Wednesday, April 30, 2008
An Arabian Horse Owner and Blogging Jeopardy
I knew when I started blogging about my journey with Arabian horses that I was opening myself up for criticism. People have so many different opinions out there in the blogosphere and I was bound to come across people who didn't agree with me. I decided to take the leap anyway because there are so many things I didn't know when I first got started into horses. I thought if I could save anyone from some of my mistakes the risk would be worth it.
With that thought in mind I have posted about some issues that have been difficult for me. None has been more difficult than the series A Baby Boomer Dreams of Arabian Horses - Down a Rocky Road Of all of the things that have happened on this farm, that accident was by far the most disconcerting, the most heart breaking, as well as the most life changing.
I will probably always feel like I should have been able to prevent this accident. Despite the fact that I had never even heard of such a thing happening before, this will always weigh heavily on my mind. I don't need someone telling me it was my fault, I have an internal voice that does that job well enough as it is.
Thursday while Rachel and I were setting up at the Daffodil All Arabian Spring Horse Show, I received an anonymous comment on A Baby Boomer Dreams of Arabian Horses - Down a Rocky Road Part 2 telling me just that. The comment read:
What a preventable shame.
And bad writing to boot.
Get a hanky and feel sorry for yourself, but you really could have prevented this.
As you know, I have comment moderation enabled on my blog. I haven't really done it because of comments like this. I have done it to ward off the spammers that seem to love my blog. But in this case (and three others in the past) I used that moderation to "Reject" this comment because I think it is mean spirited and intended to cause harm, not to educate and help people find better ways to deal with their horses. I won't even go into how it felt to find that comment in my inbox.
Maybe I should have just kept this comment to myself but it actually struck a cord with a pet peeve of mine. That would be those "anonymous" commentors who say mean things under the guise of caring for the horse when all they really want to do is attack others. All four comments that have been made here that were "attacking" in nature were done by anonymous commentors.
But my beef isn't just with those who make mean comments without a user id, I also have no tolerance for those who set up a user id that is just a front for anonymous comments. Those established with no trace back to the person making vicious and mean spirited comments.
That is my number one complaint with FUGLY and other controversial sites. The majority of the commentors blasting their victims have user ids but are not bloggers. They have set up user accounts solely for the purpose of their little cliques knowing who they are but the rest of the world not having access to their information. They don't want to be culpable for what they post.
These people go off half cocked with very little information assuming they know everything there is to know about the subject at hand. Yet many times all they know is one very slanted side of a story. They hear what they want to hear and take that as permission to launch their assault in the name of their opinion.
I certainly agree that we are all entitled to our opinions no matter what they might be. However, if you have an opinion that is truly important to you, I think you should have the convinction to stand behind that opinion.
It doesn't take much courage to hide behind the cloak of anonymity and tell others they don't have a right to breed their own horse, that they are too stupid to even own horses, that it's my fault that my mare died or any of the myriad of other rude and judgemental things that are bestowed upon an assortment of horse owners and trainers at the hands of such people. Those comments are not made in the interest of fairness or education. They are made solely at the expense of another human being and so the commentor can feel superior.
Those commentors need to remember that we are all human, after all. That means that we are ALL flawed. We all make mistakes whether we want to or not, it is unavoidable. All we can do is try our best to be good people and good and responsible horse owners.
Tearing someone to shreds over mistakes and poor judgement isn't going to stop those kinds of things from happening. Not only that, it makes it hard for the person attacked or others like them to even hear the message these people claim they are trying to convey. No one can learn anything productive from being attacked except maybe to protect oneself.
If I was to do that, I would quit blogging altogether. While that might be exactly what the anonymous commentor would like to see, that's not about to happen anytime soon. My reason for blogging has always been about overcoming ignorance. That means in all of it's form including that ignorance that causes one human being to attack another.
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