-Blog means “web log”, meaning that it is a personal diary written on the internet. If I give people a space to comment on what I have written, that is a priviledge and not a right- a priviledge that will be taken away if reading your comments becomes more effort than it is worth. As a full time teacher who also publishes quite a lot of stuff and on top of that tries to find time to write my blog (occassionally for my own benefit and occassionally to help others) that is my only criteria. That is no more censorship than not allowing you to graffiti on the walls of my house. Get your own blog if you don’t like it, or try the same trick on a public forum that is advertised as such and see how long it is before you get flamed and then blocked.

-If you have found a blog written in the language demanded by academic EFL journals, then it basically isn’t a good blog. Academic language is just as unsuitable for a blog as it is for a newspaper, a conversation or a comic- the word “thereto” being a good example. Quite how people who claim to know about the English language can accept that written grammar is different from spoken grammar (if the over 70 year old ex-professor segment do indeed accept that) and not understand that the language of a blog is just as different as that from the language of a magazine, a dissertation or anything else I completely fail to understand. Do you correct your friend’s spelling when they text you as well?

- A blog is a community, not an open forum. If you do not match the community in values, language, or any other factor then you are better off elsewhere- a decision that you seem to have made too.

-The fact that language on a blog (like language in general) is mainly a social thing for bonding rather than a way of passing on precise information is again something that shouldn’t be difficult to understand to anyone that has studied linguistics. How it is possible for some autistic people to use that knowledge to make a good attempt at being able to gain normal social skills while so many people with more letters after their name than friends who presumably start off with normal social skills manage to lose those despite that knowledge I will never understand. You presumably came onto my blog originally to make allies in your quest. Instead, you have made at least one more enemy. I forget the technical word for it, but that seems a less than efficient use of language in at least one way to me.

- If your attitude is “I’d rather be right than have friends”, that philosophy is as likely to be as successful on a blog or a forum as it is in a pub or with your family. If it will help your academic career I have no idea, but I would doubt that too.

Btw, if you are really interested in the precise use of language, surely “censorship” is when an outside body like the government decides to cut or change something. Is a newspaper deciding not to give a 250 page daily supplement of every letter they receive every day censorship?

However, you are the first case I’ve encountered of an owner who mounted an ad hominem attack against a contributor and then deleted the response thereto as he was clearly unable to justify his abysmally ignorant use of the language he is supposed to be teaching.

What a truly sad case you are. No wonder you have taken refuge in Japan. Having been a full professor at a National University there, I am well aware of the egregiously low standards required of teachers. Your use of the language clearly shows that you have benefited from those low standards.

I am now about to delete your blog from my computer.

Ron.

Ron Sheen

Have you considered that your difficulties in getting your opinions heard might have anything to do with your stuck up attitude, i.e. how you put your opinions across rather than what you are saying?
You had my symapthy when you stated that OUP might not be giving you a fair hearing as I have had my disagreements with how the big publishers do their business over the years (despite them giving me writing work and lots of free books). I would also be a natural ally on your crusade against Krashen, and have been as pleased as anyone that over recent years the majority opinion has become that focus on grammar is needed (a message that has got through to many teachers through Scott Thornbury, I might mention, although I don’t know if his views have changed since he wrote “The A-Z of ELT”). However, I now understand why publications that have already given you the right of reply once might not want to publish anymore of someone as hectoring as you- and this is when you are trying to butter me up to get published on my blog, I’d love to see you really get going shaking your walking stick at the youngsters on skateboards!
As my offer to link to your arguments elsewhere on the web was not good enough, I was going to suggest other blogs that have not had the recent changes in libel law in the UK repeatedly drummed into them by their editors (of other publications I write for, not TEFL.net) but actually I don’t know any blogs that would be particularly interested in your melodramatic personal vendetta, maybe you could try the forums on Rave Spelling’s ESL Au Lait.

Alex