Update: chowrangi ignored my previous comments, but apparently the comment posted there after my last post "Bitter Pill to swallow" kind of by-passed there so called moderation policy. Seems like somebody is reading this blog afterall.

Bitter Pill to swallow

I tried posting a comment on chowrangi.com but it failed to be published...a minor thing referred to as comment moderation got the better of it.

Well here goes my open letter to the moderators and people behind chowrangi.com

"Just as I suspected, you people are so biased that you are willing to publish an extremely biased and malicious review of Spider every month - which happens to be the only credible IT magazine in the country but when it comes to publishing the mistakes of your esteemed 'reviewer' ...(yes I am being sarcastic) written in his chosen style via blogs( that is by getting personal and abusive) you guys chickened out from publishing my comments to his review.... Is that being fair ?

I guess tasting your own medicine is a bitter pill to swallow.

Why don't you have a moderation policy for what your bloggers are posting online ?
Is moderation only meant for people commenting on your blog ?

Keep up the biased attitude and publishing crap in the name of so called reviews and you will soon lose out on credibility and popularity.

Freedom of Speech

Here is a review of Review of Spider August 2007

All I have to say to this idiot who posts under the name of Fahd at chowrangi.com and has taken upon himself to launch a smear campaign against Pakistan's first internet and information technology Magazine Spider, under the pretext of a review is

Dude… I would suggest that you read ‘Reviewing for Dummies’ before you label your ramblings, blitherings and personal attacks against the editorial board of the publication as a monthly review of Spider. Your slanderous writing may get you the comments and the attention that you obviously crave for, quote 'Un-celebrated editor is discussing me, when she says that the poor often get alienated from the government as they feel blah blah blah . I am blushed and excited over the mention' unquote but harping on the same tune every month doesn’t say much about your intellectual capacities. There is absolutely nothing constructive in your so called ‘review’

For starters, quote ‘Khayyam Siddiqui tells that they are soon going to jot down on the back of Spider that reading it is injurious to health and especially his articles are a sure-fire way to catch mind-cancer. what a pathetic piece, he seems to be one of those dweebish types who call themselves social nerds.’ unquote...is clearly a personal attack…which really speaks volumes by itself about your outlook against people who can actually write coherently and get it published, rather that relying on malicious blog posts to catch visitors attention. For the uninitiated, the article being criticized was a simple piece creating awareness about the dangers of driving while talking on a mobile phone. Please do share your feelings on this blog, when you lose a loved one because someone was irresponsible enough to drive and talk on the phone at the same time.

Moving on… quote ‘Aunty Reba tells the plight of e-government in the fatherland, and I was replacing the word ‘government’ with ‘Spider’ and was nodding my head in agreement on every line’ unquote

Fahd -- while that sentence may tickle your feeble literary judgement and may sound well to you, I would suggest that you actually publish that story replacing word ‘government’ with the word Spider, so that readers can actually gauge for themselves the level incoherence your cerebral capacities is inclined of. And stooping as low as to refer to the Editor as Aunty clearly refers that you have an agenda against the publication. ( As for the un-celebrated part, a search on the editor on the world’s most popular online encyclopedia might just prove you wrong)

Then again quote‘Sanya then goes to harrangue monotonously about the IT literacy and its importance to the paperless culture. She has taken views of some people, and then gives some vague and general suggestions, which you could also give, so you can skip the crap after reading the title of article.’ unquote. That is actually a complement in disguise, because when you include people from different walks of like in survey, the responses you get will be those of the general public, which shows the editorial is sensitive enough to consider and values public opinion.

Referring to quote ‘Then they show a touch of usefulness, which brought a nice, fresh blow of air. Spider presented you a list of official websites of Pakistan. Its a good thing to have, and yes they are right that people are not aware of these sites and surprisingly enough, many of them are updated regularly. Then Anis Sheikh has a very good effort and his mapping of trade policy to the IT industry is to the point and near to the ground. He needs to write more here. But Spider save him, and don’t include him in the editorial team just because i praised him.’ unquote

The websites are just a search engine or rather a browser and internet connection away, but for those with limited intellectual capacity or internet browsing acumen, a listing of the websites is bound to make them very happy. And you can’t layoff the narcissism can you ? What kind of pathetic creature would think or rather imagine that a publication would hire or fire someone because a blogger deludes himself into thinking that he is doing a great service to them as he feeds his ego and attention seeking behaviour, by posting about the publication on a blog ?

Next quote ‘Then Chris Cork, dont leave much of an impact through his article regarding the digital divide, but his one point needs to be repeated here which says that consistent failure to make investments in education as a change agent by any government since partition has crippled millions and the growth of digital divide between haves and havenots will cripple million more.’ unquote…The sentence clearly conveys - why bother reading the actual article when I can get away with just copying and paste the words in bold on the second page of the article, and fool people into thinking that you have gone through the entire piece?

And oh! Mis-spelling people’s names like Zainub Rizvi’s (its Zainub Razvi) Rizwah Ahmad (the correct name is Rizwan Ahmed) Saniya Zubairai (Saniya Zubairi) and attributing the wrong writer for articles like you did in July (Blogging was written by Hafsa Ahsan not Hafsa Adil) is not cool. How would you feel if someone misspelled your name Fahd as Paad (as in a fart) ?

I really hope that the future issues of induce you to vomit and consequently embaress yourself in public, (refer to ‘When I read articles like Zainub Rizvi’s Last Byte, I want to vomit in public’) and you actually fall sick and stop publishing libel in the name of ‘Reviews’.