Blog commenters beware...

Social media is such an interesting thing. Be it Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, or the comment sections on various websites, it is amazing how various people handle it. It is like the idea of internet anonymity allows people to say whatever they feel like without any consideration for anyone else. As a person who strongly believes in the golden rule, I am always astounded by the things people say to others, but would never want said about them.

For over three years, I have had this little blog a runnin' and never once did I have a problem. Believe it or not, this little blog has been seen by people all over the world, which was actually never my intention, but a couple of websites posted my link as a guide for international teachers and boom...it was on.

So, a couple of months ago, I did a blog about the sidewalks here in town. I know that every country, heck every city, has great things about it and bad as well. Brasilia is no exception. There are so many thing about Brasilia that are great, but there are somethings that I don't always agree with. So, whenever I talk about something that either I don't understand, or agree with, I always try to balance it out, so that people get the most accurate reflection of Brazil and Brasilia possible. Well, I published the blog about the sidewalks and the next day I woke up and saw that there was a comment explaining what was "up" with the new sidewalk here in town. But, since I didn't know the commenter, I deleted it. I mean, I'm a single gal, and Im not stupid. One could easily figure out so much about me based on this blog. So, in order to be safe I deleted the comment and tried to email the poster instead.

The next day, I had received a lot of hits from Brasilia and some new comments...One from a "friend" of the commenter. In his post, he commented on the fact that I had deleted his friends comment and told me not to try to sound sarcastic, kind of insinuating that I shouldn't say anything bad about Brazil. That's when I noticed, he came from Facebook, and I had numerous people visit from Facebook. Evidently, my blog had been posted by someone.

So immediately, as I have a tendency to do, I went into freak out mode. I disabled comments and made the blog private. Fast forward several months later and I am questioning why I did that? I mean, why would I let some person I have never met have that much power over my blog? This is my documentation of my life in Brazil. For friends and family, this is their way of keeping up with me. And since I won't be returning to Brazil this fall, I want to make sure that I write down everything...as I experience it, because I don't want to forget my time in this country, with these people, with these experiences.

So, with that all being said, blog commenters be forewarned...be nice or get deleted...be nice or I will email you... and for goodness sakes, please remember that comments have no tone.

Welcome back to the blog. Y'all be nice now, ya hear?