Comments Policy on this blog

There is this thing about blogs. Many people read it. The percentage of people that you personally know among your readers is surprisingly small. Many internet relationships thus flourish, with people interacting from different cultures and corners of the world as if they have known each other for a long time. That is something I find very interesting.
Now there are 2 kinds of readers in the usual case: One who leave comments and develop a longer lasting bond with the author. And the other silent kind who never want to be heard but want to silently browse the lives of others.

Not that I have anything against any of these types. There is nothing wrong in reading and not being able to speak out. Many people just want to pass time by reading blogs and not bother about having to interact. I personally do appreciate your comments though.

Now there is another kind of readers. The third and the really obnoxious misogynistic and ‘personal attacks’ type. These are people who you have no clue about, that you do not know personally on any level. They do leave comments. But ONLY negative ones. Their name is “Anonymous”.

Not that I have anything against freedom of speech and writing. I have had considerable amount of animosity from people in my short life so far and I have learnt to deal with it. But giving “Criticism” is one thing. Being just negative for the heck of it is totally another issue! These people like to say something to personally insult the author. These are the kind that never write their real name or leave real email addresses. They must not be able to digest the fact that someone can write whatever they want and they cannot deal with it. So they attack the author personally instead.

A classic example: A long time ago, when I was blogging about my travels, my job and my dreams (this was way back when I had first started working), “Mr.Anonymous” left a comment saying “You are a wimp. You have what thousands of women have – a job, some money and career. You have nothing to be proud of”. Now why would anyone that doesnt know me or met me say that? Why should they bother to insult and agitate me with that kind of a comment? That too on my blog which never insulted that “anonymous” person in any way? Why did they not write some constructive criticism such as ” may be you should include better search tags” or “maybe blue color is better for the theme” or “you are not running right – you should actually try xyz”?

No! This person just wanted to insult me. Why? The comments these days are to the extent that comments interfere with the natural expression of the unedited voice of an individual. Read what Dave Wiener has to say about “Anonymous comments” – When a blog allows comments right below the writer’s post, what you get is a bunch of interesting ideas, carefully constructed, followed by a long spew of noise, filth, and anonymous rubbish that nobody … nobody … would say out loud if they had to take ownership of their words.

Just last week, another idiot left a comment on my blog about the cartoon where the thin bull is still receiving stimulus package. He is a student and still doesn’t understand what life is on the W.Street. He somehow takes a personal insult at that cartoon. Sometimes, people living in small university towns are just dead bored out of their minds that they talk nonsense. These days, it is the trend that comments are becoming more of a problem than the solution.

After a long debate with myself, I decided that people who know me well love me. People that don’t know me – I don’t care what they think about me personally. I do not care to change what people who don’t know me, think about me.

So for the generous people reading my blog – If you have a moment, please drop in a comment whenever you chance upon my blog. If you do not know me and just want to attack me personally because you are jealous or had a bad day, your kind of comments will not be published. My blog’s main focus is running and travel. I do not wish to turn it into a war zone where I defend my personality against unknown people. If you have it in you to just insult me for whatever reason, please do write comments and leave your email address (the real one). I will respond personally instead of publishing your crap my blog.

I am a big time advocate for free writing. So please do continue to write comments. The purpose of this post is not to scare people into not writing anything. It is more of a plea actually to let me know what you think when you read my blog and add any kind of constructive criticism. I really appreciate that kind of people.