Apr

8

The Philippine Komiks Message Board

Filed Under Philippine Comics | 1 Comment

As some of you may know, I have a message board devoted to the discussion of Philippine comics. But that is not as simple as it seems. Leinil Yu has called it, “The Greatest Off Topic Message Board”, and that’s true. I don’t believe in strict moderation. I don’t mind if topics get horribly off topic. It’s the kind of conversation that people have everyday. It has resulted in a forum that’s become a kind of comfortable haven for many Filipinos to discuss comics, movies, TV, politics, religion, history, time travel, carabaos, chickens, and pretty much anything you can think of. More often than not, the discussion is in the native language, Tagalog, or Pilipino.

And that now seems to have become a problem. Our forum host, I’ve recently been informed, has a policy in their Terms of Service that disallows the use of non-English languages in their forums. I accept responsibility for this, and I apologize to everyone who have used the forum for not having read the Terms of Service in the first place.

I guess it was just unthinkable for me that such a policy could even exist in this time and age of globalization and enlightenment. It never really entered my mind that one, it is an actual policy of an actual company offering an international service, and two, that people would actually go along with it.

If policing the subjects of discussion is an issue, it’s so easy to hire someone who can understand these languages. If you do not have the means or resources to do this, then you have no business offering your service globally.

But I already have taken the blame, and I’m doing my best to do something about it. There’s going to be a new message board that’s going to be located here: http://www.phpbbplanet.com/komikero/. I chose this host at the suggestion of Randy Valiente, who said that it’s being used as host of the official forum for a Filipino Language institution in the Philippines. I also checked the Terms of Service, and it seems they have no restrictions with regards to language.

I know that this is such an inconvenience, but it seems we have no choice. A forum using that old host has already been closed down for using Tagalog, and I would not want to add mine to it, nor would I want to continue using a service with such a policy.

Comments

One Response to “The Philippine Komiks Message Board”

  1. Ed on April 8th, 2007 1:40 pm

    Ah. Register ulit! :D