Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Banned from Mere Comments

I've now been definitely banned from Mere Comments. An attempt to post yields the unequivocal:

An error occurred...
You are not allowed to post comments.


Any readers of Mere Comments are, of course, welcome to comment here, regardless of their opinions.

12 comments:

  1. Is it really such a loss?

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Eh, I was having fun. There are some moderately intelligent people there.

    In any event, I know that some of their regulars also read my blog, and I didn't want them to think I had just walked away from the discussion.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Larry,

    Are you sure you've been banned? The enter-this-code screen only comes up for me intermittently when I post comments - so maybe you have a caching problem or something. I would certainly hope the admins of MC were not so nefarious as to ban people in such an arbitrary kind of way. I mean, you and not Dirk Van Glabeke?

    BTW, congrats on being featured in Savage love!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Pretty sure. I been getting the code screen as a matter of course.

    The last time, I was redirected to a 404 with "spam" in the url, but this time it's "Your are not allowed to post comments"

    If this is yet another technical issue, I'll apologize, but I don't think it is: I don't have problems like this anywhere else.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think it is sad that you have been banned - it is strange that no one said anything to you nor did they say on the thread that they did it.

    I find it strange also that I cannot see any "about" information on that blog - who makes it, who would have banned you, and why? My suspicion is that it is a religious blog and they don't like discussions from reasoned atheists on there, but that could just be my own paranoia.

    ReplyDelete
  6. My suspicion is that it is a religious blog...

    Sorry for the snark, but ya think so? =]

    ReplyDelete
  7. There are several ways to contact the admins. On the left side of the page is a paragraph under a header called "Your Comments" which includes an email link to contact the admins.

    Another way is to click "Touchstone" under the "Mere Comments" header and then click "Contact Us". This page gives you imformation about the magazine editors (the same guys that run the site). There is also a list of the editors and staff of Touchstone here.

    ReplyDelete
  8. As far as I'm concerned, I consider the statement I quote in the post to be authoritative.

    I don't care enough about the underlying issue to contest it. My primary purpose in the post was to inform those I was conversing with that I had not abruptly left the discussion of my own will.

    In the unlikely event that the Touchstone or Mere Comments admins have a burning desire to have me return, they are free to contact me: I'm not mad, I bear no grudge, and I wouldn't require even an apology.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I can understand not bearing a grudge. If it were me, the one thing I would want is an explanation. Aren't you at all curious what the specific reason was they banned you?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sure I'm curious, but I'm not holding my breath. It would probably be a "fauxplantion" (in the same vein as a "fauxpology): something like, "We felt it was better for the overall membership experience that you did not contribute."

    It's their site, their rules. The owners have the absolute right to ban me for any reason or no reason at all. I have plenty of other places to contribute, including here.

    ReplyDelete
  11. All:

    Larry was indeed banned from MC because of "repeated requests from posters and commenters." I am dumbfounded how followers of Christ can rationalize this sort of exclusion with His mandate of Ministry.

    I get the feeling his first problem was also a banning but that the admins reveresed it when some of the commenters seemed disappointed

    ReplyDelete

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