it’s not about you

On Why I Blog: Let’s just get it all out in the open, shall we?

There’s an unspoken understanding about people’s blogs that around here lately has either been ignored or that people just weren’t or aren’t aware of. And that is that you show the appropriate respect for the blog owner and the type of blog she has. Certain blogs are meant to incite a lot of controversy and can then be treated as such. There are religious blogs where you can weigh in your theological thoughts; there are political blogs where you are encouraged to participate and fight with each other and continue to root yourself even deeper into your political affiliation; there are news blogs and gossip blogs and sports blog and weather blogs, and well, you get the idea.

Then there are personal blogs, where people like you and me write about ourselves and what we think about stuff. This blog happens to be one of those - it is my PERSONAL BLOG. This is meant to be a safe space for me to brag on my kids and my husband, to post photos, to link to articles about issues I care about, and to talk about what’s going on in my life and what I’m thinking about, well, anything and everything. I don’t always have everything figured out. I don’t always have a perfect opinion on the topic at hand. But that’s the point, really. It’s where I unload my brain, where I try to sort things out, where I dump my frustrations, where I archive my life and my process. You don’t have to like what I’m thinking or what I’m saying. You don’t have to agree with me. If you dislike that, then go start i hate kristen rudd dot com. I don’t care. I won’t read you, but go ahead. If what I say on here bothers you that much, then just don’t come back. I won’t miss you.

The way I see this is that by you coming here, it’s like you coming into my home. We have pretty much an open-door policy at our home. You are welcome to come in, visit, stay for dinner, we might even take you in for a while, and talk about pretty much anything. We (gasp) even have people over who have wildly different thoughts on everything from us. And we love that. We love that. I believe in free speech. I believe in community. I don’t believe in only letting voices be heard that I agree with (otherwise Hollywood would NEVER stand a chance on my comments boards!). I want to foster those values in my life, and my blog is an extension of my life.

Having said that, if I were to invite you into my home, and your only response was to abuse me and my family, verbally, physically or otherwise, you would be asked to leave. Immediately, and possibly with force. Speech and community are only valuable as long as they are mutually respected by all the parties involved. Otherwise they cease to be beneficial things.

I say all this because lately, something has been happening on my comment boards that has caused me quite a bit of upset and distress, and has been the equivalent of someone walking through the door to my home and hitting me across the face. What’s happened on my comment boards has stripped my blog of being that safe place for me and it’s left me not wanting to post anything because I don’t want to deal with, and don’t have the emotional energy to deal with, the resulting comments. I am self-censoring, something I never wanted to do on here. And I haven’t really been sure of what to do about it.

I’m really sad to say that instead of this coming from anonymous strangers trolling my blog, it is coming from members of my own family. When the comments turned downright mean and rude, I decided to moderate them and keep them from appearing on the blog, because really, is that necessary?

Then I just kept getting more and more comments from members of my family, some of which were extremely hurtful (and on posts that are one to two months old), and some of which I actually would allow through. When the comments turned mean, at first it confused me, then hurt me, then frustrated me, then angered me, then downright pissed me off. This caused me a dilemma. Up until this point, I have never moderated non-spam comments.

We (by this I mean Joshua and I) have never had a comment policy other than to keep spam off our sites. When I moderated those initial comments recently, I thought perhaps I would never have to do it again. Since I’ve continued to receive what I consider valid comments from the same people, I was faced with the decision whether to allow some of their comments through - essentially only letting through what I deemed was appropriate. After all, no one but me and the commenter would know about the moderated ones anyway.

That was part of the problem. I already did know. Whether the comment appeared on the site or not, it had already been made and it had already had its effect. So I’ve decided to let all comments through. It’s either that, or I close down the comments boards entirely, which I don’t want to do. Like I said, I value and believe in free speech and community.

So here’s a comment policy I’ve come up with:

Say whatever you want. Go ahead. It will be published on my blog for all the world to see. The only way your comment will be kept from appearing is if it is spam, if you do not provide a valid e-mail address and respond to a request for identification, or if you promote any illegal activity that could get me in trouble. Please be advised that anything you say in the comments boards may be loved, adored, put up with, responded to, completely ignored, ridiculed, spat upon, made fun of, or be turned into fodder for (a) blog posts and (b) t-shirts, by either myself or the other commenters.

That said, I have a few requests of your comments of things I would appreciate:

If you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t say it on the comments board. The virtual barrier of this forum allows for some people to say things to others they would never say in real life. That sucks.

Please consider the impact your comment will have. Do you REALLY want to hit that button? Once you do, it’s going on here and will be part of your permanent electronic internet record.

Also, if I feel that if certain commenters get out of hand and continue to disrespect the boards, the blog, or me, I will privately ask them to no longer comment and would appreciate their respect of that request, as I would do if someone continued to show disrespect for the integrity of my home and family. If your problem with me is so great, then let’s be mature about it and deal with it privately. I would much prefer you send me an e-mail than use my blog to publicly shed your grievances with me.

As for my family, I felt this needed to be addressed here. I have never used my blog in any way to publicly display any grievances or issues I have with family members or about family dynamics. I’m honestly shocked, appalled, and deeply hurt that you feel it is appropriate to do so. I will continue to respect my family members in this way, and if you cannot do the same, please consider the impact on our relationship that will have, because I can tell you, it is having great impact on me.

Having said all of that, please keep commenting on my site. I enjoy it. Usually.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 4th, 2006 at 8:14 am and is filed under Rants, Body & Soul, Blogworthy, Moral Values, Community, Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.