Regardless of the topic of a blog, all bloggers face the potential for situations in which others do not approve of their blog, and post negative comments on the blog or on other sites. Although this type of reaction most often occurs on blogs focused on political or controversial issues, bloggers who maintain a personal blog may also face disapproval from those who do not approve of the bloggers choices in life.
This article is focused on subjects such as dealing with negative comments on a blog, dealing with criticism from friends and family members about your blogging activites, and will even touch upon situations in which blogging can cause legal problems for the blogger.
Dealing with Negative Comments on Your Blog
Negative comments posted on a blog are one of the most common forms of disapproval a blog may receive. These comments may be posted in response to a specific blog posting or may be posted as an objection to the blog in general. These negative comments may be very troubling to the blogger but fortunately there are some methods for dealing with these comments.
One way to do so is to set the blog to not allow comments. This will effectively eliminate the comments but it will also eliminate comments from supporters of the blog as well. A more effective method is to set your blog so that comments require moderation before being posted, although this requires that you make the time to review posted comments in a timely manner.
Another option is to simply delete negative comments as you find them, and accept the fact that other readers may have time to read the negative comments before they are deleted. Bloggers who are online often and are not concerned about negative comments appearing on the blog for a short period of time may utilize this method.
You might also want to deal with negative comments by rebutting them yourself, or simply look upon them as a stimulus for discussion. Chances are that if your blog is popular, other readers will respond to the negative postings.
Dealing with Criticism from Friends and Family
Bloggers can face criticism from friends and family for the content of their blogs, or the amount of time spent building and maintaining a blog. This can be difficult because you may be torn between maintaining the blog according to your vision and keeping your friends and family happy.
In many cases friends and family members may object to a blog because they believe it can be potentially harmful to the blogger or because they are concerned about how the blog will reflect on them. In these delicate situations the blogger has the option to either delete or modify the blog or to speak to the friends and family members to explain his feelings without making changes to the blog.
When Blogging can Cause Legal Problems
Bloggers should always be aware that there are some situations in which a blog can cause legal problems. Making statements about another person which are untrue and defamatory or unauthorized posting of personal photos and videos can result in the subject of the blog post seeking retribution for libel.
Bloggers may assume that our constitutional freedom of speech protects them fully, but there may be situations in which the statements in a blog are not protected and the blogger faces legal ramifications for postings, especially if they are motivated by hate, or any form of discrimination or defamation of others, or including posting of patented or copyrighted material.
Blogging which violates the copyright laws of another can also cause legal problems. If you reprint articles from article directories, be sure to check the Terms of Service and include the generally required Resource Box that credits the original author.
You also need to be careful when buying Private Label Rights (PLR) content, since if the seller stole it or otherwise is not authorized to sell it, you can still be held liable for posting it on your blog unchanged. Your best bet is to buy content only from the most reputable PLR sources, and then rewrite the content a bit yourself, or use an Article Spinner in combination with a service such as CopyScape to ensure that it is unique.
