Point of clarification

I don’t consider myself a web designer. Why? Because it’s hard. I’ve built a dozen or so websites in my time (including the template which is running this one), but I’ve never engaged in the amount of study or practice that it takes to really earn that title. I’ve considered it, but my real passion is with the written word.

The internet is one of the greatest advances in the written word that man has ever seen. They allow people to voice their opinions on a global scale. Each advance in social media has succeeded in lowering the entry bar to global stage. As the ease of entry lowers, the number of people committing social media faux pas has risen in inverted proportion.

A local design firm recently discovered this with a blog post making some rather strong claims – first that they were the best design firm in Richmond, and second by assuming critical peer relationships with some of the web’s best web designers. Despite this company being local, I haven’t met them. I didn’t recognize any of their clients, but I do have friends and associates who do. Beyond that, a significant number of web designers did see the post before it was removed and the resulting comments aren’t remotely kind.

Let me be clear, I’ve said far worse in my time. I’ve run my mouth in many embarrassing ways and said some rather embarrassing things. Thus, I’m not going to be the one to cast stones here. However, I think it bears noting that though the local company did delete the post, the damage was still done. Despite frequent comparisons between the internet and a bar, pub, or club – things said on line never really go away.

The questionable blog post from yesterday? Still currently cached on Google – where it will remain for at least another 179 days. Beyond that, I happened to have my browser open when the post was retracted and thus I have a cached copy and a version printed to PDF. [At the company's behest, and because they did make an obvious attempt to rectify this issue, I have removed the links. -PBR ]

In the end, such an experience serves to show that when you live by social media, you can also die by it. And in any small, highly connected community, such news travels quickly.

So, to keep this from skewing completely negative, and to bring this back to writing, how would you craft a similar post to avoid the heaps of comment hate? And how would you react if you suddenly found your inbox crowded with comments?