The interesting thing about blogging (even if it’s anonymously) is that you don’t just make friends, you repel people too.
I recieved an unpleasant surprise yesterday evening, when a person who referred to herself as “Shital” posted a comment, NOT relating to my post, but on me, and my background. (http://maichyang.wordpress.com/2009/05/16/the-not-so-new-army-issue/) Clearly, it was someone who knows who I am, but from a distance (as I know from her interpretation of what my world consists of.) And perhaps because I’ve recieved solace from a reader some time back that readers do not care about my background and understand “exactly” the feelings of being judged on grounds of my background, this was unexpected.
It is a mistake we bloggers make, I was told recently by another blogger, when we overestimate our wit in trying to remain anonymous, but also underestimate our reader’s intelligence in figuring out who we are. The same applies to people who comment on our entries. Bloggers are blessed with a tool called search on their Blogs. They can search not only by the commentor’s names (people can use any number of names, nicknames, and pennames to comment) but also by the IP address they use when they make the comment.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy comments though. I enjoy comments, and especially constructive criticism. (http://maichyang.wordpress.com/2008/12/27/what-patriotism-isnt/) I love discussions (http://maichyang.wordpress.com/2009/01/03/load-shedding/ and interactions. But personal insults…? I think we Nepalis, as a race or an identity, or a people, have a lot of growing up to do. Also another reminder- denying (or commenting on) a “rich”/ “elite”/ “educated” person’s freedom of opinion and speech is as much discrimination as denying the same rights for the poor and downtrodden is.
hehehehheehehhhheeeeee!! thomay narrated the whole episode and i cudnt help find it funny. (u may not publish this if its way too umm.. watevr)
Comment by jyoti — May 22, 2009 @ 4:44 pm |
Hmm. The practice of demeaning bloggers on what they have written by preassumptious ‘readers’ who think they know all and are above everyone else is not a new phenomena in the blogosphere. I can’t say how much of these ridiculous remarks you receive in the blog but having faced so many of these kinds of ‘comments’ as a blogger I am become somewhat immune to this phenomenon now. I remember someone commenting’ why don’t you stick to talking abiout how many tshirts you bought’ in my blog a long time back etc. There were worse ones which are way to disturbing to even think of now. Anyways apart from this blog reader phenomena there is also a ‘blogger blame another blame game’ here. There was a time when I used to receive comments asking me if I was a hacker when another blog was ’supposedly hacked’ and even blamed of making ‘vulgar comments’ of all the things in the world when I am literally teaching the same blogger how to manage/avoid such comments in the blog! without any ground, no IP address match, no email nor do I know things in the comments and there’s the blame! This is mostly done by what I would say immature and somewhat ‘technically challenged’ bloggers. The greater problem however is that, despite the fact that IP addresses are a good way of tracking down a person who sends ‘ personal attacks/vulgar comments’ it is not a totally dependable way of ‘knowing the person’ in the case of ppl commenting from within Nepal. This is mainly becuz the web service providers keep changing the IP mask for security purposes even for the same computer…though it generally oscillates between same two or three IP masks. However,for comments from abroad , as the service provider appears with the address too ( unlike most comments from Nepali readers) relatively ‘minute’ details can be tracked by searching for a certain IP address in the web. If you do the same for comments for a IP address within Nepal it doesn’t show any concrete results
.At times we can even see the same IP address for entirely different/ unrelated people too! So this is a easy escape for such perpetrators. And there are equal chances of knowing who ‘exactly’ commented what and putting the ‘blame’ on someone innocent too. And its never fun to be blamed for something one hasn’t done!..I was discussing the web security aspects with a really geeky/nerdy software cum internet security concerned friend of mine and he shared the same worries too.
And lastly something on ‘information’ on people etc..There is this Internet security expert ( I don’t quite remember his name right now) but he talks on how ‘on being provide any information about a person it can be misused’ and when he says ‘any information’ it just means ‘anything’ , which can be the most silliest, mundane thing about the person..And if you ponder on it , its all very true.The processing of information can be done as one wishes too and even the simplest thing like being a male or female can be twisted to fit in an individual’s ‘misuse’ of the information…The quote really bugged me for a long time. But when you can’t really control/stop people from doing all sorts of nuisance on the web there is nothing else but refrain from doing the same.. And may be wish people were more sensible and responsible. This cycle of ‘irresponsibility’ may never stop though.What I find most ridiculous is how such people don’t open up their own blogs and vent their thoughts on ‘issues’ they so disagree with ‘us’ but can’t ’stand’ someone else expressing their point of view too! So blog on, sayad blog mantra nai ‘kaag garaundai jancha pina sutdai jancha’ nabanai sukha chaina!
Comment by Blogger — May 25, 2009 @ 12:55 pm |
Looks like you’ve got a lot of support. But you know, to each their own. Take it in stride.
Comment by thinkinink — May 28, 2009 @ 7:48 am |
Also, personally, I’ve never been a big proponent of the anonymity of the internet. Sure, it accords you a lot of freedom but I like to stand for my opinions. I want the people reading to understand my context and where I’m coming from. Then, they can understand and make comments better (or worse). But like I said, to each their own.
Comment by thinkinink — May 28, 2009 @ 8:57 am |