What the fuck is going on here?

[hdw]

Twice tonight I have tried to post an innocuous message on General Chat and each time I have been told to wait until it is approved by a moderator. As we don't seem to have a fucking moderator on this apology for a forum any longer, I'm off, and will not be trying (in vain) to post here again.

Harry (wondering if this post will be allowed through the firewall)

[Liam]

Come on Harry, we've had some jolly good times at this place, so don't insult the WLF! I'm sure that as soon as Stewart is finished with all the shit that's piled up on his desk during the last few months, he'll clean this place up, as promised, and all will run smoothly as it once did. I'm guessing your problems are caused by the same virus that's currently causing the database error, also. If it's never occurred before, just wait and see what happenes ~

[Eric]

Testing the system.

[Eric]

It's working now.

[Stewart]

Posts are obviously being picked up by the spam filter. If i turn it off, the place would be overrun with spam. I'm back home from holiday tonight, and have a few days free to look into some issues.

[Loki]

Now everything's working I guess. I can post regularly and can search as always.

[Eric]

As far as I can see things are now OK. I think the spam filter should be kept on, for a while at least, because over the past ten days or so there have been quite a few "new posters" who say nothing about their whereabouts, identity (in general terms, as pseudonyms are maintained here) or what they are reading, but simply log on. There have also been pseudo-literary messages that are generalisations and have nothing to do with the thread in question.

But things are better now. By the way, is Björn still a co-monitor? He seems to have gone awfully silent of late.

[Loki]

Twice tonight I have tried to post an innocuous message on General Chat and each time I have been told to wait until it is approved by a moderator. As we don't seem to have a fucking moderator on this apology for a forum any longer, I'm off, and will not be trying (in vain) to post here again.

Harry (wondering if this post will be allowed through the firewall)

The message seems to appear when we paste the link of a website which is not known by the filter. It can't know all the websites one can find in the net, so if this website is not youtube, wikipedia or some other very famous and common, the message will not get through.
It happended to me at least twice: the first time I posted the link of the website of my university, which is safe, and just the other day the link of an audiobook. It'd be better not to post these links.

So there doesn't seem to be any problem of posting right now. Too many people are leaving the forum: some becuase Mirabell has finally gone, others because they have problems posting, others because they take offence at Eric's posts.

[Eric]

Loki, it would be interesting to know what there is in my posts that offends people, apart from those Scandinavians who cannot stand the truth about their countries. I try to stick to the truth and unlike Shigekuni's twin brother, I don't make rabid attacks on individual posters.

Let people leave, if they want an anodyne chatsite where everyone agrees and the applecart rules. But there is a difference between attacking countries, plus international leaders whom no one here knows personally (e.g. the Democratic King of Libya), and on the other hand saying snarlingly spiteful things about individuals posting here.

If this website dries up, it will not be due to me. I have written on very diverse topics, gently, provocatively, and sometimes clumsily. If this website closes down it will because people don't really care about what is discussed here, including literature. For instance, the section covering African literature has virtually no postings at all. No one seems to be interested in African literature. If there is too much uncritical worship of bestsellers, and too many Holocaust industry groupies, nothing will ultimately be discussed any more. The website will have become a society for mutually patting each other on the back.

I feel that the moderator also has an important duty in playing the referee. It was the long absence of the moderators (I thought there were two) that allowed that insidious twin brother of Shigekuni to run amock all over this otherwise peacable website.

[Loki]

Loki, it would be interesting to know what there is in my posts that offends people

I don't know, but someone seems to be offended (not me, by the way).

Of course people can do what they want, but I'm sorry that a poster like Harry leaves the forum for such a motive.

[Eric]

I'm not sure whether Harry is offended, and I doubt if I've been the cause. But I suspect that Flower did not like it when I suggested that Denmark too may have problem suburbs, as Britain does. The UK appears to be easy game, and people poke fun at it and sometimes at its imperialist past (or funny language usage). But should a Brit strike back, then people get shocked.

Whoever leaves or stays, it's high time to keep on exploring fruitful areas of literature, let alone reality. Because as I've said there are large gaps in what is discussed here and even I am getting fed up of discussing bestsellers and that sort of thing. Russia, one of the biggest literary countries in the world, is only discussed regarding 19th century classics and none of the Russians we've had here appear to know anything much about contemporary Russian literature. We English-speakers are hampered in this regard by a dearth of translations.

Some posters here are brilliant at unearthing unusual or new authors, but others alas keep on about an merry-go-round of ten very well-publicised ones without looking beyond the shelves and especially book tables of the biggest booksellers. I'm not so monomaniac that I want to discuss Estonia all the time. I welcome knowledgeable comment about, for instance, Argentinian and Brazilian literature. And if people have some knowledge of Asian literature beyond the over-famous Japanese authors, then great. Because Asia is more than China plus Japan. (Although I doubt of North Korean literature is flourishing...)

[Loki]

I'm not sure whether Harry is offended, and I doubt if I've been the cause. But I suspect that Flower did not like it when I suggested that Denmark too may have problem suburbs, as Britain does. The UK appears to be easy game, and people poke fun at it and sometimes at its imperialist past (or funny language usage). But should a Brit strike back, then people get shocked.

Whoever leaves or stays, it's high time to keep on exploring fruitful areas of literature, let alone reality. Because as I've said there are large gaps in what is discussed here and even I am getting fed up of discussing bestsellers and that sort of thing. Russia, one of the biggest literary countries in the world, is only discussed regarding 19th century classics and none of the Russians we've had here appear to know anything much about contemporary Russian literature. We English-speakers are hampered in this regard by a dearth of translations.

Some posters here are brilliant at unearthing unusual or new authors, but others alas keep on about an merry-go-round of ten very well-publicised ones without looking beyond the shelves and especially book tables of the biggest booksellers. I'm not so monomaniac that I want to discuss Estonia all the time. I welcome knowledgeable comment about, for instance, Argentinian and Brazilian literature. And if people have some knowledge of Asian literature beyond the over-famous Japanese authors, then great. Because Asia is more than China plus Japan. (Although I doubt of North Korean literature is flourishing...)

Harry supposedly left the forum for "technical" problems, for the fact that some of his messages did not get through: only his posts with links of websites the filter does not recognise cannot get through. I don't think he left because of you, or because of anyone, he doesn't seem the type of person.

I, for one, tend to read well-known authors, and contemporary "boring" thrillers. As a student of literature I tend to read books I've studied and often heard of, since I don't really like to talk about writers whose works I haven't read: at the end of the day, out of curiosity. Secondly, I'm not used to enter bookshops and pick up a novel at random: it's always something I can at least recognise, and so in the case of Russian literature it will almost surely be something by a XIX century author.

By the way, I wonder how many of the flags in the bottom part of the screen have never been used...

[Stewart]

Closing this as the problem appears to have been a technical glitch that has ironed itself out.