Censoring your own comments

+Søren Dalsgaard Brath excellent post that I think some of you might enjoy reading and adding comments. I'm closing comments on this post because there is already an ongoing conversation on the original. Thanks +Keith Cramer for plusing me into the conversation!

https://plus.google.com/u/0/110687757011038291457/posts/9wo8tuLuqMv

Reshared post from +Søren Dalsgaard Brath

Censoring your own comments

Sometimes I find myself writing a comment on a post, but after re-reading it, I change my mind and delete it.

Have you ever written what you thought to be a great comment to a post, but then upon closer inspection changed your mind and deleted it, because it might offend someone or be misconstrued?

I would probably have made twice as many comments on G+ up till now, if I had pressed Post Comment every time I finished writing one, instead of re-reading it for spelling errors and bad wording.

This is not because I write incomprehensible comments, but because those extra seconds to think about what I have written, often makes me wonder whether the comment is appropriate or not.

I am fairly careful not to offend the original poster and often when I write something I find funny, I stop to wonder if I really am funny, or just being an insensitive dick. In the end I often end up pressing cancel and move on to another post, even when it is something I really want to participate in.

An Example: A few days ago I commented on a post where someone said the Egyptian people should be disgraced by the stadium tragedy. I commented that blaming the whole population was maybe a bit exaggerated. That was not well received! He wrote back, that he didn’t blame them, but that he would feel disgraced if something similar happened in his country and then he closed comments on the post so I couldn’t apologize for my comment (I still sent him a private message to apologize, but he never wrote back).

I guess I might define the word disgrace differently than he did. In my mind the Egyptian people as a whole, have no connection to the people who ran amok and therefore shouldn’t be held responsible for their actions or feel any disgrace because of it, but he clearly didn’t see it the same way.

The point is that I tend to censor my own comments because I try to avoid these things and I’m kind of sick of it. I don’t mean that I should begin trolling every post I come across and not give a damn about the original poster, but I really want to be less concerned with what other people think of me.

Google+ has already been a great help in this. I very rarely commented on anything before I came here, whether it was on Facebook or some online forum, but rather stayed in the shadows and just read along. After coming here I have become much more outspoken, even with people I don’t know and I’m thankful for that. I still hold back, but I’m getting better 🙂

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