Your name, sir? Madam?
A blog is a little like having your own soapbox. You come, you say what you want and the people shout things back at you. You then have a choice about shouting back. The comments sections for some blogs become conversational salons where the blogger and commenters further the topic in new and interesting ways. I like these blogs and I go back and read the comments (cf. Fritz). I have good intentions in this area, but don’t always follow through because it’s hard enough for me to find the time to blog in the first place.
However, if I am going to have a debate with a commenter, I want to know his or her name. Here I am. My moniker is Stuntmother. My name is Francesca. This is a small piece of who I am, right here, laid out for you. I feel vulnerable, and rely on the respect (rather than the agreement) of commenters to honor that vulnerability, much as I hope I respect yours on your blogs.
If you leave me an anonymous comment, I will not respond to your challenges because you are not really here. I hope this is not merely a pulpit, but it is my space. While you are at my blog, you are in my house. I invite you in, I welcome your presence, your thoughts, agreeable or not, but introduce yourself. Your name, sir? Madam?
I wonder how others of you deal with or respond (or not) to anonymous commenters. Typepad blogs require a name and email address, is that right? Leave a comment and let me know how you’ve dealt.
EDIT: “Tell me your name” is not precisely what I meant and I’m sorry for being unclear (although I was tickled to get a name or two in the comments). I was just enranged at the mean drive-by commenting, about which rage I will write further in its own little post. What I meant was more amorphous, that if commenters, particularly strangers, want to engage me in debate about what I write (rather than just dropping a comment and never returning), they should stand behind words with a name or a blogger identity, if that. I didn’t mean that everyone should have to sign up to blogger to write here and for that reason, I will never turn off the option to comment anonymously (I would miss your occasional comments too much, Richard). Nor did I mean to set some random rule. I just don’t want to be snarked at by someone in a metaphorical ski mask. See the comment section for more commenting on comments. Indeed.
I’ve only had a couple that were truly anon and not just a poster without an account,and their comments were so outrageous that I ignored them for the most part. The instances I’m thinking of were when a local Boston site that functions as a news/blog directory–Universal Hub–picked up a rant if mine. A few people came, leapt to the conclusion that I’m a spoiled yuppie bitch, and said as much.
I’ve received hate mail on occasion from people I do not ‘know’ offline or via blogging, and just deleted it.
I would probably respond to a respectful, intelligent challenge from an anonymous poster, but part of me would also be thinking “Own your words, damnit.”
I kind of liked the fact that anonymous seemed to think we were actually talking about hair.
When I am reading comments on a blog and a comment is headed with that bold, lower case, “anonymous” then I do not read it. If “anonymous” posts on my blog then I delete it. I have no strong emotional feelings; I am dismissive.
It is like graffiti. As a very young person, who knew that drawing on walls was wrong and did not draw on walls, I would read every last scribble on the bathroom walls in high school. Now I don’t seem to really see graffiti. Everything I had read had started to repeat itself and was merely an excuse to draw on walls so I stopped giving it the time.
Now I have to go back and read the anonymous who commented about hair on your previous post…
(Insert “Girl from Ipeanema” music here.)
Okay, I’m back and sighing, sheeshing, and blowing small raspberries. I will continue to not read the “anonymous” commenter. They will be dismissed along with door-to-door salespeople, telemarketers, and angry people who hate children and like to pick on hard working mothers.
Oops.. that’s “I-p-a-n-e-m-a” as in ‘Garota de Ipanema’.
When I have received a snarky comment, I first sat stunned, looking at the screen. Then I thought “this is someone I know, too chicken to snark to my face…who could it be?” Then I forgot about it until the next time it happened.
I have never gotten an anonymous (or mean spirited) comment before, being new to blogging I only receive limited visitors. However, I have been to many blogs where comments have been deleted. I have also seen disclaimers that anonymous comments are likely to be deleted, etc. Still, I can see where it gets upsetting and frustrating. It is totally sneaky and rude. I agree with you that providing a link back to your own home (if you have one) is giving the host their due respect.
Never had an anonymous comment…
Just remember opinions are like assholes… everybody’s got one!
Don’t take the neggy’s to heart!
Yeah but…
Not everyone has a blog, nor has the knowledge of what the ground rules are on how to behave at this particular blog.
And isn’t there a difference between someone trying to engage with an issue (allbeit without giving their name), and just spouting off insulting rubbish?
I’m only ask to be informed. This is the only blog I read…
R
Hi,
It is so nice to be back here again Stunts! I’ve missed you and your space here.
I have never had an annonymous commenter. Or even a negative commenter for that matter.
