I AM ANGRY WITH THIS POST!!!
You say:

“1) Do not copy and paste large chunks of text from other sources. Rather, put a very short quote and then link to the rest somewhere.”

I, being holier than though, rebut that with the catechism, which clearly states:

We do not believe in formulas, but in those realities they express, which faith allows us to touch. “The believer’s act [of faith] does not terminate in the propositions, but in the realities [which they express].“56 All the same, we do approach these realities with the help of formulations of the faith which permit us to express the faith and to hand it on, to celebrate it in community, to assimilate and live on it more and more.171 The Church, “the pillar and bulwark of the truth”, faithfully guards “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints”. She guards the memory of Christ’s words; it is she who from generation to generation hands on the apostles’ confession of faith.57 As a mother who teaches her children to speak and so to understand and communicate, the Church our Mother teaches us the language of faith in order to introduce us to the understanding and the life of faith.”

Which clearly relates, you ignorant toad.

Thank you for posting.  I have often forgotten to ignore trolls.  It’s a good reminder for all of us from time to time.

I like 3,4, and 5. I would restate one: Do not say anything in tone or content that you wouldn’t say if Christ was sitting in between you and the comentee. If thats too esoteric, Do not say anything in tone or content that you wouldn’t say if your priest, the Pope, or your seven year old was sitting in between you and the comentee.

Arden: Thank you for your amendment to 3,4, and 5! Indeed, I will remember that—it’s a great visualization.

Hahaha. Congratulations on #12. How could any guide to internet etiquette be complete without a Charlie Sheen reference? And, you pulled it off without having to lower yourself. Well done!

These are great rules to follow. I know that in the “do’s” you write to act with love and kindness. And it may be a bit redundant, but I would put in the “don’t's”; don’t insult or wrap up your comment with a put down or slap. All that does is empower the writer, but it does shut down discussion.

Excellent. I especially like 9 & 12 and I will try to be good.

This is all too academic for me, since I never post.  Never.

Good points.  I have had an idea that it might help avoid misunderstanding if we start the “meme” or whatever the cool people would call it, of narrating our posts. This could help express our nuances of tone lost in typing.  For example,“I think you forgot to add, always call people names,” she said with dry sarcasm.

Ok, admittedly not the cleverist example, but I’m fading fast on a fast day here!

Suggestion: don’t post puerile subjects such as “Which is better, this or that.” (Written with a smile.)

Oh My Gosh….#2.  Did you write that with me in mind???  lol.  I know, I know.  But honestly, sometimes it’s the only way to keep a conversation straight.  In “normal” posts (is there any such thing?) short comments w/out referring to specific comments is great.  But there are those times (protestant/Catholic, Atheist/Theist) threads where some serious discussion takes place and the only way to keep the some semblance of order IS to address specific comments by pasting them at the beginning of your comment.

I blog myself, and know what it’s like to have a thread derailed, but my goal has always been to meet people where they are.  If a thread starts out as a piece on the Best TV Dinners and morphs into the meaning of “Justification” in Scripture, so be it. 

As for trolls, they took the time to drop in and if you can get them to stick around you never know where you’ll end up.  Not to mention, the conversation isn’t always “for” the troll.  Lots of people are reading along and trolls can sometimes give people an opportunity to address important issues, even if the troll himself won’t benefit. 

Shoot, I’ve done it again.  Gone on an on and on…maybe I need to get a hobby?

What I meant to say was:  Great Post.  Very informative.  Made my day.  Wish I’d said it.  Brilliant piece…  ;)

Marc Barnes, “I am angry at this post”
Your post is the most boring post I’ve ever read.

Will refer to this guide-post (*wink*) on another site on which I blog. Some of us need a mild reminder over there. This is a good one. (Of course, I will LINK it, not cut and paste, and do proper accreditation.)

Awesome post! Did I totally miss the Sheen “winning” reference - thanks to G-Man for pointing it out?

