Harrassment

Bonnie recently posted about a couple of spanking blogs that have shut down/disappeared in the last bit of time because they've fallen prey to harrassment and abuse and anonymous comment vitriol. 

It does seem that the very fact of blogging opens us up to a wider universe where at least some people believe that we are, by the very nature of what we write and share, fair game.  Over the course of the years that I (and we) have written about our lives here, we've experienced that phenomenon to varying degrees -- sometimes hardly anyone chooses to come here to leave nasty, judgemental, hateful comments -- and then there are seasons where the anonymous ones seem to crawl out of their hidey holes to spew mean stuff everywhere.  It does seem to me that the incidence of that sort of thing is increasing -- I wonder how many people take the predominant culture of Fetlife out into the blogosphere and just assume that it is reasonable to be combative in every encounter?

Whatever ... It isn't just us.  Around the circle of people who are linked here, and the wider spanking community, almost everyone has been subjected to periodic assaults by mostly anonymous nitwits who take it upon themselves to leave nasty comments all over the place.

There are ways to protect yourself, if you write in this format, from these creeps.  A simple change of the settings on this blog would effectively eliminate the possibility that any anonymous commenter would ever write a single hateful word and post it on this site.  Believe me, I've been tempted ... on more than one occasion, to make that the way of it here.  The problem with that solution is that, occasionally an anonymous commenter stops by and leaves a comment that is interesting, intelligent, thought provoking, respectful.  Blocking all the anonymous commenters would save us the trouble of dealing with the nasty, immature, combative ones; but it would also deprive us of the pleasure of conversation with the now and then stranger who stops by and offers something of value.  So far, we've chosen to preserve the option for that unexpected and oh so welcome guest.

I don't like mean anonymous comments.  They do bother me.  I choose to delete them, rather than wonder whether the intent was really as mean as it seems it might be.  When it comes down to it, I've decided that, if I am wondering about it, then it probably is just easier to delete those nasty comments from unidentified critters.  We've been writing here for a really long time.  Beyond these last couple of blogs that have been driven into oblivion, we've seen plenty of good people vanish from view because of harrassment from the self-righteous folk who think they know what is best for ALL OF US.  We've withstood the firestorm of criticism for years and years.  After awhile, doing this, you develop a pretty tough hide. 

We'll continue to protect and defend the integrity of this place while working to keep the discourse as free and open as we can.  Sometimes that means that all of us will be exposed to some ignorant, judgemental bit of doggerel from some self-righteous, tight-assed, know-it-all, anonymous commenter.   Be assured that we'll continue to eliminate that "stuff" from our comment pages, and go right on sharing the truth of our lives with those readers and friends (alice, morningstar, greenwoman, selkie, impish, oatmeal girl, abby, chloe, mouse, tangerine tease, danae, bonnie, lynlass, kaya, PK, -- and a whole host of others) who have come to be such a positive force in our lives.

Thanks to each and all of you!

swan