For the last few months an anonymous person has been leaving an excessive amount of comments on this blog. More often than not, the comments are tangential to what was originally blogged. Then comes the typical, "Why aren't you responding to my comments, James?" question. Here's why: online interactions with anonymous people do not take priority. When I do take the time to interact with anonymous comments, they should at least be directly and meaningfully related to the content of the blog entry. I typically abhor rabbit trails.
With this in mind, here are some quick guidelines to help anonymous people read blog entries and post comments. For detailed instructions, see this link and this link.
1. Read the entire entry.
2. Ask these critical questions:
A. What is the overall point of the blog entry? Be prepared to possibly make a short outline if the blog post is lengthy. do not make criticisms until you understand the major points of the entry. Be prepared to prove you understand what the major point of the entry is before criticizing the entry.
B. Do you disagree with the major point, or are there supporting points that are not agreeable? Be prepared to understand the points of agreement before attacking the points of disagreement. If it's a supporting fact that is disagreeable, consider that an in-depth discussion may be tangential.
C. Do the facts presented support the basic point? Are there unstated presuppositions that determine the meaning of the facts? Do your presuppositions direct the facts to a different conclusion?
3. Be prepared to actually look at the sources being utilized in the blog entry and determine if the sources are being used in context or out of context.
4. Try not to respond line by line. Often it's possible to miss the major points of the blog entry, or it's possible to quibble over something that's later explained in the entry.
5. If you respond with factual data, be prepared to back up your claims with references.
6. Do not expect someone to do the work for you. If you make a counter-claim, it's up to you to present evidence to support the claim.
7. Always ask yourself if the criticism you're making refutes your own position as well.
8. If you just want to add an insulting or mocking comment, please find another blog to post on.
9. If you put forth a standard by which you say you abide by (like say, Hebrews 12:14), be prepared to be held to that standard.
10. If you say that you will no longer post on this blog, and then you continue to post on this blog, do not be surprised if your comments are deleted.
Addendum
Comments on older blog entries will not appear immediately, or they may not appear at all.
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9 comments:
Guy,
Your comment demonstrates to me (and perhaps others) you have a low reading aptitude.
Here's exactly what I wrote in the blog post:
"online interactions with anonymous people do not take priority. When I do take the time to interact with anonymous comments, they should at least be directly and meaningfully related to the content of the blog entry. I typically abhor rabbit trails."
And then:
"If you just want to add an insulting or mocking comment, please find another blog to post on."
If you compare your comment to these words, they do not coincide.
Thanks. But one more rule should be "proof read your post before posting." Which I am too often deficient in.
When I do review my posts I seem to see what I meant to write rather than what it actually says, or lack the concentration or energy to look and see grammatical errors in comboxes, but which I see after when posted.
I shall endeavor to do better.
BTW, where should I send links to you on stories you may want to use?
James,How about adding this to your blog rules; don't talk to one blogger about a third blogger as if he isn't there. On C2C such interaction is prohibited.For instance, two Catholics cannot trash a third ( Protestant ) blogger..
Once again, you demonstrate low reading aptitude. I did not state anything about "rules" but rather "quick guidelines."
Guy, we all know that you have had some trouble with your reading skills but I didn't realize that you don't know what a url is. It stands for "uniform resource locator" which is a fancy way of saying web address. It differs from a link because if you click on a link, it will take you to the url or web page. A url is just the text like www.[insert web address].com and you won't go to it simply by clicking on it.
The rest of your post makes you look like you're a child taunting someone. Almost as if you want to be the third person that James banned in order to make you a psuedo-marter.
It should have read "pseudo-martyr".
Someone can Google the difference between a "rule" and a "guideline", but can't figure out a way to find out what a URL is? Really?
Ummm...How about using Google to find it?
Guidelines are hints or suggestions only. No penalty attached.
Yes. The only people penalized for your comments are the rest of us who have to endure them.
When you follow the guidelines I suggested in your comments, I will interact with you.
Guy said:
"That is why is must really rankle whiz kids like you two to be bested on such issues as the Papacy and Sola Scriptura by a yokel like me."
I haven't even debated you on these topics. The only thing I did was post a url for an article written by William Webster and you changed the discussion to Tim Kauffman (even though my url had nothing to do with him).
Also guy, I've been following this blog on almost a daily basis for over 4 years. I don't post much, but I did see you the first time you showed up, and yes, you were easy for people to interact at first but you quickly became difficult when people would ask you for proof and your only response was reference-less quotes and you telling people to google them. Yet you turn around and criticize people for posting links to their proof instead of just telling you in the com-box.
My parents raised me to turn the other cheek when someone insults me. Fighting back never works out and it proves that you (not guy specifically) are unwilling to have an intelligent conversation. I just had a similar interaction with an athiest on Facebook where he posted a chart that had the title "Contradictions in the Bible" followed by a list of 439 "contradictions". I looked into it and found that the list was riddled with errors including literal duplicate "contradictions" that artificially inflated the list. The kicker was that the chart was plagarized by an atheist who stole the chart from a Lutheran pastor who was using the chart to illustrate all of the cross references in the Bible.
What's my point? Even though I proved to him beyond a reasonable doubt that the chart was plagarized, he still wouldn't accept that and continued to praise the chart as a contradictions chart. So even though we can give you so much evidence from the Bible, the ECF, and from plain reason that Roman Catholicism is wrong, it only makes you upset because you take it as a personel attack and you are unwilling to interact with the evidence provided.
But maybe that's because you are as knowledgable/if not more about Luther then James is.
This won't be the first Protestant blog I have been escorted out of and it probably won't be the last.
I was very tempted to entitle this comment, "How to Read "How to Read a Blog Entry and Make a Comment."
Your Roman Catholicism has little to do with being banished from various websites. Step back and take a look at your hostile and inflammatory method of communicating your beliefs.
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