Negative comments on your blog?

[Frantic Home Cook]

I'm really enjoying blogging but I have to say I'm a bit thin skinned. And it's not really getting better. When I post a photo with my hand in it, someone will write that I have "fat hands." When I post a smoothie recipe, someone writes that it "looks disgusting." I've gotten complaints about including my pets in one post, another about "cutesy stupid writing" on my pics and another about how gross my recipes look.

I guess I expected that kind of thing when I started getting hundreds of comments a day but I get just a couple.

It's enough to make me want to put an oven mitt on my stubby hands (I always wanted long, slender model hands but these serve me well enough).

Does anyone else get a lot of negativity? How do you feel about it?

[Jill McKeever]

That STINKS!
You're deleting these comments, right?

I love your blog! and don't you change it!

[Gina]

wow, that's mean! I can't believe how cruel people can be. So far no negative comments, but I haven't put my hand or dog in any pictures and I probably never will after reading this. Just to make you feel better, I am a photo retoucher by profession and I have worked on models for fashion and beauty ads and hands always have to be retouched, always! So, picture perfect hands dont exist.

[Jill McKeever]

Here's some great advice from a Professional Blogger I highly respect, Yaro Starak. I belong to his newsletter, Blog Traffic School. It's great stuff for all types of bloggers.

This edition of the newsletter I want to cover a
topic that is very delicate, but worth studying
because you can use it to turn what may appear to
be a bad situation into a positive one for you and
your blog.

WHAT IS A COWBOY?

I don't know who originally came up with the term,
but I recently came across it again when a very
successful Internet business mentor of mine, Mike
Filsaime, talked about "cowboys". Mike used the
term for people in online forums who just want to
bring you down.

Cowboys usually have loud mouths and are very
negative. For whatever reason one day you may
become the focus of a cowboy who decides they
don't like something you have done, something you
have said or just take offense at you in general.
They make it a personal mission of theirs to
attack you in public places like forums and blogs,
throwing accusations at you left, right and
center.

The anonymity of the Internet gives cowboys
freedom because they don't feel the social
restrictions or expectations they might impose on
their communication in the real world. In other
words - because they can be anonymous online or
feel safe behind a computer, they are comfortable
to attack people in ways they would never do so in
the real world.

Most cowboys use strong language which is overtly
negative and very accusatory. They often lack
maturity which compounds your frustrations because
you can't respond to them with maturity, they will
just throw more accusations at you without
acknowledging your point of view. You can't
compete with them by arguing because that's what
they specialize in. That's how flame wars begin
and as we know, in war, there are no winners.

HOW TO DEAL WITH COWBOYS

In most cases it's best to just not respond unless
of course you have done something wrong and you
need to apologize. Your are better off letting
your friends and supporters back you up and just
ignore the cowboy altogether. The negativity the
cowboy is generating will (unfortunately) come
back at them and they will suffer more as a
result, probably leading them to attacking more
people, creating a cycle of negativity. You want
to avoid getting caught up in it.

NEGATIVE BLOG COMMENTS

As your blog becomes more popular you will receive
more comments. As you have already heard from me,
comments are great traffic building tools, so it's
worth encouraging them.

A problem I can guarantee you will eventually
experience is some people will be negative,
argumentative or not agree with what you have
written in your blog and will tell you this by
leaving a comment.

Some people will be just plain rude and leave a
comment that adds nothing to the conversation and
will go along the lines of "this article sucks and
so do you". They may use many more - sometimes
colorful - words to put you down and explain how
your article is wrong, or redundant, or boring or
useless. They will probably have some harsh things
to say about you personally too.

The more mature people may leave a "negative"
comment but have a sound argument and may perhaps
make you rethink what you originally wrote. This
form of criticism is more constructive. Ultimately
you may not agree but the argument is at least
valid and worth respecting, even if you don't
share the view.

As good as the web is for enhancing communication,
it's an imperfect medium. People read things in
your articles that you had no intention of saying.
They "see" your message in a different way to how
you see it.

This is of course a good thing, because you can
help others have insights by sharing your point of
view and experiences, but on the flip side you can
be unpleasantly surprised when someone responds in
a negative manner.

Your reader's personality, mood and outlook on
life can completely twist your intended message
and it will happen whether you like it or not.
Text is not emotional, but humans are, so you need
to be prepared for any kind of response after
pushing that publish button.

