Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Latest Lakbima News

I've published the following comment on the appropriate post anyway but I feel that is also warrants a post in its own right. It's one that I received this morning and, if you're at all affected or bothered by recent events, then worth a read:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Am I Bothered?":

Hi Mr Rhythmic etc., (others)
Greetings!
First thing, we tried to contact you, but it’s not possible in most of the blogs. We did contact some of the others though, who left contact e mails.
You bloggers know that you are anonymous.
We'd like to publish the stuff you write, of course, more of it! Profuse apologies, but the reason was that we here were unable to contact you guys was your anonymity.
Maybe a post would have helped; but didn't think about the exact efficacy of that. because we did post at some sites, with our contactsw, and nobody bothered to reply!
But then, it would have been difficult to give our contacts to you that way..
Anyway we like the comment that this is a tribute to Sri Lankan bloggers. If your stuff is good we’d like to publish -- it’s in the public domain too. So I think you should have a positive take on it.
It’s not as if any stuff was published without credits.
Anyway, we’d like to publish more of your stuff; and as you may have noticed, 90 per cent of our still is NOT from blogsites, so its just that we'd like to use SOME good stuff that comes from blogs that are of relevance to Sri Lanka..
We'd also like to pay you -- for anything published in the future, as well as what was published. We don't pay enormously, but we pay reasonable rates.
So please write to us at sumathienglish@gmail.com, and we would like to get the payment across to you, if you furnish an address.
In the meanwhile, we'd like to use some more of the blogs -- and we hope you can send some of your other material on the e mail so that we can publish it..
Many of the boggers we published -- including some such as Mr Fazli Sameer have got on board, and we hope you do that too. They write EXCELLENT stuff, and were not so harried. We don’t expect the same reaction from everyone, but then we are trying to set the record straight here.
We would have liked to get you on board at the very outset, except that your contacts were not available. At least, they were not available at our scrutiny; maybe they were available somewhere.

Thanks then, and so here is to the blogosphre -- and here is to the mainstream!! We'd publish more, I hope you can write to us at our e mail and we'll use more of yours, and pay you as well.
Thanks and no offence,

‘Mr Lakbima’
alias
those at Lakbimanews.

PS: And to that other person who said we may publish without the credit sometime, we don’t want to dignify that with a comment.


My thoughts on it are quite straightforward. I did send an email and I did get a reply and I think it's genuine. Regardless of what may have occurred with other blogs and posts in the past I am happy to accept the words and explanation in good faith.

As Cerno mentioned and suggested it does look as if they are trying to get Sri Lankan bloggers on board and I'm going to venture on board and have a look around. I shan't be giving up the day job just yet though!

That may well be the end of the matter.

Oh, please don't tell my Mum about this either.




7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If they genuinly want to contact unknown bloggers its simple. I think any of you would agree with this. They could have simply drop a comment in the blogs giving their contact details. So the blog owners will contact them after ensuring things.

Anonymous said...

But the post from them said:

Maybe a post would have helped; but didn't think about the exact efficacy of that. because we did post at some sites, with our contacts, and nobody bothered to reply!


Doesn't that explain that.

Anonymous said...

Hard to contact? Err..sure...I suppose leaving comments is really, really tough...Rd be careful if they ask for your bank details:)...could be SL version of the 419 scam..

Anonymous said...

Hey rhythmic
Good that you are taking it on the good side. But I am withe Cerno on this. This is typical Sri Lankan behaviour. First give an excuse ..and say " I am Sorry , BUT...". These guys are trying to run a news paper without having the sufficient writing staff to fill up the pages ? Or is it, keeping in with the new trend of outsourcing...I am not sure how it works , but if they extracted some thing form a writer (or another paper & publish) I think they are bound to get their asses sued left right & centre. It was indecent the way they acted in the first place , but their excuse and the offer to pay you, is fucking pathetic, if you ask me (Then again you didn't).

OHplsplspublishmstuff2

Anonymous said...

I am positively amused by the self importance and hollow superciliousness that is visible in all this, not to mention the hypocrisy.
Apart from many such as Rythmic and cerno who are looking at the reality and the upside of this, the others who are ranting about this non-issue, should take a hard look at the hypocrisy in all of this.
All this talk of ‘typical sri lanka, jus like them ‘ from blog writers who are for the most part -- though not all –writing from across the seas in places such as London is positively amusing.
Its as if they have a god given right to tell Sri Lankans what to do -- much like the British ambassador talking of negotiating with terrorists in Sri Lanka when attacks on Glasgow are for him are nothing but terror attacks!
What’s this talk of ‘copied’. There is nothing called copied; if they have been faithful to your original text, it means that they are professional, you should only be complaining if they altered it, which nobody says they have. So if it’s word to word, you rise your hat to them for it - - because that’s what newspapers do all the time.
Who is a half-assed blogger? Newspapers in sri lanka and in Britain or anywhere, carry courtesy articles all the time, and are never sued for it, because if they are faithful to the content, that’s fine.
If they couldn’t contact you – they carried your blog name,. All you have to do if you do not want any articles carried in the future for some godforsaken reason, is to tell them via e mail (there is an address on their website, not just on this blog) -- instead of which I hear almost everybody saying ‘’well not that we aren’t gad we have been copied; its just that we were not asked.’’
Not that we aren’t gald?
Oh come on., look who is pathetic now? “We want it, but we don’t want it.’’ Reminds me of the hapless hooker. “We are thrilled, but look miss, he hit me.’’
Go back to school you poofs.

Anonymous said...

See, you should blame your brother for writing approachable academic publications. Clearly, that's where it all went wrong.

Let me explain how it works for me. My eldest sister got into the publication business long before I did. At first, my mother insisted on being sent over copies (look, my daughter got published etc). Then she realized it was all obscure medicalese and no one understood a word. Perhaps not even my sister.

So when I begged and begged people and got my papers accepted at some random conferences, it was old hat. I just say "Ma, I got published" and that was that. No awkward demands for papers, no need to explain obscure computerese, no need to be laughed at for my obscure syntax and terrible writing skills. It was all solved.

Cling to your brother's coat tails! Just say you were published and leave it there. Obfuscate the title a bit "a treatise into the complex familial structures of sri lankan society?" and let your mother beam with pride. No one needs to know.

It's a win-win.

Rhythmic Diaspora said...

n - Thanks but I'mnot worried about the money as I'm due to receive a large amount next week. I had a big stroke of luck, was approached by someone who needed to get some money out of an African country really quickly, just waiting for the money to hit my account any day.

Anon 2 - I'm not sure about the "typical Sri Lanka" thing. It's only been mentioned in one comment that I have seen and not really relevant to me. I can't talk for any of the other bloggers whose stuff was published but, in my case, I was chuffed that something I wrote was printed, as I think I've made clear. However, I would have been even more chiffed if I had been asked and "Rhythmic" had been spelt correctly!

Drac - "Say I was published and leave it there" - This is a Sri Lankan mother you're talking about. She doesn't do "leave it there"