Wednesday, March 23, 2011

About Critics


Those who criticize what is written on my blog are generally helpful. They give me time to pause and think more deeply about what I have written. They give me ideas for further blog postings. They cause me to reevaluate my assumptions. I have a friend on Facebook who either criticizes me on my blog or on Facebook. We are almost always opposed to each other’s values and beliefs but I don’t believe we harass each other, just criticize, and not too often.

Some people wait a long time to criticize, and then it just seems they can’t stand it any longer and they finally write something. They generally do not return that often, undoubtedly from shyness or fear, or perhaps they just don’t care. And sometimes that is disappointing. But there is another kind of critic. I do not totally understand them, but I am trying to. But they do harass.

Several people have been asked not to post on my blog for various reasons. The biggest reason is because of their insulting words. But there are other reasons which I won’t detail at the moment since it is not important to what I want to say. Sometimes people who have been asked not to comment on my blog give me a real laugh. One person came back as anonymous. (Now here is something I haven’t mentioned. I have a feed on my blog. Mostly it is just fun. I love to see where people are coming from. You can see the feed on the front page of my blog if you scroll down. However I do have a page of my own where I can see several things, including city, state and country of the person who is reading my blog)

So this is the funny part. Anonymous, who was someone I had asked not to comment on my blog, came back and on the front you couldn’t see where he was coming from. But on my page I could see where he was coming from and that he was using something called, “Hide My Ass.” Only he wasn’t.

But here is the serious part. Sometimes people become so obsessed with thwarting what you have to say on a blog that they will resort to all kinds of tricks. They will even pretend that they are other people living in other places. And they seem authentic because they appear on feeds to be coming from where they say they are coming from. But instead they use proxy servers.

I know they are the same person for several reasons one being that they generally write the same. I know for other reasons that will be mine alone to know. But I am writing this to say this. If you see critical comments that you know are simply tearing apart language, are insulting and constitute harassment; if I don’t delete it, just ignore it. Write around them and ignore them.

And do something else. Pray for them. I do.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Viola,

To answer your question, these people are not "Critics" they are what the internet slang term as "Trolls" This is best described by ehow

How to Become an Internet Troll


You're sitting at your computer, completely bored and looking for something to amuse yourself with. You can have a little harmless fun by trolling message boards, chat rooms and online forums. What's a troll you ask?

In technical terms, an internet troll is someone who aims to cause emotional abuse to the participants of an online. In layman terms, a troll is someone who wants to ruffle feathers and stir the pot for their own amusement. They do this by planting inflammatory messages against a sensitive topic, disrupting and discrediting members who support the topic.

Step 3
Contribute nothing of value to the discussion forum. As a good troll, your goal is to abuse the members psychologically and provoke negative reactions out of them.

Step 4
Make personal attacks repeatedly toward those who support the ethos of the group.

Step 5
Argue repeatedly, using irrelevant facts, so that you disrupt the flow of the thread.

I guess you get the point, you don't have a critic problem you have a troll problem

Mary E. said...

VIola,

Sorry I forgot my name.
Mary E.
Gallatin TN

Viola Larson said...

Hi Mary,
Thanks. But I think there is a slight difference although I could be wrong. I think that a troll's only intent is amusement. I think that some of those I am writing about have a far more intense intent. I think they truly don't like what is being written and want to keep anyone who is writing or speaking about the subject from doing so. I think they don't want to dialogue about it but stop the conversation.