Posted mainly to remind myself of a conversation some months ago.

[randomness]

From D-squared Digest, months ago:

If I have one piece of advice to give after years of frequenting the most troll-heavy regions of the ninternet, it's this: Never underestimate the proportion of your readership who are housebound or suffering from serious mental or physical illness. In an absolutely frightening proportion of cases, when you find yourself asking the question "Jeez, does this guy ever leave the house?", the answer would make you weep. In an absolutely frightening proportion of cases, when someone makes a comment like "god, why don't you just get a life/get a girlfriend/get a job?", they are making a suggestion that is roughly as unrealistic as ordering their enemy to sprout wings and fly. Why is the internet such a mean place? Because so many of the people writing on it are in more or less constant pain. Why do people take things so seriously on the internet? Because for so many of them, it is their only source of human contact.

Comments

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

wow.

Thank you for re-posting this. It is incredibly helpful to remember and think about.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't quote the whole post, which goes on to talk about how the poster feels like we all should have more sympathy, and that his blog's popularity suffered because he didn't.

(I think he's being too hard on himself as his blog seems quite popular enough to me with a quite readable comment section.)