How Not to Leave a Comment

As any seasoned blogger knows, comments are the prize we seek for a well written post. Even for a crappy post we hope to get some comments.

There is a right way and a wrong way to leave comments.

The right way to leave a comment is to read the article thoroughly, read the other witty comments so as not to repeat what they have said, contemplate the relevance the article and other comments have to one’s life and then make a concise, well developed, comment in the comment section.

That is the right way to leave a comment.

The wrong way to leave a comment is illustrated beautifully over at Nanny Goats in Panties.

Margaret wrote a piece about her recent trip to Arizona. She wrote waggishly about getting her ass kicked by Tucson. She also mentioned the road runners and cacti in her article.

I could easily identify with this piece because although I have never been to Tucson, Arizona I have seen a road runner and I have seen cacti. I also happen to drive a Hyundai Tucson and I like hot sauce. Writing a comment for this particular post was going to be easy. Or so I thought.

Notice I wrote Tuscan and not Tucson.

Notice also that little button right next to the Reply button, the one that says Edit.

I didn’t notice it yesterday.

I realized my mistake and tried to correct it with another comment.

I spelled it wrong, AGAIN!  And I still haven’t noticed the Edit button.

I should have let it go the first time. Most people would have understood what I meant, but I couldn’t. It was out there and I had to rectify the situation.

I gave it another try.

You will notice that I have acknowledge my mistake. This is important when you have dug yourself in so deep there is no chance at recovery.

You can almost hear me throw my arms up in defeat as I am writing my third and final comment to fix my original comment and the second comment that repeated the first mistake.

Notice the button with Flag on it. Someone should have flagged me and put me out of my misery.

Luckily Margaret is a very gracious blog host and tried her best to calm my growing anxiety over my un take backable comment (because I swear those Edit buttons were not there yesterday).

Margaret uses Disqus so when she responds, in her post, to my fucked up comments, she also sends the response in an email to me.

Notice she addresses me as redheadranting. Margaret knows my real name. I didn’t notice the way she addressed me.

I replied, privately, to Margaret.

Unfortunately I didn’t realize that when I replied in the email that it would get posted to the original thread for all to see.

Margaret knows me, she knows that if she continues to respond to me in emails the correspondence will go on all day long and into next week. She is a bright woman who knows when to say no more.

Thankfully she didn’t respond again.

And that, my friends and fellow bloggers, is how not to leave a comment.

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