Leaving iamthe12thman.com: MY SIDE

I wrote for iamthe12thman.com for about a year.

Beergut, James Taglienti, runs that blog.

I knew he didn't like me, but I forged on and try to stay out of his way as much as possible. Then on July 20th, Beergut wrote this article:

http://www.iamthe12thman.com/2009/7/20/955098/your-picks-for-aggie-all#comments

My comment is the first one after the post. For that post, I got fired as a writer and banned from the site. As if that was not bad enough, I did not even get a phone call or e-mail telling me that I had been removed. The next time I logged on, it just said... 'You have been banned from iamthe12thman.com'

If you read all of the viewable comments (he deleted the ones that made him look the worst): you can see that the only person who came to his defense was miketag and they are related!

After removing several of my posts, a poster named 'pleaseplay kindle' posted this:

Wow.
Did you really remove a post for dissenting with you?
This level of Orwellian censorship would be worrysome if this website had any readership whatsoever.
Count me out, for levels of ridiculous I didn’t think were
possible, even on the internets.

To which, beergut responded with:

actually, I haven't removed any comments from this post
I don’t like to delete comments, so I sometimes just “hide” them from other viewers, which is what I’ve done for all of the comments on here from jarrett. Given that I banned jarrett from this site, you can understand why I don’t want his comments showing.

Since I don’t want to air any dirty laundry here on the blog, if you want to know the how and why he was removed as a writer, and then later banned, feel free to email me. Just click on the envelope next to my name on the bottom of the page

First of all, his explanation is that he doesnt delete comments, he "sometimes just hide[s] them from other viewers" Wow, how dumb am I, that I didnt see the difference.

So I decided next to take beergut up on his offer to e-mail him and find out why he removed me as a writer, then banned me from the site. After about a week he reponded with this e-mail:

You were removed as a writer because the quality of your writing was poor, and added nothing to the blog. Your last two stories were: Coach Sherman is on Twitter, complete with a screenshot, and a uniform poll. You were also very sporadic with your contributions, often going weeks at a time without contributing. You were banned b/c of the idiotic sig file you added to your profile after you were removed as a writer.

Here is my repsonse:

I am going to address each of these issues individually.

1) removed as a writer because the quality of your writing was poor

While I will never claim to be a Pulitzer winning writer, if today's post by iwishiwasalonghorn is any evidence, style formatting or grammar is not your top priority.

2) added nothing to the blog

my goal was to always respect your space and let you post what you wanted to. I never tried to 'beat' you to stay after a game was over. I just posted a story where I felt it was needed. You and mike did a good job on the in-game blogging and post-game stories. I didnt think it was my place to try and take over the blog.

3) Your last two stories were: Coach Sherman is on Twitter, complete with a screenshot, and a uniform poll.

a- the Coach Sherman on Twitter post, I genuinely thought was interesting because we always hear about coaches trying to gain an edge in recruiting and it was refreshing to see an Aggie coach seemingly trying to pull out all the stops.

b- I agree that the uniform poll isnt anything earth shattering but it did seem to get a lot of traffic (going by vote totals)

4) You were also very sporadic with your contributions, often going weeks at a time without contributing.

It never seemed to bother you enough, to send me an e-mail saying "when are you going to post again or why arent you posting more." also, you werent paying me (like i was for the 12th man child), so what does it matter if i post sporadically? All it does if give you more space. Personally, I thought it was nice to have a perspective of someone who attended some games.

5) You were banned b/c of the idiotic sig file you added to your profile after you were removed as a writer.

That was while I was pissed for you removing me as a writer. there's no excuse for that, it was dumb and I apologize for that.

That is just my two cents. I would like to thanks everyone that sent me an e-mail telling me that I had their full support.

This blog ought to be very entertaining, beergut gives us so much.