There is an old proverb that says, "It takes a village to raise a child." It can also be said that it takes an idiot to try to fuck up the blogosphere. Earlier today, a poster left a vile remark about the Jena 6 in the comments section of my post titled David Bowie Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is. Their comments (which of course were anonymous) have since been deleted by me. Going forward, anonymous comments will no longer be allowed. To comment, you can use either your Blogger account or Google account. If you do not have a Google account, you can create one by clicking on the following link:
Google
As pjazzypar said in the comments section of my Intel Ad post, most people stop here to have a few laughs and get different takes on the latest news. One of the pleasures for me in starting this blog is to hear what a reader thought about a particular movie, song, TV series, etc. Even when I have brought up some of the heavier topics in the world of pop culture (Jerry Lewis' use of an anti-gay slur, Whoopi's take on the Michael Vick case, etc.), most of you have been able to convey your opinions in a civil manner.
For the idiot that served as the catalyst for this post, you are free to remain an idiot. You're just not going to be an anonymous one... not here anyways.
AN HONORABLE MENTION
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The first chapter of my novel-in-progress BLOOD KIN received an honorable
mention in the 2024 Chapter One Prize of the Gutsy Great Novelist Contest. The
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2 weeks ago
9 comments:
I hear you Malcolm and I agree that you should shut down the gutless wonders of the world that don't have the courage to sign their opinions. Opinions vary on this blogspot and although some opinions are not as informed as others, all have been welcomed here. Sometimes we have to agree to disagree. Anonymous bloggers are usually cowards who want to spew a lot of vulgar and derogatory garbage meant to offend and shame others. These people want to remain anonymous because if we knew who they were we could engage them in some challenging dialogue, something they detest. They want to remain ignorant and skew facts until they have a bunch of one-sided propaganda, which usually ends up being a bunch of ranting and raving without much content except hate speech.
Good for you, Malcolm!
There's always one who wants to roll up in your place and act a fool, isn't there? What a doggone shame. But you handled it well. Keep up the good work.
I agree with everything Pamella said. There is always someone hiding behind anonymous that wants to spew their vileness. They are cowardly and if they were truly brave, they would do so in the open and engage in intelligent dialogue.
As Lori said, you handled it well, as you always handle things. The intelligence of your readers(aside from the anonymous ones) says a lot about you as the author. This is a great blog with great readers and I applaud you for keeping it so.
I had one of those anon. commentors a few days ago and I thought the same thing. How sad that it only takes 1 person to screw it up for everyone else!
I got an idiotic comment on the same post over at my blog. I normally delete rude or offensive comments and have in the past taken "anonymous" off my blog. This time I chose to leave it on. Its obvious to anyone who reads my blog what my veiws are and the veiws of my commenters. I decided to leave the comment for three reasons:
1. I am not going to let people like him/her dictate whether or not I can accpet anon. comments
2. To show people that there REALLY ARE racist, pigs out there that don't event have the guts to sign their comment
3. If the @sshole who left the comment comes backt to see if he/she upset anyone they will see that they were ignored completely on my blog as if they don't exist. That really pisses off the type fo person who would say such a stupid thing to begin with. They like upsetting people.
But I am open to reconsideration so please let me know if you think my reasons are not very solid. Thanks, Malcolm.
Thanks for all the kind words and support. It's is really appreciated.
Barbara: Your reasons are solid. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer in regards to handling hateful anonymous comments.
I have left up anonymous comments in the past as well. The 1st time it happened I started to delete them, but decided not to (for the same reasons that you gave). In this recent instance, I just wasn't feeling it. It wasn't just what they said, but the whole anonymous aspect bothers me. When other bloggers have posted about controversial topics (Michael Vick, OJ, etc.), I have thrown in my two cents... which have sometimes not been the popular opinion. However, I do it out in the open (at least as open as you can be on the Internet) without fear of retaliation.
It turns out that I may be switching back to allow anonymous comments once again. The reason being is that one of the regular posters informed me about the problems they have had leaving comments ever since I disallowed anonymous comments. I'll be OK with that. I can then just choose to delete or not delete any comments that are hateful.
You go, Malcolm!!!!
It's perfectly fine to disagree, in fact, I think we've even done it, but there is no, none, nada, zilch reason to be hateful or rude about expressing an opinion. Those kinds of people are obnoxious slobs and deserve the "mute" button....
Sorry that happened...
Jessica The Rock Chick
Jessica: Me and you have disagreed on issues. However, we both kept it clean and respectful. As much as I love the Internet, it unfortunately has given free reign to the assholes of the world to be even more so.
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