Comments…lovely things they are until they become a pain in the butt. You know, the spam, the trolls…then the gray area – the people that disagree with you. What exactly do you “do” with people that don’t like you and what you write…and have the audacity to express that on your site?

Your gut instinct might be to delete the comment, simply rid your site of the nuisance. Some might even view it as therapeutic. Deleting the comment basically says “I win!” to the commenter. Or you might want to tell that rogue commenter off, put the sucker in his/her place for daring to show such a lack of disrespect on your site.

Then you realize you call yourself an adult and it is time for you to act like one.

No matter what you write, people are going to disagree with you. Even if the entry is about your personal life, you had spaghetti for dinner. Someone in the world hates spaghetti and will think you should have had chicken instead. It is impossible to please everyone. When things aren’t fits and giggles on your site, it’s time to drop your emotions and look at things objectively. Yes, the female of the 9rules Triad^TM is said: be objective.

At my.9rules this topic came up: what to do with misinformed comments? The original poster said:

I am fine with dissenting opinions, of course. It just seems counterproductive when the dissenting opinion isn’t just another way of looking at it, but an attack on my knowledge and skillset.

It just seems to be that “nice article, but I think you’re wrong about ______” is more productive than “you don’t know anything at all, you are clearly completely off-base with ______.”

If someone saying you’re off-base bothers you, close comments, pack up the blog, save yourself the headache. I’m serious…if you can’t take a comment like that you’re not ready for strangers to comment on what you write. I could see if the person said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re clearly ignorant on this topic” and said nothing else. That is not how 99.9% of these comments go. The person says, “OMG, what are you saying!?!” then proceeds to inform why they think the writer is 100% wrong. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong, most times it is a situation where there is no right or wrong…simply a difference of opinion. Most of the times the writer is feeling the sting of being told they are not knowledgeable and they do not want that opinion spread on the internet, especially on their site.

Ego tends to get people in trouble and that is why I encourage objectivity in situations like these.

You want to avoid a “you don’t know what you are talking about” comment, back up your entries with facts. That changes the conversation from accusations to a debate, somewhat forcing the opposing position to come forth with some facts to prove you wrong (or prove their point).

As a writer it is up to you to clearly define your point, facts and all.

Comments…lovely things they are until they become a pain in the butt. You know, the spam, the trolls…then the gray area – the people that disagree with you. What exactly do you “do” with people that don’t like you and what you write…and have the audacity to express that on your site?

Your gut instinct might be to delete the comment, simply rid your site of the nuisance. Some might even view it as therapeutic. Deleting the comment basically says “I win!” to the commenter. Or you might want to tell that rogue commenter off, put the sucker in his/her place for daring to show such a lack of disrespect on your site.

Then you realize you call yourself an adult and it is time for you to act like one.

No matter what you write, people are going to disagree with you. Even if the entry is about your personal life, you had spaghetti for dinner. Someone in the world hates spaghetti and will think you should have had chicken instead. It is impossible to please everyone. When things aren’t fits and giggles on your site, it’s time to drop your emotions and look at things objectively. Yes, the female of the 9rules Triad^TM is said: be objective.

At my.9rules this topic came up: what to do with misinformed comments? The original poster said:

I am fine with dissenting opinions, of course. It just seems counterproductive when the dissenting opinion isn’t just another way of looking at it, but an attack on my knowledge and skillset.

It just seems to be that “nice article, but I think you’re wrong about ______” is more productive than “you don’t know anything at all, you are clearly completely off-base with ______.”

If someone saying you’re off-base bothers you, close comments, pack up the blog, save yourself the headache. I’m serious…if you can’t take a comment like that you’re not ready for strangers to comment on what you write. I could see if the person said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re clearly ignorant on this topic” and said nothing else. That is not how 99.9% of these comments go. The person says, “OMG, what are you saying!?!” then proceeds to inform why they think the writer is 100% wrong. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong, most times it is a situation where there is no right or wrong…simply a difference of opinion. Most of the times the writer is feeling the sting of being told they are not knowledgeable and they do not want that opinion spread on the internet, especially on their site.

Ego tends to get people in trouble and that is why I encourage objectivity in situations like these.

You want to avoid a “you don’t know what you are talking about” comment, back up your entries with facts. That changes the conversation from accusations to a debate, somewhat forcing the opposing position to come forth with some facts to prove you wrong (or prove their point).

As a writer it is up to you to clearly define your point, facts and all.