Another post quite a while ago, I reminded people why I don’t usually have comments turned on for immediate publication on this blog.

Having suffered with the idiocy of the internet, my opinion hasn’t changed. Anytime you put out an opinion, even an honest, reasoned one, many people simply can’t overcome the need to snark and snarl at it. People reading casually don’t tend to think deeply about the content and they then latch on to the most irrelevant details of your thoughts, twist it, and then retort back with the weirdest, least helpful things they can say. That’s the internet. I can’t change it, nor do I want to.

The more honest and personal the content, the greater the propensity for needlessly harsh commentary. Just as your Aunt Kathy will fill every status update on facebook with crazy religious nonsense (even posts about raising money for kittens), you will find yourself spending way too much time trying to get into people’s heads about what they write. (Remember one of my favorite quotes: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”) Give them the benefit of the doubt and just assume that they are bored.

In an ideal world, I would love to leave commenting active for the blog. Many people have some great criticism or helpful advice. Other readers will see this and learn more from the comments at times than the even the writer can convey. The reality is, though, that much of the commentary on blogs is either edited praise or a crazy mashup of hatred and snipe, usually involving politics or religion. I’ve found that people with really great commentary or ideas find a way to get that idea to you in another form. The snipers tend to have a “drive-by” lazy mentality about their ideas. If they can’t lob an easy verbal bomb, they leave more quickly.

Many will criticize but few will take the time to rebut or argue in either a fun or meaningful way.

As always, I recommend that you get your own forum for your ideas if mine at too liberal, weird, or uninteresting for you. X