I’m honestly not sure anybody wants to know these things, and if you knew me personally you’d know that’s never stopped me before so why change now? I mentioned in my last post that I had decided to disable and delete comments from the blog. I also said that I’d explain soon, and just to break with tradition and actually write about something I said I’d write about…here you go:
I don’t like trolls. Not the hairy beasts that live under bridges…I have nothing against them, it’s their online cousins that offend me on so many levels. The anonymity that online commenting grants has led to the adoption of multiple personalities by a large swath of the population. I like to think most people are kind in real life. Or at least passively kind, meaning that I don’t think most people would go out of their way to insult another or cause them mental or physical harm. I know there are exceptions, I’m talking about most folks. When these same people go online and are confronted with a comment box that lets them say things that aren’t attributed to them by name, it’s like a switch is flipped – from average citizen to hate-spewing-cyber-troll. I don’t begin to understand the underlying reasons for this, so let’s just chalk it up to human nature for now (I know, broad strokes, sometimes you have to be able to admit when you can only take a line of thought so far) – what I do want to look at is why so many of us DON’T go down this road.
Actually, I’ve already hit on it – I truly believe that most people are good. Or, like I said, at least passively kind. There’s a difference between “do no harm” and “do good” that I’m going to have to leave for another time, but for now I’ll settle for the fact that most people, whether or not it’s a conscious choice, live by the ‘do no harm’ motto. And I think that for most people, this extends to their online self. I’ve personally never even considered leaving an anonymous comment on a blog, and frankly I’ve never left a comment of any kind on a news story, I read the news infrequently and when I do I just want the news, not a conversation. Generally speaking, if I feel strongly enough to comment on something, I want it attributed to me so any arguments can be directed towards me and I can respond.
Own your words. Own your opinions. They’re the product of your brain, your environment, your upbringing. It took you years to form them into coherent patterns of thought, be proud of them. And if you choose to leave them as a comment to someone else’s thoughts and opinions be open to hearing what others have to say.
All this was a rather longwinded way of saying, yes, I’ve disabled comments on this blog. I never intended to post anything that folks would feel called upon to comment on in the first place. So when I started getting both spam comments and a few with a distinctly troll-ish feel I made the decision to disable them. I’m honestly not sure where I’m going to take this blog in the coming months, there are several directions I’m looking at – so I want to keep my options open for now. The only social network I’m on is Twitter, so feel free to come over there and hit me up with your thoughts and comments (@RebalancedLife).

















