Confessions of a Thick-Skinned Blogger

Cheap shots — I’ve had my share.

Well, moderately thick-skinned, anyway.

When I started writing Reglike in early 2005, I was just getting my feet wet in the world of instantaneous, anonymous, public feedback. As any blogger will tell you, it isn’t always pretty. You have to have thick skin in this world. If you have thin skin, you take attacks personally and let it eat away at you.

Thanks to the relative anonymity of leaving comments on blogs, many people take the opportunity to lob cheap shots. When you start out blogging, this can get to you.

I recall sitting on a panel at GeoDomain Fest earlier this year with Elliot Silver. He admitted that he had “thin skin”. I promptly responded that I thought his blog sucked.

It was a joke, but any blogger will tell you they frequently get comments like that. They aren’t constructive, and often times the commenter doesn’t mean for them to be. It’s like the people who join forums only to start flame wars.

Learning how to deal with criticism is part of the game. Following all, disagreement is a good thing and notable for discourse. There are two types of criticism in my book: thoughtful criticism and idiot criticism.

Just since something is thoughtful doesn’t mean you have to agree with it. Stephen Douglas and I often disagree. But when he leaves a comment regarding a post I make, he clearly outlines why he thinks differently. That’s thoughtful and adds value.

Then there’s idiot criticism, which is comments like “This post is stupid”, “Are you an idiot?”, and “This is news?” (I got one of the latter ones this stretch). These comments are almost always anonymous, and don’t add any value. I call them YouTube comments. (Seriously, have you ever seen the comments on videos at YouTube? I always wondered who spent their time leaving those comments. Then I met all of them one day when I had to stand in line at the drivers license bureau.)

When I first started blogging, I’d usually take the bait and respond to comments like these. Following all, I can’t let this person take the last shot! But taking the bait is exactly what the commenter wants you to do. Don’t go for it. Your other readers will look at the stupid comment and say “what a stupid comment” and move on. You don’t need to defend yourself. If you ever find yourself writing “I probably shouldn’t bother responding to your comment, but…”, then stop writing your response. In fact, sometimes making no response is the most powerful response. People that try to egg you on get bored if you don’t take the bait.

So my skin’s getting a little thicker. And yes, I’m fully prepared for the smart ass comments that will be left on this post (assuming the smart asses aren’t all out Christmas shopping).