I never require perfection from the people that comment on my journal because I know for sure I’ve been guilty of leaving comments that were really just wrong in every way. I’ve left comments that were careless, uninformed or inappropriate on more than one occasion. There was this one time that I told a girl she was wrong about saying someone in her church fell out. I told her that real falling out means the person sways back and forth while gasping. The believer holds her chest then exclaims, Sweet Jesus as she falls back into the arms of the faithful. I told her that what her fellow Christian did was hardly falling out at all. A bit of yelling and crying then falling on the floor really isn’t considered “falling out.” Of course I was kidding. I mean dang, I don’t have the rule book on “falling out” because McGraw Hill has yet to publish it. They’re always so behind on the times. So, she answers back with humor but others told me I was out of line because the church she went to was for the terminally ill. There I was joking about falling out and how to do it properly on a rather serious journal. Fortunately she took it well but her readers did not. She said it was about time someone responded with humor instead of the “we are so sorry you’re dying” comments she was use to getting. Well, had I read even two or three entries I wouldn’t have said what I said.
That comment was sooo careless. To make matters worse I did more than tell her she didn’t know how to fall out I had to go on to tell her that she said her pastor gave a good sermon but offered no clear evidence to substantiate her claims. I said a good sermon is one where an ambulance is called because no fewer than 5 members were filled with Holy Spirit resulting in injury. Why couldn’t I just leave it alone? Why couldn’t I just shut up? No, I had to talk about Holy Spirit related injuries. I clicked send and I couldn’t take it back. I’m so happy she took that well. Her readers were a whole different story.
Many times I’ve been guilty of pressing send before I thought. I was ready to spill blogger blood on more than one occasion when truthfully that kind of response was neither warranted nor was it based on accurate information. I have left some doozy comments I do mean to tell ya. Why? Is it because I’m normally an idiot? No, just that on that day I was willing to set aside the other person’s feelings so that I could unload, moan and complain. I never set out to be an idiot but it happens. Now, there are people who set out to offend. I’ve gotten a few of those comments. They’re deleted without a response because its trash and deserves to be treated as such with no attention and no acknowledgement. Those comments are different than the common blogger comment based on emotion or lack of info.
When a comment comes on a blog that is a common blogger comment they can start what I call blogger wars. I’ve seen that stuff get ugly. One thing that can change all that is to allow the mistakes of others to be seen as such and not as a personal attack. Today I wish I hadn’t been so hasty to add a sarcastic tone with my reply to J.T. Yes, his reply was uninformed and it seemed to be related to some issues of his own with race relations. But I think had I simply explained what I meant and left it alone I’d feel a bit better about it. But nooo, I had to go and say thank you for not returning. So listen, yes J.T. was not informed but to tell him not to come back is totally against my policy of “mistakes are welcome on Sundrip Journals.” I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve said something that really wasn’t accurate or that was just out and out wrong or straight up offensive. So, please ignore the last part about thank you for not returning. I pressed send based on a very emotionally draining day and not based on my usual treatment of readers or people in general. This leads me to talking about my comment policy, a topic I’ve been meaning to write about for quite some time. Instead of doing an entry I’m going to do a short page on comments so that it will be easily seen and not something that can be archived out of view. I’ll be working on that and hope to have it up by tomorrow.
Austin
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