The Comment Section of My Story is My Domain

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Abstract

This doesn’t mean that I expect everyone to agree with me, or even be perfectly civil. That would be nice, but it’s not something that I really actually expect. Still, I get to decide who I respond to, who I ignore, and who I block. I find it strange and a bit irksome when other people seem to believe that they have more rights than I do in the comment section on my story.</p><p id="ef45">Earlier this week I spent quite a bit of time exchanging extensive responses with one commenter. I don’t always do this, but sometimes I enjoy it, and in the beginning it seemed like an actual discussion/debate. But after a while, it became clear that although this person couldn’t really support his position and couldn’t begin to refute mine, he wasn’t going to back off. It was going nowhere, so I told him that I was done talking about this topic with him.</p><p id="713c">He then proceeded to accuse me of <i>cancelling</i> him. When I explained to this man that I didn’t owe him my time or attention and that I was sick and tired of the condescencion, he threatened to report me. Apparently, I was supposed to indulge his ridiculous, unsupported positions for as long as he wished with good grace. He went on to tell me that I needed to educate myself, and when I easily proved that he was the one who wasn’t in possession of the facts, he impugned my character and integrity.</p><p id="529e">The level of entitlement was truly stunning but it didn’t hold a candle to the next guy I dealt with this week. He left a manifesto 6 or 7 paragraphs long exhorting readers to consider things that I had already said — not by way of agreeing, but by way of pointing out what he thought I should have been saying. When I told him that I quite agreed with him and he didn’t need to convince me, he said his comment wasn’t directed at me. He didn’t have a big following and wanted a place to air his thoughts.</p><p id="3c1e">In other words, he wanted to hijack my story for his own purposes. When I pointed out that’s what he was doing, he became quite defensive, and told me, “Yes, I could have commented and elaborated on some other parts of you article, but I have chosen to do so on the part which is related to what’s occupying my thoughts lately. The Medium commenting section is not for people to elaborate on what the author would like them to, but on what they want to elaborate.”</p><p id="7993">Sorry to burst your bubble there bud, but no, the comments section is for you to interact with the author and other commenters about the topic of the piece. It’s not for you to gain access to an audience that you otherwise wouldn’t have to opine about a tertiary topic. I had suggested to him earlier that he ought to write his own story, and reminded him that the way to gain followers is to publish regularly and read other people’s work. This is how you build readership, hone your writing skills, and develop community.</p><p id="2acb">Riding on the coat-tails of someone who has put in the work to do that so that you can write an essay in my comments that essentially agrees with what I’ve said, but is disappointed t

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hat I didn’t take it far enough to suit you in the 7 minutes I had to express myself — that’s not OK. It’s a form of spam. Sure, you can say that you would have liked to hear more about something, but it’s not my duty to write the story that you would like to read.</p><p id="705c">And when I point out to you that I don’t appreciate you doing that in my domain, aggressively defending your right to keep doing it — it’s not going to go over well.</p><p id="e415">In my sandbox, I have the right to block people, which is exactly what I did to this guy after several frank, but civil attempts to point out the ways that he was out of line. It’s my story, which means it’s my comment section as well. You are welcome to disagree with me but you’d better be able to support your position with something substantive or you’re going to really hear about it from me, and you don’t get to decide what goes on in my pages.</p><p id="4640">You don’t get to hijack my stories. You don’t get to treat me like I’m out of line for trying to hold a discussion with you or to further explain my position. You don’t get to behave in an entitled way, as if I’m there to do your bidding or to write what you want to hear. These are my stories. This is my research, my opinions, and my self-expression.</p><p id="1f31">And although you have a lot of latitude about what you can put there, the comment section of my story is still my domain. It’s not written down anywhere but there is still a certain etiquette to Medium. People who don’t understand that or don’t want to respect it undoubtedly have a less enjoyable experience. And people who steadfastly refuse to honor that etiquette in favor of their own agenda are probably going to find that they are <i>persona non grata</i> in my domain. I don’t block a lot of people, but I will block guys like that.</p><p id="843b">© Copyright Elle Beau 2021</p><div id="13cf" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/why-must-we-choose-between-kobe-bryant-and-the-woman-he-assaulted-f7d3bbe7706e"> <div> <div> <h2>Why Must We Choose Between Kobe Bryant And The Woman He Assaulted?</h2> <div><h3>Embracing nuance in a world that wants it all to be black and white</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*gzpuWCTOzgrCumZf)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="c3b1" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/in-my-country-love-rules-4cb3eff7fb2f"> <div> <div> <h2>In My Country, Love Rules</h2> <div><h3>Life in Ellebeaudia</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*WKo0UYtt9RdgkZqX)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

This seems to be a foreign concept to some people

Around the time that Kobe Bryant died, I wrote a story about how making people choose between him as a villain or as a hero was robbing him of his humanity. At the same time, it was leading to further demonizing of the woman he had hurt — someone Bryant had made a public apology to. If hero and villain were the only two choices, then she was going to continue to be made the villain by many — adding insult to injury of what she had already endured.

