Dealing with negative comments -A psychological approach
Comments always make you high. I still remember those days when I started blogging. I’d write a post, hit publish and then wait…wait for someone to comment. Every time, I get notified by email on a new comment..Ah! The feeling is simply superb! Truly it’s a high!
Comments are more than just feedbacks from your readers and mostly, when there are comments it means you were able to connect directly to the reader. If your article failed to impress your readers, then obviously there wouldn’t be any comments.
But how about negative comments? Like when someone strongly disagrees with you or put you down with any harsh comment? (Since readers are from around the world, this situation is quite possible. While words and phrases in one part of the world is normal, it could mean abuse to another country.)
Many a times, comments are negative, if you think about it that way. Yes, comments are either positive or negative, the way you take it. Mostly, comments are positive when the reader is delighted or happy with something you write or did. Obviously this doesn’t happen all the time.
There are people who show their appreciation by disagreeing with you. There are people who’d like to measure your caliber by correcting with you. You have to take both of them if you were to be successful.
I’d like to quote a famous saying - People criticize for what you are doing simply because they couldn’t do it, or they can’t do it. So keep going!
The point here is, comments are not negative or positive. They are basically feedback from readers. You shouldn’t get disheartened because someone corrected you, or because someone said your idea is stupid.
Comments are not clues for you to act upon. They are comments just because you gave the space for someone to write their thoughts. Negative or positive, comments are good. It only means that people are reading you and analysing you. What really matters is consistency.
I’d say you are not going to be successful if you were to change yourself for every comment you receive. But successful is the man who takes the life in his stride and walks ahead of positives and negatives like a hero.
(As you might have wrongly guessed, I’m not a masters in Psychology but Marketing 
)
Jamie Harrop | October 29th, 2007 at 6:11 pm #
Was this post inspired by the small batch of negative comments that my guest post on John Chow’s site about PageRank received yesterday, Mani? I’m just curious, that’s all.
I like to think I dealt with those negative comments quite well, although looking back on it, I would have probably done just as well to let them slide, as opposed to trying to depend my opinion expressed in the post.
Anyway, good post Mani, even if you did beat me to the bubble on this topic. After yesterday’s episode, I was going to write about the exact same thing.
Jennifer | October 29th, 2007 at 9:52 pm #
Don’t let me say this too loud, but I a lot of times prefer negative. Yes…sad but true. I don’t get many, but they are a highlight of my day. I don’t know as I want to be overwhelmed by them though either. LOL… There is a low acceptable and enjoyable level.
Mani Karthik (Post Author) | October 29th, 2007 at 11:34 pm #
Jamie, that’s interesting. I didn’t have anybody in mind when writing this post. Well I think we’ve all gone through the same thing one point or the other. So it matters to all I guess.
Jennifer, hush hush.. - I even write some articles deliberately that I know it will make people respond, disagree with me and create a discussion. (Now, that’s the guru speaking!)
Manick | October 30th, 2007 at 12:31 am #
Hi Mani,
A simple idea presented in a nice way. I think many bloggers do over-react sometimes when they get negative feedback, including closing down the comments feature. I think we need to accept negative or positive comments from the readers. It is up to us to use the comments constructively.
Wayne Liew | October 30th, 2007 at 6:14 am #
I welcome both positive and negative feedback in the form of comments in my blog because as you said, we as a blogger often get high when we see a comment on our blog.
The one thing I can’t stand and I will reply vigorously is that some people who are short-minded uses the comment section to express their hatred (e.g. against a race) through comments which I find irrelevant to my topic and such comments might ignite unwanted consequences.