How should we treat the comment trolls…and are they really trolls?

Earlier this week I wrote a post about a guy who slammed me on another domain blog for no apparent reason other than to make it known that he probably doesn’t like me very much. It sounds like he also doesn’t like Andrew Rosner from Media Options very much or Shane from Domain Shane since he called Andrew the “Bald media options guy” and Shane the “Plant Seller” in this comment:

brandon-sagnon

I’ve always been a fan of letting people speak their mind, I think it is incredibly important when you’re running a blog. If you censored your blog posts you would clearly miss out on giving the whole industry a voice rather than just your supporters.

In fact, I agreed with Brandon when he slammed me, I think the guy made a good point to be honest with you. Like me or not I think you should still be able to comment on my blog. Seriously, go nuts, tell me I suck, I can take it, as a blogger we all get into this game knowing this comes with the territory.

Still the question comes up all the time, should we give the frequent comment trolls the same voice as everyone else or do they just pollute the well? I personally think that if you’re willing to take time to write a comment on my blog, more power to you, write away. At the same time, some people have emailed me saying that comment trolls are degrading the quality of blogs by interjecting with nonsense a bit like that a crazy person standing on a soapbox on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley does (yup, I’m from Berkeley and we have our fair share of crazy people).

comment-troll

So what do you think, should we let the trolls say what they want or should there be some point where we draw the line. Of course it’s not fair for me to ask this question without sharing my opinion. I say, forget the line, there is no line, if you’re going to take time to read what I have to write, I think you should be able to express yourself as long as you aren’t threatening people’s lives or just throwing out profanities left and right in a way that makes your comments impossible to read.

I’m fine with guys like Brandon expressing what drives them crazy about me, Shane, Andrew, or anyone else they want to throw a stone at because, heck, it’s a free country and he’s obviously taking the time to read and listen to what we have to say so shouldn’t we do the same?

That’s my two cents. What do you think? Comment and let your voice be heard!

Photo Credit: Phil Masters Flickr via Compfight cc

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton