I recently posted a diary regarding proposed changes to Minnesota’s gun laws. While I took stance against the proposed changes, I believe I also made it very clear that I was not against gun ownership and stated so in my diary.
Very quickly I got a number of responses nearly all of which were very negative regarding my opinion of the proposed changes to the Minnesota gun laws. I was completely taken aback. DK being a progressive community I assumed any responses would at least be cordial and possibly lead to interesting discussions regarding the finer points of the gun law. This was not the case.
After responding to one commenter, that was actually posting images refuting my talking points, my level of frustration was nearly at the breaking point. Being new to DK, as a diarist, and not knowing rules and culture of comments (I have read the FAQ), I felt completely helpless, and commented as such, even asking other commenters if this particular individual’s comments might be considered thread jack—I was later that no, the actions were not, but that they were considered improper etiquette.
Given that, for me, a large part of writing diaries is participating in the resulting comments, I felt really disappointed in how the comments under a diary I was rather proud of had degenerated into pie fight. Considering I was willing to give on some the opposing viewpoints and conceded that certain elements of my diary might have been better worded to illustrate where I stand on the particular nuances of gun laws, it was the complete and utter unwillingness of the opposition to even consider my viewpoint or thoughts.
In essence, I was being trolled by a handful of people who had no time to listen to differing opinions and were determined to control the discussion to the point that no one wanted to discuss the topic any longer—hence my feeling of being jacked (though they were on topic, the just wouldn’t let others discuss in their rapid fire disagreement). It felt as though they waited for someone to agree gun control laws in order to fire off a negative response.
It was not difficult for any reasonable reader to take note that not all members of Kos community are pro-gun-control—but to completely saturate the conservation felt almost disrespectful.
After commenting that I was done with the thread and would not participate in the argument any further, I noticed I had a message. A little fearful one particular individual disagreeing with me had moved his disagreement to my messages, I opened the message.
It turned out to be a message from bajadudes telling me to ignore the detractor and to keep my head up, which really went a long way to diminish my discouragement. I was getting to feel like I would have to carefully pick the topics I write about so as not incur such treatment—which didn’t feel right either.
After a few rounds of message back and forth, I thought it might be worth telling this story in a diary. I am sure it is inevitable that diarist will be trolled at some point—it a matter of time and number of posts. I guess I didn’t figure it would happen to me on my fifth diary—good to get it out of the way.
I want to thank bajadudes for the encouragement, while I never felt like I wasn’t going to post again, the overwhelming negative response to what I figure is a generally progressive viewpoint was surprise and disappointing and all it took was one quick message from someone saying “keep it up” to reaffirm my commitment to speaking my beliefs—knowing full well I may get pushback because of them.
Ultimately, this is really story of a DK diarist's growing pains. What lesson did I learn in this experience?
Be strident and be fair and treat those not playing fair with a respectful yet firm stance until such point you feel there is no discussion truly happening, then give them silence. Your point made, move on and think of your next diary topic.