Why do Latino women have overabundant backgrounds? Is it because of pillion-riding Motorcycles on bumpy roads? Whatever be the case Latinos lead the world, be it erstwhile JLo or the current Hip-stress Shakira.
**What are Comments?
**
Anything that’s said/written in response to an act. Applied to Mouthshut, it means readers reaction to a review posted by a writer. Comments are as desirable as dark chocolate if they’re sweet and enticing. Undesirable like plague or AIDS if they happen to be nasty; nasty comments have a way of becoming contagious and spreading like Ebola virus. Like it or not, comments are unavoidable like the scraps in Orkut. We need to learn to live with it.
**Desirables**
**Trite/Cliched**(yet much sought) - Good review. You have covered the topic in detail. Keep it going
Needless to say these sort of worn out comments keep MS going. If these heartwarmingly fuzzy and extremely sacchcharine comments were to be purged, and banned. may be MS can save about 30% harddisk space. But they’ll also end up losing half the crowd!
After spending hours to come up with a longish piece of writing, nothing like a little sugar to keep the Dude Walking.
**Diplomatic Comments** - I disagree with your views. **To Each His Own
**’To Each His Own’ has been so popularized by MS, it’s been used in Mira Nair’s NameSake too. By one Mr. Ghosh on a train just before dying. That doesn’t mean the person disagreeing with you is gonna conk soon(though you, sometimes, wish so).
**Irrationally Diplomatic Comments** - It’s a bit irritating when comments like this appear -’I disagree with you. I gave you VU for your writing skills’. What is this? Is MS a place for writing creative stuff? It’s the opinions that you rate. Think of your comments(and ratings) as your opinion about the opinions expressed by the other person. It’s okay to disagree to a view, give lower ratings and express your misgivings in the comments section.
However these are welcome too, as the other person is being respectful and not trying to pick a fight.
**Critical Comments** - These comments are hard to come by. It’s a pleasant surprise when corrections, improvements are suggested. More so when these are implemented and acknowledged in the reply-comments. These comments are in effect reviews of the review itself. These may be negative in tone too.
But being critics(reviewers) ourselves we ought to be open to some honest criticism. We may not like the views expressed, but it shouldn’t be taken at a personal level. Don’t we all take the liberty of calling others works, be it movies or books, as’rubbish’, ’stupid’, ’moronic’ etc. Do we ever bother to think what effect it might have on the Directors and Authors, if they were to read our opinion? But we didn’t pen those with the sole purpose of rubbishing them, did we? Intrinsic in those highfalutiin pitches of criticism, is the honest hope that the other individual would see the mistakes and improve. We need to understand and offer such benefit of doubt to our’Critics’ too.
**Unwelcome Comments
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**Ad Hominem attacks ** - These verbal attacks target the individual instead of the topic. It’s one thing to call a movie stupid, another to call the hero as such. Undesirous as we are of these, they’re sort of unavoidable if you were to write anything on subjects people are passionate about - Cricketeers, Movie Stars etc. If you praise the person his/her baiters would be offended, you criticize him the fan(atic)s are sure to get ticked. Eitherway be prepared for a volley of personal attacks.
Understanding that such attacks stem from deep insecurity will help ignore them. The people who do such attacks do’em because they aren’t capable of providing rational counter-arguments. So they find an easy way out by attacking the’Messenger’ instead, attibuting nefarious motives to them. Such attacks soon degenerate into comments indicative of attackers’deep insecurities’, like imagining a group of blind supporters rushing to your rescue, an imaginary group of persons working against them etc.
An advice to such insecure people - People don’t like you because of your immaturity. Stop carrying it around like a chip on your shoulders. With an ego like yours, you don’t need enemies. You’re infact your own biggest enemy.
**Labeling ** - This is the worst form of Ad Hominem attacks. It tries to attach non-existent labels to the protoganist like’racist’, ’sexist’, ’misogynist’ etc. The excuses provided are so filmsy, they’re laughable.
It’s easy to label any person. For e.g. person who says’Ladies in MS get more comments/ratings than men’ can be termed a’Sexist’ as well as’Misogynist’. Sexist for singling ladies and alleging they get a preferential treatment, misogynist for being resentful of ladies getting better responses. I understand it’s streching things too far and ridiculous. But, then, so are the mischief mongers who wreak havoc at any available opportunity - however silly it might be. [ Not unsurprisingly they manage to find some braindamaged supporters too]
**Trolling **- Online Trolls are individuals who post multiple comments one after another. Some of these comments are totally off-topic and have nothing to do with the current thread of discussion.
These trolls operate on these principles
- Disrupt the healthy discussion through meaningless spiteful posts
- Gain popularity for being the HERO with relentless courage to take on a popular person( You’re seriously mistaken, Mr. Troll. People actually laugh at you, behind your back. As far as they’re concerned you’re’Monkey Of the Day’)
- Sadistic pleasure of having hurt other peoples sentiments.
Trolls are a fact of life. In any forum you’re most likely, than not, run into them. My advice to you - **DON’T FEED THE TROLLS**. Once you recognize a Troll, begin to ignore them. The more attention they get, the more the Trolls grow in strength. It’s futile to argue with them in your comments section. They aren’t after a sensible discussion. Their main intention is to hurt you and publicize themselves(as a nuisance). If you ignore them, more likely they’ll get bored and go away.
**Namecalling ** - This is the worst it can get. The commentator loses control and violates all norms of decency and begins to make indecent personal remarks against the other. This is plain’Member Harrassment’. Please notify MS management if you come across this type of unacceptable behavior.
All said and done, it’s a FREE country. People will always tend to be, well, people. There’s nothing we can do to change others. Comments are like Email, accept good ones and respond in kind. Reject the bad ones(the junk), they’ll rebound to their maker.