While I do agree that people have the right to their opinion, I just refuse to allow a few hot heads ruin the blogging experience for the rest of my readers. I believe the above comment from Sue was very on time. We do have the right to moderate our own blogs. The real emotional zinger comes in when you don’t have the right to moderate (as with someone else’s blog).

Thank for the great post. It was the emotional shot in the arm that I needed!

I tell my kids that while you cannot control what others say, you CAN control how you choose to react. By giving into hurt/anger/etc., you’re delivering power over yourself to people as worthy as decayed toadstools. And that’s just not right at all.

Excellent article, thanks for sharing!

This is something we must have been aware of.

Don’t let the free speech argument stop you moderating comments. I went through – frankly – absolute hell with a couple of commenters on a couple of blogs, not deleting their poisonous comments and getting myself to the point where I dreaded looking at my own blogs, because I believed they had the right to express their opinions. Well, they do – but not on my blog. Telling people they should start a blog of their own if they want to be free to say what they like, is always an option.

I wouldn’t say “rife” as much as it happened, but a lot of the forums were very self-policing and/or had strong moderation. Those were actually the exception. I’m talking about the very early days of online forums. Early, early days. :D

We knew that we had uncovered something very special, a way to communicate across borders. There were problems, as with all human nature interactions, but for the most part, it was isolated and quickly put out. With today’s masses embracing the social web, there’s a fire in every corner hundreds of times a day.

Which is why it continues to surprise me that bloggers are surprised when they meet a blog bully. Of course they will. That’s human nature. Let’s save the surprised blog posts, and be prepared for it. That way we can prevent it, or cut it off before it goes too far…unless you are one of those bloggers who thrive on it. :D