Last week, I asked what the most annoying LJ habit was, and followed it up with a poll to verify it. According to your responses, the most annoying type of LJ entry was…

…drum roll….

"Auditions" (i.e., "Comment now or I shoot your LiveJournal account!"), followed cloesly by bad grammer and spelling.

The post, however, had an interesting subsection, where it turned out that a lot of people hated *hugs* comments. For those of you who've never gotten one, they arrive in flocks when you post an entry about how your brother just suffocated in the process of an attempted puppy-raping. You say you're feeling terrible about the death (and feeling even worse about the puppy), and then comes the one-liner comment:

*hugs*

Now, I don't mind them. Frankly, when Tommy died, I was a little annoyed by the myriad of ways real-life people attempted to console me, because really they couldn't. I felt shitty because of something that had happened and could not be changed, and there were no words that would somehow ease my passage. I would have loved people to come up, say "Hugs!" and walk away, all the essential things having been said.

But apparently this vexes people. Which raises a second question:

What's the most annoying LJ comment?

Me? I'm actually split, and God forbid this gets to a poll because I can't determine which is worse. There are two types of comments that drive me crazy — neither of which I get all that often, thank God.

1) Drive-by hatings. I post something short and thrilled, like "I love oatmeal" or "Man, Galaxy Quest is the best movie ever." And someone posts, "I fucking hate that movie. The actors suck, and the jokes aren't funny."

Why the hell would you take the time to piss on someone's enjoyment?

Now, don't get me wrong; I don't expect sunny comments when I'm reviewing a movie, because a review is a dissection of what I like about it. In that case, I'm expecting you to weigh in with your opinion, because I find that interesting. In fact, most of the time this blog is dedicated to open discussion, since I like debate. (I'm actually proud that a huge creationism/evolution discussion is currently going on, most of it civil, albeit with the creationism side very one-sided.)

But I've said, "Hey, I really like X," in a post that's mostly enthusiasm about my love of X, it just seems petty to walk up and go, "WELL, I HATE IT!" I'm loathe to post about the last reality show I watched, because I know some idiot will go off on an unrelated tirade about how terrible, terrible all reality shows are and why they're the death of civilization.

To me, it comes of as if you dislike X so much that you have to kick 'em down a notch if someone else does. That seems petty.

2) Anonymous Arguments. Actually, I don't mind the anonymous flames, because they're pretty amusing. Most of 'em are pretty clueless, especially when they criticize me for my hippie hair (old icons, folks; I just miss that bad hairdo) or — in what may be my favorite comment ever — my "tight-assed, sex-hating Christian outlook."

But I do hate it when someone takes a controversial outlook and does so anonymously. It's the act of a coward, saying, "I don't want anyone to associate my name with this debate, but I want to make these points anyway." Not coincidentally, these anonymous, controversial posts are much more likely to make wide, sweeping accusations about my intentions.

Usually, people who defend the anonymous folks have two points of defense: a) we're all on the Internet, so identity doesn't matter, and b) points of view should be neutral.

a) is bullshit, pure and simple. If identity didn't matter, then these people wouldn't be logging out of LJ to present their point of view (and they are LJ people). Your internet identity is fragile, but it is a collection of views that can be traced back to one person. Who you are matters. I've been meaning to make an Onion-style parody for a while, entitled "ANONYMOUS VOICE CLAIMS 'I HAVE A DREAM' AT NEGRO RALLY; African-Americans everywhere say, 'That faceless voice hiding in a shed inspired me'."

B's a little trickier, since a good argument should technically require no point of view…. but that is also a lie. When I speak of racial matters, what I say is clearly informed by the fact that I'm white. When I speak of sexual matters, you should probably know I'm a guy. Usually, the anonymous posters only come out of the woodwork for the social issues, usually to tell me how I don't know anything because I am a member of group X.

Furthermore, nobody's good enough to post their entire viewpoint in three paragraphs. Knowing who you are allows me to fill in the gaps, inferring motive where it is not present. If you spend your entire journal posting about how Bush conspired with JFK's ghost to create 9/11, chances are I don't have to follow up on the facts you've presented no matter how compelling they sound.

(With that comes the other moan, of course: People stop listening to me when they find out I'm a JFK nut! Well, either you're that fucking crazy and people are right not to listen to you… or you need to shatter the stereotypes of JFK nuts, enduring more shit because of your asshole brethren. It's not an excuse to go anonymous.)

Now, I'm going to ask you what your most-hated comment is in a moment, but first a word from cubes, who asked two very good questions:

1. (You want) No psychodrama... except for bashing other people's bad habits.
2. If you want no psychodrama, why in hell do you keep reading journals that annoy you?

Good questions. #2 is easy; I check out a lot of people by following comment links and so forth, and I don't know what they're like until I get there. I don't friend them, but that doesn't stop me from seeing what they write. (Furthermore, as I specified in the first post, sometimes Eeyore takes a while to figure out.)

As for #1, you may note that "Long, uncut posts" got fifty votes. Apparently, I'm annoying. And people tell me all the time that I should use LJ-cuts, and have no problem informing me that it's a pain in their ass and I should stop. This is all done without psychodrama.

I think it's entirely possible (and even reasonable) to say, "That's a pretty rude/irritating behavior" without it degenerating into personal attacks. I've actually had to say to an employee of mine, "You need to use deodorant" and it didn't go badly. The trick is to express concern at the behavior, not the person. Otherwise, the issue is to never discuss truly odious habits for fear of offending someone, which strikes me as a fine path to madness.

And also, I'm still not LJ-cutting. Why? Because I know it is irritating to some, but it is my journal. I thank you for bringing it to my attention; I disagree. (However, I didn't know that *hugs* were irritating to some, and will take note of those people so I do not offend them in the future. Such is the value of open discussion.)

Thus, as the rules have been before, there are to be no snarks at anyone, not even in a "She knows who she is" way. (Or even "That's annoying" in response to someone else's comment.) No names are to be mentioned….but what comment is your least-favorite feedback?

(199 shouts of denial | Tell me I'm full of it)