Blocked at Bleeding Cool Forums

I’ve noticed I haven’t been able to access the Bleeding Cool Forums for quite a while now. I don’t know exactly when this started, but it has been a while. This is the error message that I see when I try to access it:

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Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access /forums/showthread.php on this server.
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I mentioned it on Twitter today and I received a lot of responses from other guys based here in the Philippines who couldn’t access the forum as well, leading many to conclude that the entire Philippines (and not just me) is blocked from viewing the forums. I wonder why.

I used to post there a lot back when Bleeding Cool was new. In fact, the website still sends me automated birthday greetings every year. Over time though, I’ve noticed a lot of really ignorant posts from some of the most vocal commenters on the site. It was quite off putting. It’s one thing to have an opinion (which everyone is entitled to), but if those opinions are uneducated and ignorant, well, that’s a whole different bag of chips.

The last straw was a few years ago when Mark Millar announced that he would be doing signings here in the Philippines. All of a sudden I saw such ignorant comments like “why is Mark going there they don’t even have running water”. It gets worse than that actually. It really pissed me off. So I went there and posted about why I never post at the forums anymore, and that’s because it’s populated by such ignorant and stupid people. And left.

Did that help me and the rest of the country get banned? Common sense tells me that it shouldn’t. I was just defending the Philippines from idiots.

Whatever the reason was for us getting banned, it really doesn’t matter. And it’s probably just as well. I really don’t want going to a place where there is such stupidity and ignorance. I wish I could tell Rich Johnston to tame his pets but I doubt even he can do anything about it.

Rich, if in the off chance you get to read this, you don’t have to unban me. It’s all right. I might still read the news from your website from time to time, but I’ll never again visit the forums.