Aug 06, 2001 05:23 PM
7118 Views
I can’t believe this is my 50th review. For me, it is a landmark, a milestone, a time to party. I take this occasion to share my personal experience on writing, rating and some features on this site.
Reading reviews: I have learnt quite a lot from reading and re-reading the reviews here, be they on music I loved, books I wanted to read, movies I did not see or websites I did not know.
These are some excellent writers here, whether they say an old thing in a new way or say a new thing in an old way; they touched my heart with honesty. I truly enjoyed reading and commenting for all of you. I hope that someday I will be at least nearer to the writer that most of you already are.
I came here to get a life ! As I have narrated an incident in my comments on Calvin’s recent review, I feel I got it. Thank you, My Mouthshut friends.
Writing reviews: I joined Public School, at a time when the city enjoyed at the cost of my school’s reputation, that our school students were into drugs. It was painful, as a seven year old, to be questioned on the truth of these wild rumors, by every other stranger. In this way, I was made aware of the brewing conspiracy against my school, and rather early in life, I learned to hate and condemn all untruth. I simply do not believe, just because everyone said so, till I do my own drill.
In the past 49 reviews I have written about many products, whether I have said ‘Taj Mahal is a Hindu temple’, ‘Azharuddin was framed’, some Pink Flyod album’s suck, Kolkata is filthy, BCCI members are the actual ‘match fixers’ etc., you cheered, commented, praised, abused and HR’ed my reviews whether you agreed with my views or not just as friends would do. No doubt, all those who read and rate reviews are my friends!
Admittedly, it is great feeling when you click on your review the next day morning and find that many members have HR’ed it and given comments on it.
Thank you again my Mouthshut friends. I hope to send a thanks giving P to P e-mail to each one of you. Please continue to read, rate and comment and I promise you will find me grazing around and doing the same.
Trust list: I am more than pleased to have been accepted into a ‘trusted list’.You make me feel I do belong somewhere and I acknowledge ALL THE WONDERFUL PEOPLE HERE.
I have a trust list of more than 200 members with whom I share my thoughts and opinions freely. I have no ‘criteria’ for trusting people; all those who are even remotely interested in music ring my bell.
I go by what Mother Theresa said,
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
Rating: Mouthshut is a great addicting place to relieve stress from the routine grind as well as a place to read, comment, enjoy and meet friends with common interests. The lot of fun I have here getting away from the coldness of being strangers and interacting with them washes away the bad taste of the rating game, which sometimes goes on here.
I follow no ‘golden rules’ or ‘commandments’ in my ratings. If someone ‘cries-out’ their sorrows and pour their heart on the screen and my heart sees what is invisible to my eye. I simply give HR.
Otherwise, in my rating, I try to be fair to those who are using the site for its intended purpose. HR’ing a review that is not helpful just to be nice or popular or to follow the herd makes no sense. When in doubt, I take a print out of the review and read it carefully. If I find there is a goof, I interact with the member and if they edit, I rate accordingly.
But, I never let my rating and comments get in the way of treating a fellow member with kindness. I try to be nice and ‘regard’ others. I was also nice to those who abused me, licking my wounds in silence. NOT, because of the reason that they will then be nice to me, it is because I felt better about myself that way. To me getting a SR or NR for my review is not an end of life. I LOVE ALL OF YOU HERE!
Community center: The newly designed community center, an externally controlled ‘Police force’ or watchdog, may be the nature of any online writing site. The essence of all this is that there have been some serious abusers on the site. Well, if Mouthshut does not clean up the mess then there is sure going to be a lot of trash all over the site.
This is the only way to make the website as meaningful as possible. To that extent the far-sighted management and staff at Mouthshut have done a commendable job. ‘Hats off’ Mouthshut!
Mouthshut has given me a lot, now it’s my turn. The greatest gift Mouthshut gave me, are my special friends - abababbey, achougoo, ashford, asyis, cuchillo99, Calvin, Jambutty, Jilmil, lora, Pete, ptmomsue, quasar, rosie6349, raghav2k, reviewer, ruchika_sri, skmm, suyog and Surinder (in alphabetical order!), the people I have known the best.
Cheers ! Have a party.
Have a life.
