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A Letter To That Nasty Mister Anonymous
Posted by kellybax • 7/24/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: anonymous comments, blog comments, comment moderation, nasty comments, replying to comments
Dear Mr. (or Ms.) Anonymous,
Imagine my glee when I saw that you visited my blog. You can understand that my glee doubled when I realized that you also left a comment for me. I eagerly went to my comment section and started reading. My facial expression immediately changed to distaste when your nasty words started ringing through my head.
I must ask you Mr. Anonymous, why are you so angry? Is your world so little and incomplete that you must barge in on happy worlds and try to seek and destroy? Do your snide and ruthless remarks make you feel like a bigger person?
To be fair, I will admit that you, Mr. Anonymous, are not the only person that leaves nasty comments. There are some other people that do it too. The difference between you and them is that they leave their name. Leaving their name does not take away from the nastiness, however I give them credit for at least having the guts to say what they have to say without hiding behind anonymity.
So go ahead and shed your cloak of anonymity Mr. Anonymous. Be a man (or a woman) and spread your vicious trail, but please leave your name so we can all know who you are. Better yet, try this approach instead. Leave a comment. Be nice and polite. It is okay to disagree with the blogger but do it in a way that shows maturity and respect. Make your mother proud. Who knows, it might just make you feel better and soon you could be spreading your love and joy all around the blogosphere. I for one will give you a pat on the back.
Any betting people out there? If so, place your bets now on whether or not Mr. Anonymous will visit this post. If you have an issue with Mr. Anonymous, air it out here and tell us what you think about him!
Follow the comments here to find out if Mr. Anonymous visits: www.whatdoesthissongmeantome.com/2008/07/letter-to-that-nasty-mister-anonym...
User Comments
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At some point of time they all do it.
I had a similar yet different experience. I blogged about a website that was being racist to my race. One of the posters of that site left me an anonymous comment saying that "I'd be interested in their last two posts." They had bashed me on their site and apparently I ticked them off big time since they not only took two posts to bash me, but lifted my pic of twitter and photoshoped it so I'd look hideous.
Cowards. Each and every one of them. They didnt even have the guts to comment like rational people on my post. And when they wanted me to visit their site they just left an anonymous comment.
Like I said. Cowards. -
Kelly, there must have been something in the air yesterday.
I saw nasty comments on more than one blog.
And I agree. Not everything has to be puppies and lollipops, but a little respect would be nice.
One comment some clown left was "This is poorly written." Talk about uncalled for--oy vay. BTW, the blog was fine as written. The commentor was a jerk. Didn't make the author feel any better, although the comment was obviously written just for that purpose.
I'm not speaking for every blogger, but I believe the overwhelming majority of us can take criticism, but fair criticism.
Not anonymous, and definately not based upon one's personal taste. -
I've had visits from Mr. Anonymous, too.
Some have been positive - others not so much.
My guess is that some people, when viewing blogs, don't know how to identify themselves.
Others, most likely, are either cowards or take some sort of sniggering glee in leaving naughty comments.
Pretty good letter, BTW.-
So good, in fact, that I've posted a micro-review of it on Apathetic Lemming of the North. Thanks for the heads-up! apatheticlemming.blogspot.com/
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When I first began blogging I did not moderate comments. I assumed that those I received would be sane and sensible. However, I quickly learned that this is not always the case.
There are nut cases and trolls in the blogosphere and IMHO the best way to deal with them is to shun them. Sooner or later you will get a negative comment and it’s best to have a comment policy in place to deal with it. Once you have set up your blog and published a couple of dozen posts it’s a good time to develop your own comment policy and consider setting up comment moderation on your blog.
Elise Bauer, Publisher of Simply Recipes and Editor-in-Chief of Learning Movable Type states in her Problogger guest article:
"Providing a quality environment for the readers of our blogs is more important than giving a platform for a few people who don’t know how to play well with others. … Most of us do not want to chance being ridiculed by others if we make a comment on a site. We will steer to where we feel comfortable and safe participating, and stay away from places where we don’t."
thriftshopromantic:
"Technically blogs are designed to be freedom of expression for the blogger. The ability to comment can be an enhancement, certainly, but it really doesn’t mean Joe Q Unaccountable has a right to say any insulting thing that comes off the top of his head, and the blogger should just shrug and publish it because, “hey, it’s freedom of speech.”
