Being wrong on the internet.

This post has been poached from my old, dead blog. It's themes are still true now, so I thought I'd post it.

Blogs can tend to be places where opinions are fired like bullets from a gun, where comments are well-aimed and meant for maximum injury, and where there can only be one survivor. It need not be this way. I know people who have blogs asking for constructive feedback to refine their ideas, though these tend to be the exception rather than the rule. Instead we take our rifles out into the Blogosphere Game Reserve, treating other people's opinions as sport to be hunted.

I want to make clear that this entire blog is made up of thoughts I'm exploring, not necessarily positions I'm advocating. And yet, needless to say, I must attribute some value to them, for if I didn't I would be writing something else. However, I am concerned that an amateur hunter will fire at the idea and hit me - whether accidentally or otherwise.

Over the last few weeks I've had a few ideas of posts to write about, and recoiled at the thought. I might be taken out of context. I might be unclear and thus misinterpreted. I might be - heaven forbid - wrong.

My anxiety is partially because The Internet does not take kindly to error. Considering the society we're supposed to be creating, where people are becoming more tolerant, where love is the key, where there is so much emphasis on equality, it's impressive how intolerant, unloving and dog-eat-dog cyberspace is. I find this truly breathtaking.

But there's another reason. A reason, in fact, that makes me part of the problem I'm concerned about: I want to be right all the time. I’m just as likely as the next commenter to attempt clean others’ dishes with a sledge hammer, while not taking kindly to having the same treatment applied to me.

I hope that blogging will make me both less likely to opinionate all over someone else while at the same time make me better at copping it myself.

Here’s hoping.