Many years ago a fellow blogger told me via email that they thought that one of the best ways to build traffic on their blog was to start blog wars throughout the blogosphere. And that is what they did.
They would roam around and intentionally try to offend other bloggers in the hope that said blogger would dedicate a post to the conflict. Later on I followed up with them and they told me that it had been more successful than they had imagined it would be. In turn they encouraged me to mimic their success saying that it was the fastest way for me to build up my readership.
I disagreed. It is not a model that I find particularly engaging. I have enough stress in my life without going out of my way to look for fights with other bloggers. Besides, I didn't want my blog to be a constant source of negative energy.
But at the same time I haven't shied away from giving my opinion and that has led to a number of disagreements in both the online and real world. Most of the the time those disagreements ended without resolution. Both sides claim victory, which I suppose you could say means that all that happened was a waste of time.
Here is where we get to the real meat of this post. I recently received an angry email from another blogger who felt that I was out of line. That's fine. People are entitled to disagree with me and are welcome to tell me so. I can choose to respond or ignore it. I can choose to accept or disagree with their criticism too.
What made this email stick out was that they sort of called me a name. Let me show you what I am talking about:
"you're a piece of ****"
If you want to call me names have the balls to type it out. If you want curse at me than have at it. Swear like a sailor. Tell me I am an asshole. Tell me to go fuck myself. Don't do a piss poor job of it.
Is that the best you have got. Don't hide behind the keys, just type it out. Otherwise what is the point. If my comments are so upsetting that you have to swear, than be a man about it and do it.
Otherwise be a grown up and tell me that you are upset with me. Maybe I'll apologize. Maybe I'll say that you're right, than again I might tell you to go rub salt up your ass. I just don't understand this half ass thing.
It is like the school yard bully throws crap at you and then tries to hide behind the principal. Not very impressive at all.
5 comments:
Jack, that column was *********. And it was kind of ****** too.
:-D
One can only speculate, but this has the footprint of that very familiar poodle from California. You've always intimidated the bazeezus out of her.
You can find her, in her typical obnoxious fashion here:
www.yetanotherpoliticsboard.yuku.com/directory
Hope all is well with you! Glad you're still writing.
Laurie
I've been lucky, I suppose. I've had perhaps two nasty comments/commenters show up at my blog. And I simply ignored them. I think my blood pressure shot up, the first time, but then I thought, "So what? Why waste my own time responding to this?" The second time I merely shrugged. Besides, I don't post often enough to garner much attention from the blognuts who like to flame.
I did get one incensed commenter who thought I was being racist about one of my posts. He left a lengthy, angry comment. I thought about it, and decided to respond. I defended myself, explained that I was merely reporting what I had read, gave my opinions regarding what I had read, and thanked him for commenting. And he responded to that. And he was polite, still opposed to my POV, and that was that.
Made me think I had done something right when it was all said and done.
Curse-flingers are a waste of time. And with a blog you can always simply delete the comment if it's ugly enough.
Hmm. I guess my posts just aren't interesting enough to generate curses, disguised or otherwise. :)
Miriam,
******* you. ;)
Benning,
I have been known to delete a few here and there.
Tzipporah,
Your better off without them.
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