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Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Blog commenting etiquette

This is probably not a new experience for many bloggers. Have you ever noticed that most snide comments are left without a name/URL (anonymous), while the comments which are have something worthwhile to say are left with a name/URL? It does not matter whether you agree or disagree, if everybody had the same opinion the world would be a lot less fun. But I'm talking about trite, silly or discouraging, disparaging comments which are always left without a name. What are such people afraid of? They want to express an opinion but are afraid that other people might recognize them and look down on them, they are afraid of being found out. These are probably the same kind of people who raise a leg every time they see a tree stump to mark their territory, who push little kids for the pleasure of it, who are rude to people just for the sake of it, who beat up wives and demand dowry, who deep in their little hearts are fixated on caste, religion, language, ethnicity and all such petty things, who would just ruin other people's lives with the bad vibes they spread around.

Reminds me of a post I'd written a long time ago about angry/negative people who can be bad for your brains. Kathy Sierra wrote her post after Robert Scoble announced that he would moderate his comments and steer clear of unhappy people and hang around happy people.

Update: I have been wasting a lot of time responding to individual comments and thinking about what each person has said. This is not an efficient usage of my time and is distracting me from getting on with my life. I don't need BS from people. Henceforth, comment moderation has been enabled. If you leave me a silly comment, be absolutely sure that I will not publish it. I quote from Robert Scobe's post:

Yes, I am now approving every comment here. And I will delete any that don't add value to either my life or the lives of my readers.

This is a huge change for me. I wanted a free speech area, but after having a week off I realize that I need to make a change. That, I'm sure, will lead to attacks of "censorship" and all that hooey. Too bad. I'm instituting a "family room" rule here. If I don't like it, it gets deleted and deleted without warning — just the same as if you said something abusive in my family room I'd kick you out of my house. If you don't like that new rule, there are plenty of other places on the Internet to write your thoughts. Start a blog and link here. Etc. Etc.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

the quality of blogging seems to be dropping every day ...

Anonymous said...

nazir saab, ladka achha lik raha hai ... sirf liknewalon ke liye naam dalne ke liye request hai ... aapko is se kaa itraaz hai

Ashish Gupta said...

And this insistence of name always baffles me. One can be identified with an URL, sure, agreed. But what is name? Will my comment carry more weight because it is written by Ashish instead of Anonymous? How do you even know that I am Ashish (assuming that I don't give any URL) just because Ashish sounds like a name. I may be Rajesh, Illiot or Darwin. There is another angle to this views as well, from your point of view. Why do people have to not leave a name when frankly all they have to do is to write a name that sounds like a name - but need not be their name - and their comments will automatically carry more weight.

Anonymous said...

ashish bhai ... hum aapke baat mante hain... naam se kaa faraq padta hain .. comment se hain na .. agar mein mera address pata liktha hoon to hawkeye saab ko mera comment shayad accha lagege, kaa?

Anonymous said...

Would constructive critique with an Anonymous heading be not displayed in your blogs? Thatz sad to hear.

Unknown said...

@anon: Of course it will. I am not stupid. But, sample these. These definitely would not be published in the future:

"it is atrocious you misused scarce govt. resources to bully that milkman into apologising and inflate your stupid ego. "

"hawkeye - u got ur name from cricket commentary, aint it?

and you guys are so lost ... wake up dudes ... you guys think you live in a perfect world ... go on keep writing ... i am enjoying every bit of it "

"hmmm ... all this nautanki for nothing"

"I agree with Ashish, but you know what, this gentleman learnt it the hard way by spending time and effort (and mustbe money) and he did get his ego boosted by the apology!"

"lol....the sissy chickens out as expected! the milkman did put up a show, kudos to him."

"oh poor you! what next? a PIL against middle class Indians? hehe"

"don't you ever tire of this incessant whining? *yawn*"

"i find the management of KMF disgusting in the way it has pandered to the whims of an outsider. people who would never integrate into society(for example by learning the local language Kannada) should be treated as second class citizens."

"simple...go back to the hellhole you came from!"

...

Ashish Gupta said...

Thanks for all the smiles (from comments) :)