Once there was a forum
There was a forum once, when people of all aspects of SEO/e-commerce/advertisement life gathered together around something what was becoming a ‘domain name industry’ and used to chat, share and develop their ideas, raising their concerns and celebrating successes.
It took maybe 4 years for the community to establish, 4 more years to then overwhelm itself and then it (sadly, but expectedly) slowly started to decay and disintegrate.
Not really a surprise, as how you’d hope for a dense ‘dog eat dog’ community to thrive?
Domain catching is a super-competitive and lucrative business. One will not have many friends in this industry, whilst constantly beating the other participants down.
Strikingly, there still are friends. And that warrants a special post of a more pleasant topic. And there’s also a fair group of those who have retained sanity and a goodwill, which allowed them to keep things in a perspective and remain (at least visibly) non-hostile, especially if/when they felt less successful.
Many of us are no longer on Acorn domains or at least some are not as their true selves.
The exodus of interesting people leaving the forum was a natural reflection of the underlying issues. Eventually, even the forum founder has moved on.
The community didn’t wholly disintegrate, but it has become a pitiful parody of what it could have been. Or rather, what it once was.
Strange, the haters didn’t leave to anywhere.
Once in a while someone would send me a link to a fresh gossip related to DomainLore or even myself personally. Most of the time I’d read it and just once again laugh it out to the silliness of the mob and anew terrify myself with how few sensible voices are speaking there.
‘Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate
.. and catchers gonna catch! ;-)
Those who know me, know well that I am the enemy of liars, bullshitters, cheaters and fabricators.
I do not pretend to be so enlightened to have no vices (and many attempt to replace sincerity in my posts with rudeness or ego trips - and “let god be their judge”). Those above are the bitter sins of the human nature which anyone who tries to speak and maintain the truth would totally despise.
The world is full of liars and we have to cope.
However, I will not let those fabricating lies and making defamatory statements against myself (or my business which I strive to run fairly) get away unscathed by their own malice.
Liars of the world always on the lookout to find more ways which would let them continue talking BS and making subtle but apt dishonest assaults.
They appear to devise now (and want others to believe) that GDPR is able to prevent their defamed counter-party from showing the truth and demonstrating complete rebuttals to their public accusations and lies. Wrong. GDPR is not a suppression to free speech and public interest citations.
I completely respect privacy of personal information and protection of such private data and will vigorously defend it in the same way I defend the truth.
But there is nothing personal or protected by GDPR in showing in public how an individual behaves in private. Especially when it’s a matter of public interest on the character of that individual, not on his personal data.
Sorry for a long preamble.
I’ve decided to archive the rest of this post as it has served it’s purpose. We have reached some kind of understanding with the Acorn admin. I would not have archived this post under any threats, as truth can not be threatened and silenced.