I don’t really know how I’d feel.
i’d like to say that i could/would
ignore it
as i tell my children to do
when someone is rude
but really,
i know it would eat away at me
for a bit
and it would make me second guess
what i am writing in my posts
for a bit
and then as long as it didn’t happen
again,
the sting would go away
and everything would be hunky-dory
again…
don’t know how helpful that is,
but there it is.
I have had the utterly profound compliment of being engaged with anons on more than one hefty occassion. I am irked and resentful of these chattling morons who come to deliver spouts and then are off, prattling on blogs of which they do not regularly partake.
I think that is my stipulation; should one come to my blog on a regular basis under an anon tag, and often leave comments, and then state something that disagrees with one of my points, I could certainly digest that. But when these random bombs of insulting nature reach my blog, I am totally and completely overcome with rage. How dare they come to my home (as you say, Francesca), insult my being,and then run away? Cowards.
Therefore, I am no longer enabling my anonymous comments. If someone takes the time to create a profile and get a tag name just to tick me off, at least I can respect that, if not appreciate it.
Does it depend, then, on whether the blogger sees the blog as an attempt at discussion or more of a broadcast?
And is it different if an anonymous commenter agrees as opposed to disagrees with the line blogger?
If this blog is your home, Frankie, then surely it’s a home without a door, and so it’s inviting the curious to wander in?
As I say, this is the only blog I read. Answers to this will help me from putting my foot in it in another blog… (Putting a foot in a blog… there’s a joke there somewhere…)
That was a joke. It was me.
R
So there’s interesting stuff here, actually more than I had expected. Cool.
Fritz wrote:
But when these random bombs of insulting nature reach my blog, I am totally and completely overcome with rage. How dare they come to my home (as you say, Francesca), insult my being,and then run away? Cowards.
This is EXACTLY how I feel. Overcome. Enraged. And like I’m yelling coward! at a quickly retreating back.
GKGirl could not have better captured how such comments affect me. I wish it weren’t true, but it is. They leave me poisoned.
Richard makes the reasonable distinction between the polite anon and the drive by shooting anon. Yeah, okay. You’re completely right. I don’t actually care if you give me your real name or a made up name or if you call yourself Yellow Franky Pants of Woodland Delight so long as you’re (reasonably) respectful, reasonably polite and you’re legitimately trying to make a point. It’s a fine line though. And as Karrie wrote, “Own your words.”
Several of you suggested deleting such comments unread. I’m tempted. I might even put up a disclaimer about doing this, although as of now, such comments are still rare. So maybe I don’t need a policy yet.
Delete it. And let it roll off your back. This is probably the best advice and while I know this in my head, my soft little peeled baby soul is so easily pierced. I wish I knew how to grow a thicker hide.
There’s an interesting question about freedom of speech here, Frankie. But this is my third comment, so I’ll shut up. And lie about who I am.
I would have known that was you from twenty feet away, darling Ricardo.
And the point is very well made. But you should know that while you don’t have a Blogger identity, you are not anonymous. And wouldn’t be on someone else’s blog since you clearly sign your name — that is, own your words.
This is a home without a door. I like the image of it as a salon — where I am “at home” for tea and conversation every second Wednesday at seven. I would wear too many necklaces and perhaps something drapey.
I think that blogs are in a grey space between discussion and broadcast and all grey spaces are moody bastards with hidden pitfalls. Which way it swings depends a little on the blogger. I wish I were more available to debate. Mostly, I write and run. On Fridays however, I am alone with the computer and can indulge.
I confess to mightily preferring to be agreed with. On the other hand, I adore a rousing debate and don’t get enough of them in my real life. The grey area here is whether I feel (ah ha!) respected or dissed.
You know I so agree with you about the anonymous commenters who choose to leave nasty or disparaging comments without the courage to leave their name. I have had some really nasty comments left anonymously on my blog and my thing is if you have something to say, say it but don’t hide behind the anon title – I can handle any comment but when someone hides behind the anon they circumvent everyone’s opportunity to present their side of the story. I feel that those who leave the negative anon comments are basically cowards who can’t back up their nastiness. ’nuff said – oh and my name is Cynthia!
I’ve long thought that what other people think of me is none of my business, and I’ve tried to carry that over to my blog, knowing all the while that I’m throwing myself out there like food for the wolves. Some words ought not to be “owned,” I think. I’d not like to meet the people who utter them.
Anonymous must be a popular name – there seem to be so many of them out there – but what they have to say is sometimes as informative to us about what makes us angry as the compliments are to what make us feel good.
Of course, none of this answers your question. I haven’t had any anonymous commenters but I’ve read their words on plenty of other posts. I’d read them, consider the source, and move on…
I don’t think the anonymous thing really bothers me. I like to go more on what is being written.
Feel better. I used a Febreze like thing when my boyfriend spilled a large coke all over our car,
I’ve received one anonymous insult. If it had been an anonymous comment in disagreement with the post I would not have cared.