Day 5- Comment on a Blog You Don’t Agree With
This is the first challenge, I will have to postpone. No matter how hard I tried, I could not find a blog today that I don’t agree with what the blog author is saying. That does not mean, that there are not out there, but it is one of these things, that when you are looking for something too hard, you will not find it. I am going to STOP looking for one and I know that I will run across one sooner or later. I will come back to this challenge.
I can answer some of the reflection questions for this activity:
- What do you usually do if you find a post with which you disagree? Do you comment publicly? Email the blogger? Or do you just move on?
Since I am (was) not such a frequent commenter in the first place, I usually just moved on and kept my thoughts to myself. I don’t think I would ever e-mail the blogger personally, just so I can disagree with her/him. If what I disagreed with was in a blog post, I would answer with the same media. - If you comment, typically how do you engage the blogger? Do you ask questions to better understand his/her position? Do you make statements to explain your position? Do you track comments so that you can return to continue the conversation?
If I were to comment on someone’s blog post about something I don’t agree with, I would try to explain my position and the background or perspective where I am coming from . I (most likely) would also try to acknowledge their point of view and be dismissive, even though I don’t agree. I say “most likely” in parenthesis, since it would depend on the issue. Some issues like racisms and antisemitism, there is no acknowledgment of a “point of view” for me. - If you’re a blogger, how do you feel if people post comments where they disagree with you? How do you handle these?
I do know that comments that disagree and comments that criticize are the ones that will stay the longest in your mind. Julie LIndsey, left a comment for me WAAAAYYYY back in ( March of 2007), where she “respectfully” disagreed with something I had not expressed clearly in my post “What About Foreign Languages and/in a Flat New World “. She let me know that she “enjoyed reading my post…”, but then continues in the second paragraph : “I would like to draw your attention however to the fact…” Brilliant transition.
Julie left her comment over a year ago, but I immediately thought of it, when reflecting on the above question.
Day 5- Comment on a Blog You Don’t Agree With
Most of us have a tendency to comment when we come across a blog post with which we agree. The blogger says something that makes us want to shout “Me too!” and we’re motivated to leave a comment. But what happens when we read a post with which we don’t agree? What do we do then?
For today’s challenge, you’re going to find a blog post where you don’t agree with the author and leave a comment. It might be that you just disagree with a segment of the post–that’s fine. The goal of your commenting today will be to bring up your point of disagreement in your comment.
For some people, the challenge will be finding posts with which they don’t agree. If this is the case, try using Technorati to find blogs on a political topic–these are usually great sources of potential conflict. You might also want to consider expanding your blog reading horizons because to learn, you need blogs in your reader that regularly challenge your thinking.
If you want to peruse some suggestions on how to disagree appropriately, check out the comments section (how appropriate!) for this post on 10 Rules for Blog Debates . Some great ideas for both commenters and bloggers, as well as a good example of how the commenting can become better and meatier than the original post.
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