For some people, this was too nuanced a position. They just wanted to hate him, and didn’t want to see anyone give him one iota of compassion or consider the real-life consequences of reinforcing the villain/hero narrative. OK, fair enough. If you’ve been raped and publicly pilloried for it afterwards, I can see how you might feel that way. But when one such woman left a comment on my story, I tried to further explain where I was coming from. It was less a moral stance than a practical one because due to this outlook, Bryant’s acknowledged victim was getting hammered once again in the zero-sum construct. It took 60 women to bring down Bill Cosby because in a hero/villain construct, he was overwhelmingly viewed as a hero.

But this woman didn’t want to hear it. She went off on me when I dared to try to hold a discussion with her in my own comment’s section and explain my position a bit better. She acted as though once I had written my story, I was now out of the picture, and that she and anyone else could say whatever they wanted to in response and there was nothing I could do about it. But this isn’t the New York Times — it’s Medium.

The way I see it, Medium is a kind of social networking platform, organized around the thoughts and ideas of writers. They say what’s on their mind, and then other people interact with that. In the best cases, real dialogue, and even debate takes place. Commenters get to discuss both with the writer and with other commenters about what they’ve read and something is hopefully better illuminated in a process that allows us to be a part of a community.

For whatever reason, some people don’t seem to understand this. They believe that the comments section is their own personal playground, for them to say whatever they wish without boundaries or censorship. But in my sandbox, we play by my rules. The comment section of a story that I’ve written is still my domain, and I get to decide to a large extent what happens there.

Earlier this week I spent quite a bit of time exchanging extensive responses with one commenter. I don’t always do this, but sometimes I enjoy it, and in the beginning it seemed like an actual discussion/debate. But after a while, it became clear that although this person couldn’t really support his position and couldn’t begin to refute mine, he wasn’t going to back off. It was going nowhere, so I told him that I was done talking about this topic with him.

He then proceeded to accuse me of cancelling him. When I explained to this man that I didn’t owe him my time or attention and that I was sick and tired of the condescencion, he threatened to report me. Apparently, I was supposed to indulge his ridiculous, unsupported positions for as long as he wished with good grace. He went on to tell me that I needed to educate myself, and when I easily proved that he was the one who wasn’t in possession of the facts, he impugned my character and integrity.

The level of entitlement was truly stunning but it didn’t hold a candle to the next guy I dealt with this week. He left a manifesto 6 or 7 paragraphs long exhorting readers to consider things that I had already said — not by way of agreeing, but by way of pointing out what he thought I should have been saying. When I told him that I quite agreed with him and he didn’t need to convince me, he said his comment wasn’t directed at me. He didn’t have a big following and wanted a place to air his thoughts.

In other words, he wanted to hijack my story for his own purposes. When I pointed out that’s what he was doing, he became quite defensive, and told me, “Yes, I could have commented and elaborated on some other parts of you article, but I have chosen to do so on the part which is related to what’s occupying my thoughts lately. The Medium commenting section is not for people to elaborate on what the author would like them to, but on what they want to elaborate.”

Sorry to burst your bubble there bud, but no, the comments section is for you to interact with the author and other commenters about the topic of the piece. It’s not for you to gain access to an audience that you otherwise wouldn’t have to opine about a tertiary topic. I had suggested to him earlier that he ought to write his own story, and reminded him that the way to gain followers is to publish regularly and read other people’s work. This is how you build readership, hone your writing skills, and develop community.

Riding on the coat-tails of someone who has put in the work to do that so that you can write an essay in my comments that essentially agrees with what I’ve said, but is disappointed that I didn’t take it far enough to suit you in the 7 minutes I had to express myself — that’s not OK. It’s a form of spam. Sure, you can say that you would have liked to hear more about something, but it’s not my duty to write the story that you would like to read.

And when I point out to you that I don’t appreciate you doing that in my domain, aggressively defending your right to keep doing it — it’s not going to go over well.

In my sandbox, I have the right to block people, which is exactly what I did to this guy after several frank, but civil attempts to point out the ways that he was out of line. It’s my story, which means it’s my comment section as well. You are welcome to disagree with me but you’d better be able to support your position with something substantive or you’re going to really hear about it from me, and you don’t get to decide what goes on in my pages.

You don’t get to hijack my stories. You don’t get to treat me like I’m out of line for trying to hold a discussion with you or to further explain my position. You don’t get to behave in an entitled way, as if I’m there to do your bidding or to write what you want to hear. These are my stories. This is my research, my opinions, and my self-expression.

And although you have a lot of latitude about what you can put there, the comment section of my story is still my domain. It’s not written down anywhere but there is still a certain etiquette to Medium. People who don’t understand that or don’t want to respect it undoubtedly have a less enjoyable experience. And people who steadfastly refuse to honor that etiquette in favor of their own agenda are probably going to find that they are persona non grata in my domain. I don’t block a lot of people, but I will block guys like that.