I have this blog for some time and never posted anything. What other could be the best first post than mentioning the reason… I didn’t (feel the need to) post for so long?
It was six years ago, that I saw a need for a place where we could all post our ideas, whatever doesn’t fit in other (Greek) fora and have a very relaxed moderation.
At the time (heck even today), most Greek fora, followed very strict moderation rules, in my opinion going really far from what “Internet” is. Following the “rules” was not only encouraged, but enforced by kid sheriffs that never understood that power (on people) is power when it works by itself, not when you need to yell people that you actually have it.
I have a (non Internet related) incident marked in my mind, that clearly shows my point. Maybe I’ll write about it in some other post.
Anyway, this place was “Greek Off-Topic Community” (GOToC for short).
At the time, GOToC was thriving since many people felt the same pressure as I did and found a place where they could even yell at the main operator (erm, me), without fear of backfire.
Other fora copied GOToC, but almost none acknowledged it. I never made a point about it. Now I feel it was maybe a bad move (I mean not reacting), not for the reason you think but for (lowly) …marketing. NLS eventually (when younger people started using fora) was “just another member” and GOToC was a shadow of the past (or not even that). It still kept a small core of people that went there as a stumping ground though.
Times changed. Delphi never followed the development of other (even free) forum software and remained almost stationary on an older concept. It works for me, but now people need more “bling”.
GOToC-copies became bigger than GOToC itself. Heck, even fora that followed their strict subject oriented policy, made a “GOToC-like” section.
People that didn’t know the difference followed. This even made strict (and even stupid) moderation more “bearable” (giving one more, maybe unexpected, gain to these fora), plus that those new people didn’t know different so it was acceptable. Sheep.
Then blogs came. Blogs to me mean nothing (sorry eh). GOToC was enough. I could post my thoughts and people could post their feeling about them. People could post their thoughts the same. But, being a tech gee… erm… person since I was nine (i.e. 24 years ago), I will need to follow the river. If egoistic BLOG is the way to go, fair enough.
So here we are. I am not shooting the old horse, but if it dies, so be it. We all will, eventually.