How to Avoid Making Negative Comments
I get several comments posted to my blog articles. Unfortunately, not all of them are very nice. Sometimes it’s hard not to take things personally. At one point, I had been getting so many negative comments in such a short time frame that when I would get an e-mail informing me that I had a new comment to moderate I would moan and hang my head in dread of what I was about to read.
Once, I was at my sister’s house, and my e-mail chimed alerting me of a new comment. “Not again.” I groaned. “What’s wrong?” my sister asked. “I’ve got another comment to moderate. I’m afraid to look at it.” I said. “Here, let me read it first,” she suggested. I handed her my phone. Thankfully she smiled as she read it and said, “It’s a good one.” I breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, I have received a number of positive and encouraging comments too. Why is it that the bad ones seem to overpower the good? It’s no wonder Paul urges us to keep our focus on positive and good things.
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Philippians 4:8 (NLT)
Focusing on negative comments will weigh us down
Focusing on the negative will only bring us down. It will cause us anxiety and worry (Philippians 4:6), and it could even cause us to get so worked up that we might act out in our emotions and say or do things that we regret. I think that’s probably what happens when people post nasty things or negative comments on my site. They probably read something that they disagreed with or that potentially offended them, and then they acted out of their emotion.
Unfortunately, technology these days has cultivated an environment where it is easy for people to be passive-aggressive. People say things online or via technology that they would never say to someone face-to-face.
In light of that, I have a fairly strict comment policy on my site to protect my visitors from negative comments that could hurt or hinder them. I had to lay out some simple ground rules in order to enable constructive conversation while discouraging rude, disrespectful, sarcastic, offensive, divisive, or off-topic negative comments. I don’t even want to foster an atmosphere that’s conducive to arguments taking place on my site. That’s not God’s purpose for my site. I want my site to be a place of peace.
