not mind reading any such stuff, but if I was the moderator myself, I would obviously not allow such unilateral thoughts to be present on a website which has nothing to do with politics, social class and the like. A neutral website is supposed to have neutral topics.
I can also not understand how MIMH did not see the fact that crime rate in SA and in other gulf countries is significantly lower than other countries, that Qatar's economy is booming and that people living here, locals as well as foreigners, are very content and satisfied and are thankful to its government for making it such a thriving place, that monks have literally butchered and burned alive thousands of innocent muslims, that hunger is still an issue throughout the world, that different kind of persecution based on gender and ethnicity exists in almost every country of the world, that atheism is against the dogmas of Islam, that science and research need to be set as priorities for the muslim world and the humanity as well.
There is an endless list of topics that MIMH could have chosen from to talk about here on QL. However, the person chose a select few topics and kept on posting them siting news items from here and there. If anyone questioned, their mother had not taught them well, according to MIMH. Almost every nationality was for her something to be ridiculed and laughed at. If MIMH ever saw that people too many people teamed up in opposition, the easy escape was, "It is not relevant anymore, I am out of here."
It would have been exceedingnly difficult for the moderators here to allow MIMH to proceed with the narrow minded perspective of things. They had simply no choice but to slap a ban.
On a second thought, before we speculate further, there is a need to perform a psychological autopsy on MIMH. After carefully going through most of the MIMH's posts, it appears to me that the person was not as evil and blackguard as they made themselves to be. I strongly suspect that there was abuse of the person's right somewhere in the past based on gender, ethnicity, sexual or religious orientation. This abuse was such that it left the person with serious unresovled intra psychic conflicts.
These posts were a cry for help, a cry to be heard. But as my sister Fatimah mentioned somewhere before in another post, ranting in the wrong ears could lead to deleterious consequences. This is what happened in her case as well. She chose the wrong channel, and the wrong audience to address her personal issues.
As a person, I feel extremely sorry for MIMH to have lost membership to this site. Although, there are many other websites that MIMH can join, the very idea of being banned is really hurting. I still remember how awkward I felt when my Facebook account was banned after I grilled another member.
I believe rather than taking it as a personal insult, MIMH should make this ban as a corrective experience and can join the site with a new zeal, determined to post with a broader perspective and take care not to offend on a constant basis.
The moderators, I expect and I hope, would be willing to receive MIMH with open arms establishing the old tradition of Arab hospitality.
I am completely split between siding with the moderators who decided to ban MIMH from the site and with MIMH who was unilaterally banned.
As to the moderators, I have been the victim of their wrath myself quite a few times. I have seen my comments being deleted, edited and warnings being sent against my otherwise innocent posts. I have seen many people being disallowed from the site for seemingly trivial matters. However, it is not as simple as that. I have been a moderator of many web forums in the past and I can only imagine how tough the responsibility is. It is extremely difficult a task to strike a balance between allowing freedom of speech and disallowing infringement upon others' rights. Sometimes, the moderators themselves are very hurt (yes, hurt) when they decide to ban someone because there is simply no other alternative.
Qatar Living is a site not restricted to just a certain group. Almost everyone living in Qatar is on this site. The sheer size of the audience warrants legal obligations. Qatar, al-hamdulillah, is a secure and safe country and its intelligence agencies are always on the guard to curb any unlawful activities. Something which may not be permissible by law here is obviously not wanted on this site either. Although the moderators would not be held directly responsible for any such material, they can still be viewed as tacitly allowing such materials to be presented if they do not actively take steps to stop it.
I am sorry to mention it but in case of MIMH, most of the person's posts centered on Saudi Arabia and how it is unfair in so many ways, how common prostitution is in Qatar, why Atheists are not allowed to raise a voice and all the flaws present in many nationalities.
I personally do not mind reading any such stuff, but if I was the moderator myself, I would obviously not allow such unilateral thoughts to be present on a website which has nothing to do with politics, social class and the like. A neutral website is supposed to have neutral topics.
I can also not understand how MIMH did not see the fact that crime rate in SA and in other gulf countries is significantly lower than other countries, that Qatar's economy is booming and that people living here, locals as well as foreigners, are very content and satisfied and are thankful to its government for making it such a thriving place, that monks have literally butchered and burned alive thousands of innocent muslims, that hunger is still an issue throughout the world, that different kind of persecution based on gender and ethnicity exists in almost every country of the world, that atheism is against the dogmas of Islam, that science and research need to be set as priorities for the muslim world and the humanity as well.
There is an endless list of topics that MIMH could have chosen from to talk about here on QL. However, the person chose a select few topics and kept on posting them siting news items from here and there. If anyone questioned, their mother had not taught them well, according to MIMH. Almost every nationality was for her something to be ridiculed and laughed at. If MIMH ever saw that people too many people teamed up in opposition, the easy escape was, "It is not relevant anymore, I am out of here."
It would have been exceedingnly difficult for the moderators here to allow MIMH to proceed with the narrow minded perspective of things. They had simply no choice but to slap a ban.
On a second thought, before we speculate further, there is a need to perform a psychological autopsy on MIMH. After carefully going through most of the MIMH's posts, it appears to me that the person was not as evil and blackguard as they made themselves to be. I strongly suspect that there was abuse of the person's right somewhere in the past based on gender, ethnicity, sexual or religious orientation. This abuse was such that it left the person with serious unresovled intra psychic conflicts.
These posts were a cry for help, a cry to be heard. But as my sister Fatimah mentioned somewhere before in another post, ranting in the wrong ears could lead to deleterious consequences. This is what happened in her case as well. She chose the wrong channel, and the wrong audience to address her personal issues.
As a person, I feel extremely sorry for MIMH to have lost membership to this site. Although, there are many other websites that MIMH can join, the very idea of being banned is really hurting. I still remember how awkward I felt when my Facebook account was banned after I grilled another member.
I believe rather than taking it as a personal insult, MIMH should make this ban as a corrective experience and can join the site with a new zeal, determined to post with a broader perspective and take care not to offend on a constant basis.
The moderators, I expect and I hope, would be willing to receive MIMH with open arms establishing the old tradition of Arab hospitality.
I pray to Allah to help us all.