baratillo @ cubao : www.baratillo.net

First day of work. The cold weather greets you as you wake up in the morning. The Sun is still asleep. Its the alarm on the cellphone that goes beep beep beep that awakes you and reminds you that the holidays are over and it is back to reality - back to work. At least you have work. It could be worse.

Good Luck or Bad Luck who knows?

A Carmelite Father once told this tale during the sermon/homily:

Once upon a time in China there lived a family of three. The Farmer, his wife and their son. They lived a few kilomters from the village. Friends who came by often complimented the couple for having a strong and healthy son who was also an excellent rider.

The Farmer just smiled and said said,”Good Luck Bad Luck, who knows”.

A few months later tragedy struck… the Son while riding the farm horse. Fell and broke his leg. Due to the injuries and infection the bones could not be set and so it had to be cut off. A very painful procedure. But the Son survived.

The family’s friends came again and attempted to console the Farmer and his family. The Farmer just looked up and said,”Good Luck Bad Luck, who knows”.

The friends left the farmer and his family. And within a few months time things went back to normal. As normal as can be given the circumstances.

Then it happened. The Emperor of the land decided to wage war against an island kingdom some leagues away and call for all able bodied soldiers to form a grand army that would be invading the island kingdom.

The Farmer’s son was excluded from the conscription. And it was fortunate, because the grand army borne by the great fleet of ships were to meet their doom at the hands of the Island Kingdom’s god and was swallowed up by the Sea. There were just a few who survived and they lived to tell the tale.

The Farmer just said, “Good Luck … Bad Luck who knows.”

One never knows.

I attended a talk/ a mini-Iblog about the elections and what the roles of blogs can be in that situation.One of the more interesting discussion in the talk was whether or not to moderate comments in the blog, There were two views to this,

First, to allow all comments in, This would free the blogger from legal responsibility for the comments. And then this would be coupled with a system that would allow commentators/readers themselves to mark the comment as spam or as inappropriate.

Second, Is to moderate comments. Direct moderation as opposed to community moderation. It was further added that this would then make the blogger legally responsible for the comments.

Of course this has not yet all been legally tested. I have been told there have been cases involving forums,

Months pass and a lot things have happened. Political and social discussions in the blogging community have exposed how lethal and how the medium of blogging can be used to critique and also destroy reputation and lives. No different from the other form of media.

I am not a lawyer but I do believe that the blogger not only acts as the writer of the blog but also its editor, publisher, moderator, photographer, actor, director and producer. I also believe that one cannot separate the blog from its comments. This I truly believe not only from the legal but also from the ethical point of view. It does not matter where your blog is or who you are. The Blogger is responsible for his blog - everything.

I believe that because of this responsibility one of the tasks of the blogger is to moderate and even edit the comments. However, In order to do so a blogger must also sit down and write a commentary policy. One way or the other comments here and other blogs have been moderated automatically using such services as Akismet and blog settings have been set-up to do so,

Here is the commentary policy that was written just before the end of 2008 and posted in this page:

Dear Friend and Reader,

Thank you for reading this blog. Here is the commentary policy of this blog. You are free to join the discussion - agree, disagree, debate and even criticize the blog and the blogger. Just be aware and before you post your comment of the following:

A. The Blog and the Blogger reserves the right and sole discretion to remove comments, words or phrases that are:

1. Defamatory
2. Abusive or incite hatred
3. Advertise commercial services

and

B. In extreme cases, The Blog and the Blogger reserves the right and sole discretion to remove/edit comments, words or phrases that are:

4. Excessively Off-topic, irrelevant or inane
5. Needlessly aggressive or rude

Have a nice day!

Juned

At least this thing makes it all clear, And its not just something pulled out of the air, I believe this has to be done because ultimately it is the blogger who is responsible for the blog, This is as important as giving air to both sides of any issue - in reportage or even in a commentary.