Friday, December 12, 2008

More on Comments (Being Civil)

Anyone who allows comments to their posts, or at least uncensored comments, has to expect that people will disagree with them. And sometimes this is very good. My mother once made a comment disagreeing with a point I had expressed. This made me think the matter over, and I was able to more finely "tune in" to where I stood on that issue, and rephrase my thoughts to express better the nuances involved.
That being said, I feel that people who comment need to be civil. When I posted, for example, a reply to "End Down syndrome" I tried to be as civil as possible (although I really was put out that he did not allow its posting.), and I expect the same here. If someone would post here anti-Israel propaganda (not that I am a great defender of the Israeli government, but if someone put a blanket statement anti-Israel), anti-Jewish, Christian missionary statements, or blanket anti-Down syndrome statements, I would delete it. If someone has an issue with something I wrote, and writes it civilly, that's OK.
As I pointed out in my post of December 5, I think that people have to be more careful with their language, and in my post of November 21 I made the point that a quick reply to someone is not likely to change anyone’s mind. For this reason, I do not like it when a commenter tries to push their "easy" solution on a person who does not accept it. (ie., if someone writes that they do not believe in G-d, I would not post that they are going to hell, missing out, etc). Because I assume that if they are posting a belief, they have probably thought about it. Now I would say it’s OK to say "Faith helps me" if it is related to the topic at hand. Or if I think a poster has missed key information in their assumption (like my reply to the woman who said kids with Down syndrome should be aborted, one of the reasons being that they have no sex life--I told her "wake up"!)-so then I feel one can disagree, but again with careful language. And I think that comments have to show that same courtesy to others who comment (unless the first comment is simply spouting off hatred; he deserves it.) I am not sure this is all clear.
To be put simply, the Rabbis say “Manners comes before Torah (Bible)”. ie, if you are right, fine, but you have to be polite!.

2 comments:

welcometoillinois said...

Well said.

Batya said...

I had to start moderating Shiloh Musings' comments, because there were some really nasty ones.

On the whole, I really love reading people's reactions, even if they don't agree politely at least.