HOW DO YOU RESPOND?

The issue we face as publishers of blogs is how to
respond to comments that are negative.

- You could delete them.
- You could censor them (delete parts).
- You could respond in anger.
- You could respond in kind.

In my experience I've sometimes let comments get
to me. I can get really angry, especially when the
comment is clearly something aimed purely as a
put-down for the sake of saying something
negative.

I've gone as far as writing an equally angry
response, full of defensive and argumentative
commentary, however I don't actually publish the
response since I know it won't do me any good - I
just want to get the anger out in the moment.

IF YOU CAN'T SAY ANYTHING NICE
DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL

You should know that phrase - it's one of those
our mothers teach us when young. It's perfect for
situations like this, apply it to yourself when
dealing with cowboys.

TURN NEGATIVITY INTO A POSITIVE

The traffic technique to deal with negative
comments is to use them to show how mature you are
and demonstrate your credibility. If you respond
to negative comments without anger, with no
negative emotion and with a calm "your side of the
story" response, you will gain the respect of your
readers. Acknowledge the cowboy's point - it's a
good communication technique to say you heard and
understand someone else's point of view - and you
will do wonders for your public perception.

In most cases the cowboy will end up making
themselves look a lot worse than you simply
because of how they express themselves. When you
compare a person who is rational, not overly
emotional and calm against someone who is
attacking with highly charged emotional
accusations, it's pretty clear who comes out
looking the best.

Most readers of your blog are good people, they
may remain anonymous for fear of being the next
target of the cowboy, but you can be confident if
you stick to your true self and remain calm, you
will come out on top in their eyes. Better still,
you will enhance your reputation and credibility
even further, despite the best efforts of the
cowboy to bring you down, which I think is a
lovely piece of irony - the person who attacks you
ends up boosting your public standing because they
give you an opportunity to show what kind of
person you really are.

Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King

[Mrs.W]

Wow--that's crazy! I've never had a negative comment on my blog*, and looking at your blog I can't see why you would, either. I take it you're deleting them?

*I did enter an 'ugliest gourmet' contest last fall and, to enter, I made a cake that looks like a cat litter box. I know, gross. But it WAS an ugliest gourmet contest, and it was a fabulous cake--just looked ugly. Anyway, I found another blog that identified my cake and talked some trash about it. What did I do? Comment on their blog, agreeing that indeed, it did look awful, but I promised it tasted dee-lish! That ended that.

[Lisa R]

That is simply unbelievable! Delete them and put them waaaaay faaaar behind you. I love your blog and I agree with the other comments -- don't change one darn thing about it, up to and including the pix!

[Pixie]

I received my first negative comment yesterday. So, I know how you feel. It can be very upsetting but my guess is anyone making such comments are likely to be spammers or kids. The comment I received was about the clementine curd but I found out that they were impersonating someone else trying to give a popular site a bad rep. I'm sorry to hear you're getting such negative comments. It angers me.

I deleted the comment and contacted the site; that's how I found out what was really going on.

[Zelda Manners]

It's usually the people with the least to offer who waste everyone else's time by being negative. I have just read your blog and it's excellent! I love how reader-friendly it is. Keep it up! Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, writer of the Sherlock Holmes stories, once said that 'mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself'.

[Jill McKeever]

'mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself'

Ooo, I like that!

[Frantic Home Cook]

Thanks, everyone! Yes, I deleted the worst ones. I don't mind an opinion but the one's that were inflammatory, personal or just cruel went into the trash.

Great advice. Appreciate it!

Francie

[Frantic Home Cook]

And the hits just keep on coming....


Bill Says:
Today at 11:48 am (1 hour ago)
Dairy is not “healthy”. sweetened yoghurt is not “healthy” You’re an idiot.


Francie Says:
Today at 12:53 pm (4 minutes ago)

Yes, at times I can be an idiot. But I’m polite.

[Mrs.W]

The people who are leaving those comments don't have any idea about what is healthy.

[Ben]

People who leave negative comments most of the time don't have anything better to offer. Many times they don't even have a blog, but they feel they have the right to go around talking trash. So I really don't pay any attention to them. I love your blog, I love your pictures and your little "ramblings" hehehe. Don't change it :)