Uhm, something like that. You’re not old, you’re not female. So, close to opposite

I’m more-or-less saying you (the rhetorical you) need to have at least some people who disagree instead of having nothing but “yes” people around you.

I think I get the idea of what you’re saying, but could you explain what you meant a bit more please? I haven’t watched “The Queen“, so I am probably not understanding your entire comment. I guess I should go rent the movie, no?

Also, thanks for the award. Do I get a badge, some cash prize, etc?

I’ve never moderated, but been a member of several popular forums where some members get out of line. Blogs are definitely different since the views of the commenters don’t generally sway the discussion and commenters can’t start their own discussions.

However, some commenters can be plain vicious since a blogger is putting a post out there for public scrutiny.

@Bes,
I’ll give you the award for most in-depth comments. I think the just of it is, you don’t want to have too many “yes” people around you. You don’t grow as a person and you develop a force-field around you that is hard to penetrate. If you ever watch the movie “The Queen”, it’s a good example of a person who doesn’t take criticism very well until it’s almost too late.

One of my specialties of work and my studies has been conflict resolution. One of my personal specialties in that is to avoid arguments and conflicts, and I have helped several people and companies with that too. One of my personal probably-unconscious specialties is to attract the wrong crowd, the crowd that disagrees because they can, and I end up getting personally and physically affected hurt from time to time. I look at online disagreements the way I look at disagreements in all of real life. Majority of the problems happen because of disagreements stemming from things like pride. Like TDavid said above, there is “A lot of phoniness online“, because it is easy to change our external personality online. Many people can disagree online and not feel responsible, as they can keep disagreeing and even if they act unethical online, no one can pinpoint them in the offline world: their pride goes back up when they turn off the computer. Many times things are not disagreements; they are simply pride fights. I hate pride fights. That is why I usually give in and agree to non-trivial things, as friendship and no conflict is better to me than a conflict over non-trivial thing.

If a person disagrees with me, my first reaction is to see if I can agree with them and ignore the issue right in their face and agree to whatever they are showing or saying. Why? Because in those “sometimes” cases, the disagreement has no importance to me whatsoever because of the topic involved, and agreeing in my view is better than creating a conflict, specially if nothing is being lost by me agreeing to that person. Some people will start arguing and getting upset about things even they do not care about. Why? Because those people start feeling their pride and intelligence being questioned if you offer a different view about something as a response. I don’t care if someone tells me they prefer republicans over democrats or vice versa, they prefer gay people over non-gay people or vice versa, or they prefer one religion over another, or they prefer this over that: unless a life or a big thing is at stake, I can let go of things many times. Reader Appreciation and manipulation is a topic I consider very important as it involves every entity that tries to make money by faking human appreciation which results in less humanity and real appreciation in the entire world, and it is something I am not willing to let go in many, many disagreements, specially if the other person is manipulating his or her readers or contacts.

I do not hate or avoid people because of disagreements. I prefer disagreeing friends over friends who never disagree or have conflicting views about anything, and I also prefer no conflict over disagreement about a thing that is non-trivial to both parties, or something that will not result in either party being harmed if one simply gives up to the disagreement. I hate arguing and arguments, so sometimes I will say “Ok” and move on. If I do want to prove something, I do it with facts, but sometimes even supposedly-mature online people like famous bloggers want to keep arguing or crying about things even when they know they are wrong. Many people do not like it when they keep forcing me to argue, but when I argue [which is rare, very rare], they usually cannot argue back and they say I strike too strong. Well, why push me so much that if I do not argue, you will turn into an enemy? Why not value or appreciate me agreeing with you or me ignoring the argument and finding a solution to the disagreement?

Among the many other things, most people need to realize when something is criticism, and when something is a difference in opinion, and when something is manipulation, and when something is manipulation in order to hide criticism and differences in opinions. Handling conflicts is an art. One needs to know what one aims to achieve when approaching a disagreements; do they want to create friendship, end the conflict whether or not friendship happens, prove a point, defend a point, etc. Majority of the people, maybe over 90%, do not know how to approach conflicts. Even non-profit organizations I helped or worked for had different views in different conflicts, and it can get very, very hard to come at a conflict to something that is causing thousands of people to die when your own team or others around you, who are also trying to help, are aiming at different things. Why is that bad? It results in conflicts within the people who are supposedly trying to find a resolution to the conflict. Online, I get surprised how people get so upset over things even they find non-trivial and things that they disagree about; imagine what will happen if they came across a real life conflict where lives depend on the resolution in the offline world. I would not want to be in such situations, as I have seen the ugliness caused by conflicts in person all over the world.

I would rather have disagreeing friends than friends who do not disagree over anything, but I also prefer friends who can disagree about things and not let the friendship get affected negatively even 0.01%. I know it is possible, as I am doing it everyday, and my closest friends do it everyday too. Same is the case for my readers; I would rather have readers agree and disagree with me than always agree. However, unfortunately, many people do not know how to disagree, which results in me feeling the need to avoid disagreements completely and simply agreeing or ignoring so no conflicts can happen. I have readers who have strongly disagreed with something I have said in the past, but they appreciate the fact that I do not let friendship be affected by 99% of the disagreements, and I appreciate the fact that they can and do the same thing too.

Majority of my closest friends disagree with me over majority of the topics, including things I hold very, very dear. I value 10 of such friends more than 100 other friends, because like me, they can value and control their pride overall, even if mistakes are made, and still value the friendship and will prefer it to continue and prosper than to let it die, if there is a chance to let it continue.

It all comes down to what people want from any disagreement, whether or not they started it, and whether or not they want to ignore it.

As for blogs, actually I’ve found more flame-type comments come from YouTube and digg than in the comments section of the blogs I contribute to (one of which had around 5,000 comments in the last year).

Every once in awhile somebody will stop by and call me a bunch of a names in the comment section, trying to start something. I think these people — in small supply — are good for a laugh. Some of their blasts are funny if you can step away from the heat for a second. Sometimes I wonder if that’s what drives them.

Getting angry with them only fuels the fire. It’s a lot easier to laugh along with them, separate the anger from what they are trying to say, and react to the underlying criticism/disagreement if it has any merit. Usually it doesn’t.