#43 — THE ART OF COMMENTING SERIES WITH Grandma Smillew, Debdutta Pal, and James Bellerjeau

Negative Comments are Like Coal in Your Stocking

The gift that no one wants to receive

It's Christmas morning, and the sound of sleighbells wakes you from your joyful slumber — abruptly ending the reoccurring dream of winning the World Cup, a Pulitzer, and the Nobel Peace Prize on the same day.

“Santa! Santa was here!”

You exclaim as you run down the stairs to your fireplace, waiting to see what joyful present Ole' St. Nick left for you on his magical nighttime journey. Your stocking no longer looks empty, with an amorphous shape bulging at the bottom of the Christmas sock. After laughing at the dirty thoughts inevitable from thinking the word "bulging," you hurry over to claim your anticipated prize.

You reach into the decorative holiday accessory and pull out a misshapen lump of black anthracite.

“Coal? What the actual fuck, Santa?”

As your mind races through another year of regrets at being on the Naughty List, you hear a light scraping sound on the roof. Thinking, "It must be a mistake; I've been good this year," you rush out the front door only to see Santa's sleigh rising into the bleak winter sky.

“Santa, why?”

You scream uselessly into the night. Mentally exhausted, you walk back towards your front door when you see the jolly old bastard turn his head and shout,

“When you open a present on Christmas morning, NO ONE wants a piece of FUCKING COAL!”

The preceding story is a metaphor for giving unwanted and unsolicited negative comments to writers on Medium. At the risk of irritating intelligent readers who do not need further explanation, let me extrapolate.

As a writer, when the little green notification alert — which ironically seems to be broken now — goes off, you expect a pleasant surprise. Someone interacted with my stories!

And then you're kicked in the boobs or balls — whichever hurts worse — with an unexpected tirade about how you are so terrible of a person you make Hitler look like an adopted puppy.

Even if your ceaseless villainy were objectively true, what are the chances that unexpected attacks on your character will cause you to say, "Shit? I was wrong. Time for further introspection."

Trust me. I'm an expert on naughty behavior. I gave assholes coal for Xmas for 1186 years. In all that time, the only person to turn his life around after receiving a useless black rock was Michael Burg, MD (Satire Sommelier). And he was back to his old ways by February.

If you feel compelled to disagree with a writer, limit your scope to the ideas or arguments present in the article. "I disagreed with you on this specific point. Have you considered…?" or "Your perspective differs from mine. I'm curious where you got your information for…?". “This is a new topic for me. Help me understand your reasoning on…”

If you want my advice as someone who has observed human behavior for a millennium, follow this simple advice.

When someone expects a gift, don’t give them a fucking piece of coal.

This story is part of a series on best practices for commenting on Medium. More from the series:

Grandma Smillew always leaves me the best cookies on Christmas Eve.

James Bellerjeau will get sweets in his stocking.

Debdutta Pal is on the nice list, somehow.