I've been deleting one or two of my old posts and portions of just a few others lately. For me, this blog is as much an artistic expression as it is a recording of thoughts and interactions with friends. Painters remove some unwanted brushstrokes and poets rewrite lines. The end goal is a work that expresses you and not the steps it took to get there.
I've been going through my comments lately and getting rid of some of them as well. A blog is kind of like a party in that you prepare entertainment and (intellectual) food for your guests (readers) and they respond socially through the comments. At home, I love to cook and entertain. I've had parties where I've served outstanding food and provided excellent entertainment and mistakenly invited guests that ruined the event for everyone else. I've had no problems never inviting them back. In the same way, I don't mind removing unwanted guests from this blog.
I was recently asked in an email to defend this practice and it took me a while to figure out just why I didn't have a problem with doing this. That's how I came up with this analogy. I would bet that my regular readers don't feel like my excisions have changed the overall content of this blog at all. They know me through this art/party and probably don't think that I've hidden any part of myself through this process.
Is that correct?
15 comments:
Up here, where blogging is like mud-wrestling with knives, up close and personal, this is a frequent topic. One blogger likens removing the bad comments to picking dog droppings off the lawn, distasteful but necessary.
I think of it a little more along the lines you do - Sometimes, blocking or deleting the comments is the only viable solution, in the same way you'd ask someone that rude to leave the table at the coffee shop, or have them escorted out of a bar. Same thing as not inviting the jerk to your house when you're having people over.
That's why I was interested in the session you had at BlogWorld about the tone...
jon is being grotesquely unfair - and, you know the funny thing is, KT, I think Bill Cosby would take your side in this.
It takes less time to delete than it does to write.
:-)
An unwanted comment blown out in only 4 minutes! That's got to be some kind of a record.
Dude, take a long look at this blog and then fill in the blank in this sentence.
"I make this blog better at what the author wants to do with it by __________."
Hint: The correct answer does not involve giving me moral instruction.
Yo, KT, Ron again. I kinda get what you're saying, since I like to obsess over my crap too. Instead of deleting, I sometimes add things to stupid posts, lessons learned and such. Wouldn't that be easier to defend than looking like you're trying to pretend something never happened? As we saw in the post that began this brouhaha, appearances mean alot.
Ron, thanks for the good idea. Your suggestion would have been a possiblity if the problem wasn't totally out of control like this one was. I've never closed a comment thread before on this blog. This one just needed to be stamped out by removing all flammable objects and stomping all the cinders.
I admit that I am often imprecise in my writing, but it was notable that a group of readers understood what I was trying to say and a group refused to understand my point no matter what I said. It wasn't the name calling that bothered me, it was their inability to comprehend what I was saying no matter what I did. I quoted factual statistics except for one that another blogger corrected me on and the rest was hearfelt explanations from my own life.
Despite that, the screaming just kept going on. I wasn't going to convince them of my perspective no matter what I did. When facts don't matter and conversation is impossible, you're not dealing with rational people, you're dealing with maniacs.
That group of psychotics is going to misquote me and hold their opinions of me from now on. I saw no reason to keep the fodder for further conflagrations laying around.
Lastly, I just didn't like it. It wasn't fun. If the blogging isn't fun, then I don't want to do it. I get rid of things that aren't any fun and I'm not worried about any moral implications. If you read this blog for any length of time at all, I think you'll see why.
I'm not going to go over old stuff here, KT, but we get your point, and we disagreed. Not only do we not agree about sexual morality having any direct relation to one's economic or social status(it really depends on whether or not you can afford to be 'deviant'), we certainly do not agree that a race is a prime example of your theory when you simply aren't allowing any other factors to play in this regrettable statistic except that they happen to be black.
I just don't want you to go away from this thinking that people don't understand what you are saying. Your ideological enemies are alot more rational than you think. They're just way more fed up than I am(I've only become a progressive recently). The unhinged lib is a myth, KT. Try and take my word for this. There are many an inarticulate partisan on both sides.
Ron, I'll take your word for it. Thanks for your pleasant comments.
ronb,
Please excuse, my "nit picking", but I had a bit of a problem with your last post.
Tiny matter, and although we come fom different ends of the political spectrum, I appreciate your well written views.
Except...You are correct that a persons' sexual deviance is not in itself a precursor to lower economic status.
For example, Mr.Larry Flynt. The man quite obviously has elevated himself quite well ecoonomically.
But social status? Oh goodness. I and most all of the people that I have interacted with, consider me to be a quite reasonable person.
An "accepting" person, if you will.
I really don't care what you or anyone does behind the privacy of their closed doors. But if you're "out" as a "deviant".......
Wollf is not going to invite you to tea, or to meet my Mother or daughter or sons. And I would venture to guess.....
Neither would you.
Wollf
ronb has posts? Another blog perhaps?
Rose, I couldn't find it. He's got a blog shell, but that's it.
I was kind of hoping that this would die down and all of my abusive, hysterical visitors would wander off, convinced I was some kind of hideous monster so I could get to blogging about some really cool things going on at work.
LOL, I have started so many blogs, I sometimes forget where the false starts are.
Did you guys know I'm an ex-Rottie? Isn't that a riot?
Google Center Face. That's where I'm at, Rose. Feel free to come disagree any time, as is KT and Wollf. I'm small time, but I'm fair.
In reply to Wollf's post: I would. Takes all kinds, brother.
KT, if I'm in the hysterical/ abusive category somehow, I got no idea how.
No worries, ron. Come on back any time.
Post a Comment