Here is one simple disclaimer I think we will add to our blog. “Upon entering our site, do not check your charity at the door. Rather, your charity should extend into and through your fingertips. If your comments can’t be written out of love, do not post them.”

We will also refer everyone back here, asking them to assimilate and actualize everything you’ve listed! :)

Reflection on the catholic catechism # 2494, As I Quote” The information provided by the media is at the service of the common good. Society has a right to information based on truth, freedom, justice, and solidarity. The proper exercise of this right demands that the content of the communication be true and within the limits set by justice and charity- complete. Further, it should be communicated honestly and properly .this means that in the gathering and in the publication of news, the moral law and the legitimate rights and dignity of man should be upheld( The second Vatican council Decree on the mass media , chapter 1 #5)  **** The eight commandment ( precepts on the use of the social communication media # 2493-2499)
Peace to all

Dear God, please, may “bloo blah blee bloo”  make it into the American lexicon?

He is Rising! Happy and Glorious Easter to All!

Thanks. I will try to avoid indulging trolls.

I wholly agree with you that most of us do not read through lengthy posts of any kind. Only posters who keep succinct and to the point are really heard. The rest are simply monologues.

Good show…

www.Victims4Justice.org
Please help support victims of sexual abuse by demanding honesty, transparency, and accountability from Church leaders. Please visit our website and create productive discussion about how we, as a society, can prevent future children and vulnerable adults from sexual abuse inside and outside the walls of the Catholic Church.

The site is founded by a victim of clergy childhood sexual abuse. We provide Victims and Supporter discussions, News Headlines, Scheduled Chat Room Support Group Meetings (Mondays & Thursdays 7pm-9pm EST), Links & Websites for victims and supporters.
www.Victims4Justice.org

All great advice Matt.  I tip my hat to you, sir, and in the future, should there be more dialogue between us, I will do my best to limit comments to either simple points (just 2-3) or a single point, for I wish you no ill-will, nor do I wish to be argumentative.  Surely, we both understand that the Catholic faith is difficult to understand with all of its intricacies and I am trying my best to follow along using my Bible.

Most sincerely,
Jesse D. Bryant

Yesss… don’t feed the trolls - unless you’re fattening them up for a dragon to much on, in which case, go right on ahead! LOL - I completely agree with all of this - especially 1, 2 and 7. I can’t abide the “wall of text” that some people do - and don’t bother reading any of it - so it’s pointless. Yes… it’s completely pointless if *I* don’t read it, LOL - NyW4Y….. Joyeuses Pâques, Frohe Ostern, Buona Pasqua,
¡Felices Pascuas!, Prospera Pascha,  Sveiki sulauk? velyk?,  Happy Easter!

I’m so angry (whoops!) about some—some—Catholic ‘bloggers, including at least one priest, who recycle political stereotypes about others from certain a.m. radio commentators.  Sometimes the original content of some—some—‘bloggers should follow the same guidelines

Christ is risen alleluia, Christ is truly risen. Happy Easter everyone.  Matt, Jesus spoke to all who approached Him.  He came to call sinners.  How do you reconcile that with ignoring trolls? And holier than thou is often in the eye of the beholder. Often comments will spin or distort things to make them appear in a poorer light. Truth stated often seems like holier than thou to some. And one of your examples of how not to blog is the exact copy of a particular bloggers style. Ouch.  Seems like etiquette gets in the way of Christianity sometimes.

UGH!!! I got this blogging stuff all wrong. I thought that blogging was for people to type what they would not want to say in a verbal conversation. I am so embarrassed. Thank you for straightening me out. I shall be more careful.

