KMB Shut Down Because of “Bitter Rivalry” Amongst Authors? Or April Fool’s Stunt?

Adil Najam

This has to be an April Fool’s Day joke. Or is it?

Like so many others, the three Metroblogs in Pakistan - Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad - are my daily visiting haunts. Today, however, I find this notice there from Sean Bonner from the “Metroblogging Headquarters.”

KMB taking a break
By Sean Bonner

Dear Readers of Karachi Metblogs,

It is with a sorry heart that we at the Metroblogging headquarters in Los Angeles have to announce that Karachi Metblogs will be shutting down for a while while we decide what is the best future for it. While I could certainly try to sugar coat this and blame corporate restructuring, the truth is we are just sick of the constand bitter rivalry within the ranks of the authors which has lead to absolute chaos on the site.

Honestly, not a day goes by that one author isn’t e-mail me complaining about this or whining about that, and quite frankly I just don’t care enough to keep putting up with all of it. It’s become a nightmare and it has to end. To solve this issue we are forced to start afresh close the site entirely, step back, and decide what is the best future for this site… Please know that this wasn’t an easy decision for us, but for our own sanity we had to do something. I’ll be disabling comments because I’ve seen how long comment threads get here and really don’t have the patience to sort through something like that.

Karachi Metroblogs has been a great experience for us at Metblogs and we hope that it shall return to the forefront very soon, please bear with us. Until then KMB Rests in Peace.

Could this really be true? Or is it an April Fool’s Day stunt?

I certainly hope that it is the later. Though I should add that I am generally not a fan of April Fools Day stunts (just don’t feel that “Fooling” people is all that funny!) and this one would be particularly distasteful. Some months back I had the opportunity to meet and spend some time with a number of KMB authors and while I am sure there are rivalries and strong opinions, I had the feeling that this was a committed and earnest set of individuals. I certainly enjoyed and learned from that experience. And I certainly have enjoyed and learned from the site itself.

On the other hand, there is enough in that message that is believable enough and the bickering dynamics described are familiar. All the more to us here at ATP where we are sometimes similarly frustrated by the bickering and language of some commenters.

If it is, indeed, an April Fools Day prank then we should find out soon enough. I guess, some would even find it funny. If it is not, then it will not be funny at all. It will be very very sad. All the more sad if the situation described in the message turns out to be so. I am hoping that it is, indeed, not so and I look forward to my regular KMB dose soon!