Curved Opinion of the Week

This is the second installment of my weekly "Curved Opinion of the Week" feature.

There have been two issues on my mind this week, the first is the case of Sandra Bland which I have written about here and the second is the hunter Walter Palmer who has been in the news after killing, actually lets not say killing, lets say murdering because that is what he did, a lion named Cecil.

What I was thinking about today are the people who tell you:

"You shouldn't be moaning about "x", when "y" is happening in the world".  

This happened to me when I was commenting on an article about Walter Palmer by someone telling me that the Sandra Bland case was more important.  The two are in no way, shape or form connected and therefore cannot be compared.

Are we not allowed to care about different subjects?  Do we have to pick just one?  If that is the case, then I am thoroughly screwed.

It seems that in the comments section these days, (I know, I know, don't read the comments sections, evil resides there) whatever the subject the article is written on, I see people try to change the subject to something entirely different, but they believe is what should be talked about.  Sometimes their subject is more important, but why can we not speak about both?

Why can I not comment on an article about (for example) how to create the perfect pin curl without being told by some guy that I should be thinking about more important issues, like ISIS.  For all they know, I could have spent the rest of the day reading about ISIS and wanted some light relief!

Can I not comment on an article about FGM without somebody saying "What about male circumcision?  What are women doing about that?"

Do we have to write a warning on all of our comments stating "I know that the issues of x, y and z are all important, I talk about them all regularly but I want to talk about something else for a second?"

Enquiring mind want to know.

Away with the Fairy Folk

I am the first to admit that I have been a little away with the fairies for the past few weeks (on a side note, wouldn’t that be really cool, runing away with the fairies, I wanna do it!). There are various sides of my life that are madly swinging on the axis and my sense of direction seems to be all askew.

Things are finally settling down a little bit and one of the things that I want to get back into shape is my blog. Whilst I have never been one for writing and scheduling posts more than a couple of days ahead and I never work to a specific format, I feel that some sort of structure is needed.

The top on my blog priority list is the comments. I have previously answered each and every comment posted on my blog as I feel that someone is taking the time to comment, I should reciprocate in replying back. This hasn’t been happening lately, in fact for a couple of months now and I feel horrible about it.

My action plan is now to take ten minutes from each day to ensure that I reply. Replying to someone three weeks after the fact seems a little pointless and I want to make sure that I am now replying every day.

Same goes with reading other people’s blogs. There are so many that I love and read but yet again, I haven’t had time to comment. Knowing how happy it makes me to receive a comment, I feel bad for not doing the same as much as I want for others too.

This too will be rectified!

I will always put in my opinion and lifestyle pieces into my blog whenever the mood strikes me but I want to bring more fashion into the equation too. I have several pieces that I have bought but just not been able to photograph.

My life would be so much easier if I had someone following my around with a camera…… Anyone want to apply? If you are male, can make me smile at the drop of a hat and can work for free you will be hired in a millisecond!! ;)

Anyway, that is my action plan, more comments, more fashion, better organisation and if a man with a twinkle in his eye shows up along the way, I won’t complain.

Guest Post from Just Me Leah

Morning all! 

Today I am happy to say that I have the fabulous +Just me Leah guest posting on my blog today, so I will hand you over to her.

Hi, I’m Leah and I blog at www.justmeleah.co.uk. Thanks to Vicky for giving me the opportunity to guest post on her blog.

HOW TO DEAL WITH CONFLICT ON THE INTERNET

 

As bloggers, people who comment on blogs, or people who use social networking pages and forums regularly we’re all at risk of coming into contact with people who share a very different set of values and beliefs to us, which can lead to conflict. For this post I will be writing from the perspective of you being the one who’s on the receiving end of conflict. 

 

If you’ve been active online for a long time and haven’t come into conflict with anyone I’d hazard a guess that you’re in the minority. The first time someone sought me out over something I’d said was on MySpace almost 10 years ago. Someone called me an emo (and much worse) because one of the many bands I said I liked in my introductory post in a group about rock music didn’t fall into the rock/metal category according to them. There have been many occasions since then where someone has felt the need to tell me how wrong I am about something, the last of which was very recently. The circumstances each time have been different and have warranted differing courses of action.

 

There are three categories of people you may come into conflict with.

 

1.  The person you’re in conflict with is using an anonymous profile. I would advise caution, because you have no idea if the person in conflict with you is a slightly pissed off keyboard warrior, someone having an off day who might later regret their comment, or an unhinged person with an agenda and nothing better to do than pick your life apart for their own amusement. I don’t allow anon comments on my blog as I think it gives people the opportunity to do their worst. If your blog or social media page has an option to pre-approve comments, think hard about whether you want to publish negative ones. Do you want to respond to the person if you publish it, or leave it there and have someone else possibly stick up for you and get drawn into it? What effect might getting dragged into a slanging match have on you and the other people who can see it?

 

2. The person you’re in conflict with is well known to you. How you proceed depends on their relationship with you and how your response might affect things outside your relationship with them. For example if you fall out with a friend of a friend, how will that affect things with your friend? If a family member has said something out of order, is it worth making life awkward for the whole family? Think hard and take a little time to breathe before saying something you can never take back. If they’ve said something unconscionable, I would suggest blocking them rather than having an ongoing conflict. The break might do you good and at a later date a reconciliation might be possible. You never know. But if it's someone on Facebook who's overstepped the mark, the choice is yours to reply or delete their comment and/or block them.

 

3. The person you’re in conflict with is using an account or username you can Google search. You’ve just hit gold, my friend! Everyone using a regular username leaves breadcrumbs you can follow, and most of us are creatures of habit after all. If you can Google their name/username, within a few clicks you can find out whether they’re trolls who do this a lot, or it’s somewhat out of character.

 

When someone took exception to a throwaway comment I made on someone else’s blog recently I Googled her username, and something very interesting became apparent. She rarely commented on a post to say anything good. In fact she rarely commented on a POST at all. Instead she’d find something contrary to say to someone who’d posted in the comments. I had been contemplating replying to her, but when I saw she was the kind of person who mainly looked for something to argue about, I knew the kind of person she was and decided I didn’t need to go there. Know your ‘opponent’ where possible because it will dictate your course of action.

 

Things to remember:

·  Some people are trolls, pure and simple. They enjoy getting a rise out of someone and if you respond it’ll make their day.

·  You have the choice to delete and ignore the comment, reply once and say your piece in full and never comment again, or be drawn into a dialogue which might go bad like milk in summer. There’s no right or wrong decision – just take a few deep breaths while you decide what to do. It’s hard to be calm when you feel under attack but you can’t unsay something once it’s on the internet.

·  I’ve regretted answering back a couple of times but have never regretted deleting a crappy comment and forgetting about it.

·  There are some people who ALWAYS have to have the last word even if they’re wrong. These people will gain pleasure from keeping a row going until you give up. Then they think they’ve ‘won’.

·   There are some people who don’t even care what subject you’re talking about. They have a superiority complex and will argue to prove to themselves how great they are. They will argue about the colour of the sky for the joy of arguing. Leave them alone in a room and they’ll argue with their shadow. Avoid.

·  There are some subjects which are so contentious you and the other person could debate/argue for months and still NEVER see eye to eye. You have to work out if there’s any point in wasting your energy on someone like that.

What are your tips on dealing with conflict? Feel free to let us know your troll horror stories in the comments.

Thanks for reading.

Leah