What do you do with offensive comments on your blog?

These comments are not spam, as such; they’re not even caused by known trolls. Sometimes it seems anyone can fly off the handle at (seemingly) the smallest thing, and instead of engaging in a polite conversation/dscourse, hurl some abuse for their own pathetic satisfaction.

(I know I have)

Take the following comment I received on a piece I had written today from a company press release:

IDIOTS!! just lost all respect for this site, APPLE cinema and Dells have been at this res and beyond for years!! so what they have stuck HDMI on the end of the plug The DVI on the dells and the apples can be adapted to HDMI with a £1 adapter. idiots. removing this from my news aggregator. HDTV sort yourselves out, writing silly titles for your articles is not a way to gain readers its a way to lose them BYE BYE idiots

That’s not the way to enamour yourself to the editors of a website.

If the commenter had said something more polite stating that he didn’t agree with the article, because of particular factors, then we could have started an interesting discussion about the claims that companies make (remember, this was based on a company press release, not hearsay or gossip). However, simply calling us IDIOTS pretty much stops the conversation dead.

How did I respond?

Well, I know how I’d like to have responded, but I didn’t respond that way. Not that this person will read it (having removed us from his aggregator ‘n’ all), but this is what I said:

Thanks for your comment name. Obviously this wasn’t to your taste. You’ll find other news sites that have used similar titles because that’s what the press release said. I had planned to write a little more about the fact that it’s a grandiose claim.

I think we can survive one lost reader who cannot engage in a civil discussion about the merits and claims of manufacturers.

Not that you’ll read this, as you’ve removed us from your aggregator.

Reasonably polite, but still showing a glint of contempt for someone who can’t engage in civil public conversation.

Maybe this was a troll, blowing things out of all proportion. For example, the one article the commenter disapproved of by the end of the rant became ‘titles’ and ‘articles’.

Not that this person has ever commented before, and probably won’t again.

I could have deleted the whole comment, but I think sometimes it’s useful to show that there are some IDIOTS (hehe) around.