I just so happen to be surfing around SW.com this evening, minding my own business (at least trying to), watching in the shadows as to what people are doing, when all of a sudden I stumble upon the Blog rules and the "Blacklisting" blurb.

Of course, I must admit that I was a little naive while setting up my first blog. It was late at night, I was tired and did not really give a poodoo about no stinking rules. I did not even notice the Blacklist ICON to the left of my blog entry, until today.

So of course my thoughts are moving in 50 billion directions right now about this topic, as I try to analyze why in the hell would someone want to blacklist anybody. Just to refresh your memories about the rule...Here it is:

Blacklisting
Blacklisting a user will prevent him or her from posting comments as well as using the Contact Blogger feature.

Simple enough rule. Implies power of the people here. IMO, this little feature just gives reason for people to be ugly. But why would I want to prevent someone from posting a comment or contacting me, the blogger? It's a free world (well in most places) and people are entitled to their opinion...The good, the bad and even the ugly, whether I like it or not. In the States, we call this our Constitutional right.

I noticed in the Forum for Feedback, that some people either accidentally got blacklisted or were blacklisted by some folks in here. I could not believe it. You should read their pleas to the Mods to be released from the "Blacklist". Alas, it is sad reading. In most cases, the Mods really can't (or won't) do anything about it, unless it was by accident. Then they will release you. Otherwise, most of the responses by the Mods to the poor sorry fool that got blacklisted are..."Sorry, you are SOL...Can't help ya...You are stuck until you are released by the blogger who put you there". So in other words, you got "Blacklisted" because somebody did not like your poodoo comment that you posted to their blog. Well, isn't that grand. I'm just feeling the love, are you? Yeah, right.

For the Blacklisted folks, you can either look at your situation from several points of view:

(1) Be happy you were blacklisted and move on your merry little way. You posted something so crappy that the blogger felt it was their privilege to "Blacklist" you. Be thankful, be proud, you have joined the ranks of the few in here (I hope). You achieved the ultimate goal of being blacklisted. You now have the right to wave the banner of "Blacklisted 4-EVER".

(2) Try to reconcile the situation. That might be difficult though, since you were blacklisted. I recommend that you start networking in here, pronto, and find somebody who will contact the blogger that blacklisted you. Maybe they can work a miracle and get you a "get out of jail card" for free. However, you might be "blacklisted" or bribed for money for that privilege. So forget about this option. This just puts you right back where you started.

(3) Accept it. Get out of your denial and move on. You screwed up. You have no one to blame but yourself. Only one option here (depending on the degree of insult in your posting to that blogger) is to write a compliant and post it in the forum about this silly little feature and cancel your subscription to Hyperspace. Maybe you will go down in Star Wars history for starting a movement of some sort for having this silly little ICON deleted from the tool bar. Your name will be added to the history books and you will be blogged about forever (see option No. 1).

I have to say, that option No. 3 is looking better and better by the moment and, by far, the most promising.

In summary, I can only think of one reason to "blacklist" an individual. And that would have to be if someone has the mentality of a serial killer or is labeled a "psychopath" and is making death threats against me. If that is the case, please let me know so I can "blacklist" you, unless that will tick you off, then I'll just make sure that I'm extra nice to you from now on. Have a nice day.