Female Opinions
Published by deviousdiva June 9th, 2006 in Blogging.I have been following many blog discussions on the issue of hatemail, threats and the need for moderation. Many female bloggers are facing huge problems, spending much of their time moderating and deleting malicious emails from their inboxes. It is no accident that I do not have a contact button on my blog, even though this makes it difficult for people who genuinely want to get in touch for various projects that I would like to be involved in. It is a sad state of affairs and looks set to get worse as blogging gains popularity. The various loonies out there that used to write hate letters to the newspapers, are now finding it easier to sit online and target people from their computers. Anyway, I am not going to repeat myself here. I have said enough on the subject in the past.
Alternet has an article called Hating the Hate Mail. The article is about women and “opinion journalism” in newspapers but comments that follow reveal so much much more about the issue. Interesting but disturbing reading.
By the way, I would appreciate any advice on how to have a contact button/form that doesn’t reveal an email address that would work here ?
You have my sympathy on this Diva, it is so much harder for women to be taken seriously; and when they do voice an opinion there are too many of the loonies who just want to shout them down, "they are women, so they can’t know what they are talking about". The whole problem is that it is pretty much impossible to educate the morons who are so consumed by hatred that every time they open their mouths all that comes out is venemous bile. You are dead right, where they used to have to get some paper, an envelope and a stamp (which put all but the looniest off), now they can just sit in their hovels and use their computers - what sad people they are!
My html is at the beginner level, so take this with a grain of salt. I know many businesses have things like this-you click "Contact Us", fill in the info and click submit, but you never see the address it’s sent to. I just have no idea how to do this. :(Maybe a google search for contact forms or hidden email.
Yep. that’s exactly what I want but I need something that has email verification so that the idiots who use fake email addresses cannot send. I know such things exist, I just don’t have time rigth now to look (lazy I know but…) I just wonder if anyone knows or uses one that works.
Thanks for answering. Html is very geeky, but I like it. I lthink it’s amazing that so many of us are learning even the basics as it always seemed to be the domain of experts. Good for us eh?
Wow. You read my mind. I came across the Alternet article a week or so ago and was going to post a comment on it here (but didn’t, sorry). It just reminded me so much of the kind of creeps that you have to deal with.I think that the anonymity of the internet encourages a disconnect with the humanity of others so that people who are considered "different", "inferior", "dangerous" can be insulted and degraded with seeming impunity. This is another reason why I think that their comments should be deleted, since if you deal with them with debate and discussion they are given a sense of power over others which, ( I hope) they lack in their everyday lives.
What about freedom of speech…a basic principle of all open societies…including online societies. I am all for deleting vulgarity, but why not allow honest, and sincere debate devoid of sensationalism and epithets? We must all try and understand the other side if the other side is capable of rational discussion. If they want a sense of power, then they can form their own blogs, and like their fascist or communist selves, censor opposing view points…we are better than that!!
Diva,
If you make everyone subscribe and register to your site with email verification, then only registered users can post. This will solve the problem of the nasty people being more polite since you have their email address, but then many other LAZY people (who are nice) may not choose to register and you won’t get as many comments.
But, look at it this way. It’s more important that you get the good info out then it is to have comments back I would think.
Good luck to you in this endeavor.
Just to make it clear, again. I only delete offensive/racist comments not disagreement. In my opinion, threatening people and their families or spouting racist/anti-semitic/misogynistic trash is not an issue of freedom of speech.
Hi Scuffy American, yes, it is always a possibility to do that. I find it annoying when I go to other blogs that I have to register with but I understand that there comes a point when that is the only option left.
It’s so maddening even to have to think about all this…
Hear you loud and clear….just to make myself clear, I respectfully disagree with most of the writings on your blog, and plan to voice my opinion in a calm and rational manner. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.Also: Freedom of speech does include offensive and hateful speech….at least in the USA…not so much in Europa.
Hi Bouboulina, I did actually say
"In my opinion, threatening people and their families or spouting racist/anti-semitic/misogynistic trash is not an issue of freedom of speech"
Also just a small question. Do you disagree with most of my writing or the newspaper articles I post here? If you have a problem with the articles which I post (which are clearly marked as such) then I would rather you took that up with the newspaper itself. If you have a problem with my writing or opinions, fair enough. As long as people are "calm and rational" I have no problem with you disagreeing with me and I will try and answer your questions or comments as best I can.
In the blogoshere we are a community of equals, in the sense that we all have the same access to a potential auidence as everyone else. It is not as if we have to buy a printing press or tv station in order to communicate our message to others. So, deleting deeply offensive messages does not deny them freedom of speech since they can quite happily spout their chauvinist crap on their own blogs.
Diva, I gave some thought to the contact button thingy, there are a lot of sites and forums out there that specifically help with html problems; all it would take would be one post on one of the forums and you would have several answers withing the day…
Diva, I did a quick trawl and found this
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/fo.....-7088.html
which I think is similar to what you are seeking - hope it helps…
Thanks you all. I think I found a contact solution. It’s a form that hides my email address. We’ll see….