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