It’s the blogger’s forum, so honestly, shouldn’t it be the blogger’s choice of how to handle it? Every piece of content that appears on a blog site becomes a part of the makeup and the “brand” of that blog. I think it’s important for bloggers to look at it in terms of how the comment affects the brand."
I wrote a blog posts and in it I included responses from several BC members with regard to dealing with comments that may be helpful.
How to handle negative comments
onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/how-to-handle-negative-comments/ -
So far, I have never had a "nice" anonymous comment. Great feedback guys, thanks! Mr. Anonymous does seem to be getting around a lot lately.
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Your rant is extremely well written Kelly. Don't let the idiots get you down. Use comment moderation and jettison all garbage into cyberspace by using the delete button and/or the mark as spam button. Don't let anonymous cowards throw you off track.
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Exactly, TT.
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Thank you
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The anonymii were busy yesterday, Kelly. I totally understand how you feel.
Normally the anonymous folks are fine, just someone without a blog who wishes to share. And that's cool.
Then there are others which are... different sorta folks.-
Jenn had crazy fanboy anonymii yesterday.
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Yup, indeed I did. I'm not cut out for multiple anonymouses... anonymosities... anonymii... simultaneously. It kinda stresses me out.
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I've never had a nasty anonymous comment.
Weird.
i certainly get a lot of argumentative comments, but most of the time they aren't part of the annonylluminati group. -
I'm hoping that, you made your "Letter to..." an actual blog post. It might be worth the risk.
Excellent letter btw.-
In fact, it is an actual blog post. Here is the post www.whatdoesthissongmeantome.com/2008/07/letter-to-that-nasty-mister-anonym... (since you asked )
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Niiiiice....8^) Very Nice.
I like the addition of the "Sid" caricature.
(At least, I think that is one of the old Sid-Lives toons I've seen around.)
Kudos to you Kelly!! -
Thank you sir!
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Well, Kelly, I'm sorry to hear what happened to you. I get quite a bit of nasty comments on my blog too, but I use the best weapon: Killing them with kindness.
I'm usually very kind and thank them for visiting my blog and then I'll write nicely how I disagree with them. Most of the time they leave me alone after that.
timesobserver.blogspot.com -
Good for you, kelly, for zinging back to Mr. A.
I've only had one Anonymous comment, and it was genuinely nice. In fact, virtually all of my commenters have been really nice. Guess I've been lucky. However, I've had comment moderation enabled since day 1, so maybe that has warded off the nasties.
I'm perfectly prepared to hit that "Reject" link if I ever get a comment that's out of bounds. -
YOU rock!-
Kelly dead after Mr. Anonymous crushes her with gigantic rock!
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Kelly revived with BC discussion talk!
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Whaddaya know. I got a comment from Anonymous today. And, typically, a rather nasty one. ( anotherwaronterrorblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/sandeela-kanwal-chaudhry-rashid... )
I don't moderate comments - although I do monitor and delete spam.
With one or two exceptions, my bolgs aren't 'family' destinations, so the 'adult' language isn't so much of an issue. And, although I may be off base, I think it's possible that the anonymous (and sometimes non-anonymous) spewings make me look better, by comparison.
Besides, for a number of blogs, those comments make cases-in-point that I'd have to work hard to find.-
Whew, that was a nasty one!
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I don't know you but from everything I ever read you seem real nice and smart.Forget those haters.It would be nice if we all work together and helped each other out.And the other day when you had that band thing going down I was happy for you.Unfortunately there's a lot of miserable people in this world.You already rose beyond that forget those fools and see how your going to top all that action you had the other day;)
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Wow, thank you so much! For all of those nasty people out there there are just as many (or more) nice people like you. That is what makes blogging so much fun... the support, the friendships and the good hearts
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Kellybax, you wrote: "If you have an issue with Mr. Anonymous, air it out here and tell us what you think about him!"
I'm afraid this is exactly what Mr. Anonymous wants. People who write nasty notes to strangers (anonymously or not) are doing so because they want to upset you, offend you, make you angry, get a reaction out of you, make you give them your attention so they feel important.
So, basically, the only effective way to react to them is not to react at all, or tell them they're funny, or that you're sorry for them.
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