Matthew:

Your post reminds me of something HITLER would write. :)

I think your rules would be very helpful on sites like NCR most of the time. However, many sites rely on extreme, polarizing, outrageous comments to spark interest and drive a lot of web traffic.  Even here on NCR there is one blogger who regularly posts pieces that are clearly designed to provoke an intense response from conservatives and traditionalists. The point of these kinds of posts is to elicit comments that border on inappropriate and then other commenters make equally outrageous remarks defending the opposing view and then there is another response, etc… Generating a large number of comments and page views is the whole point of making the post. This is called link-baiting and it is a well known tactic to drive lots of traffic to a website. Link baiting is basically when the blogger himself is the troll. Aside from this one link-baiting blogger, I would say that the other main comment problem on NCR is non-Catholic commenters who are allowed to post hateful material here. NCR really needs better comment moderation so that Catholics can enjoy reading Catholic opinion on a Catholic website. If we want to read secular, atheist or evangelical protestant opinion there are a thousand other websites we can visit. So I would say that if you really want to improve the quality of comments here at NCR, you should start by declining to publish link-bait posts and then work on moderating out the hateful non-Catholic comments.

Margaret:

It appears your definition of “Catholic” is “everybody agreeing about a narrow spectrum of ideas and never having to deal with or bear witness to anybody outside that spectrum”.  I decline to subscribe to this definition, thanks.

Mark:
My definition of “Catholic” is “everybody in the Catholic Church.” Obviously there is a wide spectrum of opinion among Catholics and that is why a Catholic discussion can be so interesting and enlightening. NCR is one of the few remaining places where Catholics can come to read and share Catholic opinion. I believe we should be able to do that without having to wade through garbage about how all priest are pedophiles and the Pope is the anti-christ, etc.

My other point is that National Catholic Register itself has a unique and distinctive voice within the spectrum of Catholic opinion. We all know that people who enjoy reading that the Church should ordain women or that abortion is a less significant issue than the death penalty usually go over to the National Catholic REPORTER. Over at the Reporter columns ridiculing national defense, patriotism, Western values, conservative thought and traditional Catholicism are expected and perfectly acceptable. Here at the Register they are just provocative link-bait designed to incite a flurry of agitated commenting. So I am saying that if NCR wants to avoid overheated commenting then perhaps they should start by rejecting posts by a certain self-righteous, attention-seeking, sensationalist, link-baiting troll columnist.

So “everybody in the Catholic Church” means “people who don’t criticize the defense budget and always conflate the military adventures of politicians with patriotism”?  “Western values” (including abortion, hedonism, gay culture and militarism) are professed by “everybody in the Catholic Church”?  Conservative thought is co-terminous with what “everybody in the Catholic Church” professes?  And expressing any skepticism about these propositions is self-righteous, attention-seeking, sensationalist and link-baiting trollery?

I am glad that bloggers here at the Register ask some tough questions about our faith and that might make some of us uncomfortable. That’s what keeps us in check and helps us to grow closer to Christ and the Truth. It’s a healthy and necessary process for the Church and it’s a healthy and necessary process for all of us online. It’s humbling too, which I know I need a healthy dose of often.

Additionally, I understand the urge to begin censoring kinds of comments you don’t like, etc. But that is DEFINITELY not the way to go. That kind of approach would cause many more problems than it would be trying to solve.

I think the right answer is for all of us to learn from Hitler and then to also learn how to be better commenters. Which was one of my goals with this post.

God love you, Matthew.  You’re an ornament of the Church.

Seems like what you are asking for Margaret is censorship of opinions that don’t agree with yours.  It is hard to see the true faith distorted, but I am not sure if the columnist you may be referring to is doing that.  But the answer seems to be to set the record straight and keep reaching out in love. Finding the right questions to ask and the right words so that you are truly communicating can be a long term process.  That doesn’t make it bad. It makes it worth the effort. Taking your ball and going home doesn’t bring anyone to Christ.  Just responding to a troll may bring out points others benefit by and counters alot of misconceptions in our culture. It may be the people aren’t really as far apart as they seem and the continuing discussion reveals that. Doing it in love should be the main criteria of the NCR and may be the vehicle God is using to bring that person closer. God works in strange ways and it is rarely obvious to the human perspective.

