Moving out of Sulekha Weblogs!

I have decided not to host my blogs on Sulekha.com Weblogs any more. I have also decided to move all my blogs to this site on Google's Blogger.com. The primary trigger for this is the fact that Sulekha edited my last blog: If Dad is taking a shower with Mom,DO NOT tell your BPO rep!

I had posted a picture at the beginning of the blog so that it would display as an embedded image. The link to that picture is also available at the top of my blog. The original blog looked like this: original look of the blog. Sulekha edited my blog and removed that embedded picture. Without asking my persmission. Without requesting me to remove the picture myself. Without even informing me. Is it too much to expect some basic courtesy from Sulekha towards its user community?

This is uncivilized, unevolved and unprofessional behavior. This is a serious breach of good faith. This is also a violation of my rights to my writing. The fact that I post a blog on Sulekha does not mean they have all rights to my posting and they can edit it.

The only good thing about Sulekha blogs is the user community which gives us a feeling of belonging. The nice close-knit kind which exists (existed?) in village communities. Otherwise, technically, Sulekha weblog section is PRIMITIVE and SUCKS. There is no incentive for staying on here when there are better options and tools available.

Google's Blogger.com is an excellent site I have started to use. It has great tools which are easy to learn to use. You quickly get a hang of them. The editor allows one to easily change font, size, style, color, to create hyperlinks, to align test the way we want them, etc. And it has the awesome option of being able to post pictures. Imagine sharing your pictures with fellow-bloggers, an option Sulekha does not have and does not seem to encourage! There are different blog templates which you can use and customize to suit your style. You can copy your previous blogs from Sulekha, post them here and even set the date-time, so that you continue to keep the original date-time from your blog on Sulekha.

To see what other bloggers are doing on Blogger, go to the top of this blog page where you see the NEXT BLOG link. Use this link to view another random blog. This link appears on every Blogger.com blog and you can keep clicking on it to visit random blogs and see how other people are using Blogger.

As I already mentioned, the best thing about Sulekha weblogs is the user community. We are a happy, close-knit online village. The features and facilities on Sulekha weblogs are also primitive in comparison. Blogger.com is a big international city with the comforts and facilities which come with it. We can continue to maintain our online community ties, and yet enjoy the advantages of Blogger's facilities. There are two ways of doing this:

1. Post your blog on Blogger.com and post a link to that blog on Sulekha weblogs. The Sulekha community can click on your link and see your blog. They can post comments right there on Blogger.com. This way, we continue to maintain our network of friends and readers through Sulekha! This is exactly what I have done with this blog.
2. Get your Blogger.com blog listed/registered (a one-time thing) on other blogger communities like BlogStreet India and Blogwise.com. These communities have thousands of other Indian bloggers from all over the world. Blogwise.com is an international site. Click here for Indian Bloggers on Blogwise.com.

I will no longer host my blogs on Sulekha. I will just post links to my blogs there. It would be great if other Sulekha bloggers joined me. It no longer feels comfortable having my blogs hosted on a site which does not think twice or have the courtesy of getting in touch with me before editing them, a site which has primitive features, and which becomes inexplicably and unapologetically unavailable about once a month or more!

PS: If you have questions or suggestions please post them in the comments section of this blog.