For the most part having more people comment on your blog is a good thing, but every once in a while you may encounter a Rogue Commentator. Rogue Commentators are people who for some reason or another are always angry and seem to think they have to tell everyone about it. They are absolutely miserable people who cannot control themselves whatsoever. Often times their comments are completely illogical and make you think they have an IQ of -38.
If you haven’t had to deal with one consider yourself lucky, they can be quite nasty at times.
Rogue Commentator vs Someone Who Disagrees With You
It is important to understand the difference between Rogue Commentators and people who simply disagree with you. The main difference is why they comment (to express their opinion vs to make your life miserable and make you feel like an insignificant fool), and how they react to you if you respond.
What Do They Do?
Unlike other commentators, rogue commentators will keep attacking you over, and over, and over. They will even go on posts that have nothing to do with what they’re talking about and comment on them.
When I first started this blog I had a particularly bad one come on here. He commented on here and claimed he owned Nusuni.com and I stole it from him. Well, that can’t be right, I’ve owned it since 2002, and no one owned it before. So, I e-mailed him and asked him what the heck he was talking about, then he went all ranty on me and started spewing some pretty nasty language out of his arse. I tried ignoring him, blocking his IP, and I did everything else but for some reason the guy kept going on and on about it. It finally ended when I sent him a lovely computer nerd threat, “Dude, I know how to make viruses.” I never heard from him again.
The point is you can try to ignore them and block them from your site, but they will keep going on and on.
How To Deal With Them
The #1 thing is don’t give them any fodder. Stay calm, talk in logical manner, and only start the threats if the nonsense continues for too long. Usually they will give up after a few days or a week.
If it goes on long enough and they aren’t stopping (even if you are completely ignoring them), try searching for an abuse contact for their ISP (use a tool like Domain Tools and enter their IP) and report them. Include all messages sent back and forth between you and the other person.
Eventually they will stop and you can continue blogging normally.
Stay tuned for more Back To The Basics posts!
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October 2nd, 2007 at 11:54 am
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October 20th, 2007 at 10:52 am
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