Which is exactly why I often go “off topic”.  If that is what an “outsider” needs to discuss, then I’m willing to walk on his road with him for awhile…even if it means we lose track of the topic at hand.  I guess the question is, what are we trying to accomplish?  Are we preaching to the choir?  Patting each other on the back?  Or using these types of forums to further educate the world on what Truth is and how the Catholic Church contains it. 

I agree with Pam, and said so earlier, that just because the “troll” might not be hearing what we’re saying, countless “lurkers” might.  I just let the commenters, rather than the bloggers (no offense to the bloggers) direct the conversation and I meet them where THEY are rather than insist they meet me where I am. 

Like I said, it all depends on what the goal is…?

mk - I’m not suggesting not to reach out to people or to not meet them where they’re at. Not saying that at all. Just saying to do so using the strengths and within the limits of the medium at hand (blog comment sections).

And you always have to balance your efforts of the small chance of helping a curious troll with how much an off-topic, long, cumbersome discussion actually hurts the ability of the many, many other readers to learn a little more from a great, on-topic comment section discussion that is relevant to the post (the reason they came to the post in the first place). (Hint: it hurts it a lot.)

As a rule, if you find a person that needs some attention or wants to go off-topic, invite them to your own blog for the discussion, do it via private email or link them over to a more appropriate forum/blog post that IS on that topic. In the end, that will almost always be much more fruitful for everyone involved.

How does one set up their own blog?

Pam,

We are ALWAYS looking for people to post at our blog.  We’d love it if you came over and joined our group.  I’d walk you through how to put up your own posts. 

Matthew,

I know what you are saying, but don’t you find that by the time a post gets “highjacked” it has already run it’s course on the topic at hand?

And I have invited them over.  That one post that you gave us extra comment space on?  We continued that conversation for almost 3 months.

That couldn’t have happened if we hadn’t all gotten invested here first…(Thanks btw).  I’ll respect your wishes, as this is your blog of course…I just see it differently.  I moderated on a well known pro life site for 3 years and was given the freedom to do what needed to be done…Started out with a group of about 15 seriously nasty girls who all descended on the post one afternoon.  Took them all on…after 3 years, two of them came here to my home and stayed with me, one went camping with me, 4 still email me regularly…and all but 2 are now pro life.  The time, effort and energy paid off.  It’s the reason two of us moderators started our own blog.  So that we could allow posts to go where the commenters took them.  Like I said, it all depends on what the “goals” are.  From here on out, I’ll try, really try, to keep things as you wish.

This is a great post! I always had these ideas in my head but could never really put them together as well as you did. People need to take these things into consideration. Thanks Matthew!

Very good points.

mk - I completely understand where you are coming from. But I do disagree that by the time a comment section gets “hijacked” it has already “run its course” for the topic at hand. A good blog post (that isn’t entirely about a current event) is relevant years from the time it is written. I get thousands of NEW visitors to OLD posts on my personal blog every day from search engines and people searching for info on a particular topic. The comment section is often very helpful for them and people will continue to contribute to it for years. That’s real long term value that helps people.

If I would have been content to let 3 people benefit from it immediately by running the convo off topic to “wherever it leads them” then literally thousands of others would have lost out. I’m not strictly utilitarian on the matter, but I think it’s a very practical consideration.

And keep in mind, that I don’t say these rules for the sake of just my blog posts. I point them out because they are general blog commenting etiquette (when commenting on a blog that is not your own) as well as good general rules for more productive, helpful posts/comment sections.

And Mark - I’m prolly more like the broken light causing a bunch of other random lights to not work properly.

Great post! Sometimes a reminder of etiquette is always good.

