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Why Do You Leave Comments?
Firstly, I do not, as a rule, offer comments on a poem or blog or anything primarily to be personally supportive of other people. For primarily personally supportive messages I use the PM system for the same reason I pray silently; I am not interested in displaying how nice I am, I am only interested in having a private discussion.
Since I do not use the comment system to leave supportive messages for the sake of being supportive, my comments tend to be in the critique or analytical mode, depending on the submission. I am either explaining why I liked something, what I believe can be done to improve it, or why I dislike or disagree with something.
I will be very clear here, I find comments containing nothing but praise to be of very limited value. Please read this carefully, I am talking about the comments, not about individuals leaving them. Merely because I do not like strawberry pie does not mean I dislike the baker. If, for what ever reason, you feel compelled to insist I am singling you out personally and holding you up to ridicule, I have only one thing to say:
"Not yet."
But respond in such a manner that you accuse me of attacking you when I have not and I will be only too happy to ridicule you as, as I have explained many times previously, I despise passive aggressive behaviour and oppose it whenever it stumbles across me insisting I am a bad person for daring to have an opinion it does not like.
The purpose of my comments on a poem or a blog is to add to the discussion, to expand the reach, or to state in no uncertain terms why I believe it is of limited or no value. Once again, I am talking about the work presented, not the author. I do not, as a rule, attack people for a position they have presented. Though, if the person is so wedded to their position that they believe any attack on it must be a personal slight, well, I admit I do not give a rat's ass as to their fabricated hurts.
After all, I can only control what I say, not what others choose to hear, and if there is an issue that requires clarification I do not believe it is an unjust expectation that they ask for clarity rather than assume they are being attacked and make childish statements and manufacture slights and clamour about imagined hurts.
So, that's my stance and reasoning. Why do you leave comments? What is your purpose? What are you trying to accomplish? What is your goal?
I am not judging the actions of anyone, I am just wondering if people are honest with themselves as to what they represent themselves as doing and what they actually do.
For me, I represent my comments as critique. I can pull example after example of this thus I conclude my representation is accurate.
Do you believe you are critiquing and actually only offering unconditional praise? Do you believe you are critiquing and only offering unhelpful re-writes with no explanation? Are you offering nothing but praise and representing yourself as offering nothing but praise? Are you offering only criticism but believe it is praise? Is it a combination of any or all?
Basically, what is your intent and how well do you realise it?
For those of you following other discussions, this is the same core question applied to "Why did you suppose THAT was a poem?" - http://www.neopoet.com/blog/33358-why-did-you-suppose-was-poem - and if you are uncomfortable with the question, chances are you will be uncomfortable with the discussion.
There are those who will declare this blog entry is a personal attack on them. As this is beyond my control it is beyond my concern.
Since I do not use the comment system to leave supportive messages for the sake of being supportive, my comments tend to be in the critique or analytical mode, depending on the submission. I am either explaining why I liked something, what I believe can be done to improve it, or why I dislike or disagree with something.
I will be very clear here, I find comments containing nothing but praise to be of very limited value. Please read this carefully, I am talking about the comments, not about individuals leaving them. Merely because I do not like strawberry pie does not mean I dislike the baker. If, for what ever reason, you feel compelled to insist I am singling you out personally and holding you up to ridicule, I have only one thing to say:
"Not yet."
But respond in such a manner that you accuse me of attacking you when I have not and I will be only too happy to ridicule you as, as I have explained many times previously, I despise passive aggressive behaviour and oppose it whenever it stumbles across me insisting I am a bad person for daring to have an opinion it does not like.
The purpose of my comments on a poem or a blog is to add to the discussion, to expand the reach, or to state in no uncertain terms why I believe it is of limited or no value. Once again, I am talking about the work presented, not the author. I do not, as a rule, attack people for a position they have presented. Though, if the person is so wedded to their position that they believe any attack on it must be a personal slight, well, I admit I do not give a rat's ass as to their fabricated hurts.
After all, I can only control what I say, not what others choose to hear, and if there is an issue that requires clarification I do not believe it is an unjust expectation that they ask for clarity rather than assume they are being attacked and make childish statements and manufacture slights and clamour about imagined hurts.
So, that's my stance and reasoning. Why do you leave comments? What is your purpose? What are you trying to accomplish? What is your goal?
I am not judging the actions of anyone, I am just wondering if people are honest with themselves as to what they represent themselves as doing and what they actually do.
For me, I represent my comments as critique. I can pull example after example of this thus I conclude my representation is accurate.
Do you believe you are critiquing and actually only offering unconditional praise? Do you believe you are critiquing and only offering unhelpful re-writes with no explanation? Are you offering nothing but praise and representing yourself as offering nothing but praise? Are you offering only criticism but believe it is praise? Is it a combination of any or all?
Basically, what is your intent and how well do you realise it?
For those of you following other discussions, this is the same core question applied to "Why did you suppose THAT was a poem?" - http://www.neopoet.com/blog/33358-why-did-you-suppose-was-poem - and if you are uncomfortable with the question, chances are you will be uncomfortable with the discussion.
There are those who will declare this blog entry is a personal attack on them. As this is beyond my control it is beyond my concern.