It’s all good Matthew.  You make some good points.  We just have different perspectives.  Val and I jump for joy when a blog gets hijacked because it means people are talking.  But our blog is smaller and we certainly don’t get the traffic you get.  Like I said, I’ll honor your wishes.  (You could always put up more Protestant/Catholic, Atheist/Theist blogs and then I wouldn’t be going off topic… ;)  )

Matthew, could you please explain how people “lose out” when the topic goes on a tangent.  I’m not sure how it “hurts”.  mk, Thanks for the invite.  What’s your blog? (off topic?)

Pam - sure thing! It’s simple. People usually come upon a blog post for a particular reason - the topic of the post. The ensuing conversation that occurs in the comment section below it is often extremely valuable to readers. It offers additional thoughts and perspective and often very valuable insights or counterpoints to the topic of the post.

When a comment section is hijacked or goes way off topic, particularly if it involves long, cumbersome responses to issues irrelevant to the post topic, it is 99.9% of the time of no use to the person who originally came to the post looking for answers and thoughts on the original topic. So they stop reading or otherwise have a much harder time sorting through the irrelevant comments in order to find what they were originally looking for or jump into the conversation.

It’s like asking why not just go ahead and explain what transubstantiation means under the topic of “Papacy” in the Catholic encyclopedia? Are there a few random souls who happen to look up “Papacy” that will benefit from a good explanation of transubstantiation? Of course!  But for most people it will just serve to distract them from the intended answer they were looking for (the Papacy). For everything there is a time and a place.

Pam,

It’s 2secondsfaster.com

You can email me too.

mkhastings at ameritech.net

Matthew,  “The ensuing conversation is extremely valuable? ” I think that gives blogs much more than they are due.  So much false teaching is found on them and so much pure opinion.  If people are using blogs for research then they are choosing poor sources!  They are a forum for common folk it seems from what I’ve read and they are a chance for people who do know the faith to spread it. Somehow those tangents are relevant to the topic or they wouldn’t have made their way in.  Now you could redirect things when you see that or post a request that a particular discussion become private between the parties or you could contact individual bloggers you believe have no good faith in their posts. Isn’t that why there is a moderator?

@Margaret - I don’t know the blogger to whom you allude, however I agree 100% with your thoughts on moderating posts.  Though I have found that one of the most effective ways to repel trolls is to let them post, and then ignore them.  (Another is to have a moderator delete or block their future posts.) 

@Matthew - That Hitler comment is a joke, right?  Your etiquette points are good.

SO HERE’S A FUNNY THING YA KNOW?  SO HOW ABOUT ALL THESE TORNADOES?  HOLY COW, RIGHT? TERRIBLE.

THE DOLLAR IS FALLING AND ALL OF YOU WHO DON’T GET THAT NEED TO BE BUYING GOLD AND RICE.

HOW’S THAT FOR KEEPING IT SHORT MR BLEE BLOO KNOW IT ALL?!

Lol My Name,

That is one train of thought I am NOT going to follow.  See Matthew?  I’m stayin’ on topic!  Gold and Rice…Too funny!

LOL.  Glad someone got that. ;)

Cheers!

(But if you had disagreed with me, I would have ripped you a new one, quoted the Catechism, then then ended this with.  “God bless!”)

The rules could be just summed up to a few if we just all started with this rule, “Post unto others as we would have posted unto us.” No?

[All seriousness, off topic or not - we should all pray for those affected by the storms.  I didn’t mean to belittle that topic while satirizing.]

Yeah the tornadoes are bad.  But I’m still not goin’ there.  Uh-Uh…not me.  I’m staying on the topic.  You can’t distract me and you can’t derail me.  I’m focused I am.  I’ve got only one thing on my mind and it’s the topic at hand.  Period.  Finis.  So there.

Ummm…what were we talkin’ about again….?

Oh and God Bless.  ;)

Well done. 

But those poor folks huh? 

Surely you can offer a prayer? 

;)

I can and will offer a prayer…many.  I just won’t talk about it!

This is a great post! I always had these ideas in my head but could never really put them together as well as you did. People need to take these things into consideration.