Some Blog Relationships can Leave a Bad Taste in our Mouth: The Last Word on a Sordid Affair

I don’t know which is worst. Being called a liar or feeling guilty for a mistake that I didn’t make.

Background: I was baited into making a comment about Liz Strauss on a previous post that I did not intend to make. I said that she had left snarky comments on this blog in the past. I was subsequently accused of being a liar by Ms. Strauss and she demanded an apology.

I have since removed her comment but I kept a copy. Here it is:

Mr. Bloke, You make some serious comments regarding my supposed past visits here. Though I am sure they would have been delightful. As far as I can recall, I havnn’t been to visit. But allowing for the fact that I am an elderly blogger and could be losing my memory, I can certain of this much, I have never left a snarky comment on your blog. I am the nice one.Thank you for thinking I am worth talking about. I hope next time you will say thing that are more accurate. You owe me an apology for the things you made up.
Liz Strauss

For the record I was feeling very badly over this. I knew that I had right on my side but her comments left me scratching my head so I went on a quest in search for her elusive comments, but because Blogger does not provide a search function for comments this proved to be a daunting task.

Since then I have been able to find at least one of her past comments, and here it is: Blog Ethics Reviewed and the date of the comment is December 17, 2006:

Dear Blog Bloke,
How disappointed I was to get to the end and have you ask where you link was. That changed the entire story that I just read.
Now I wonder about the purpose behind the story in the first place . . . ambibuity, credibility . . . . I’m distracted by possible double meanings in the comments. All caused by remarks about linking. I thought his was about conten. No link is worth unraveling credibilitiy of a message.

Was this snarky? I think so. Was it snippy? Most definitely. You see, I had to delete some extremely inflammatory comments that were left by Mr. Clark, as well as responses that I made and others including Ms. Strauss. She was referring to these (I won’t put Mr. Clark’s comments here because they were extremely graphic if you know what I mean).

Obviously she was trying to stir up the pot a little. Reading a little between-the-lines of her rambling rhetoric she was also subtly implying that I was the unethical one by intentionally misconstruing what I wrote.

So I believe I am within my rights to categorize her comment as being in the snarky category (or at the very least snippy).

This thread was the worst case of flaming that this blog has ever received, and according to her own words Ms. Strauss is also friendly with Mr. Clark:

“I met Brian Clark when I was just a short time with Successful-Blog and he was just a short time with Copyblogger. That’s a great example - we kind of grew up together.”

BTW, this was my response to her at the time:

Hi Liz. I’m not sure if I follow you. What double meaning and link were you referring to? Could you elaborate? It’s a Sunday morning and I’m not the brightest kid on campus right now. :)If you have some insights into the matter I would love to hear them but I want to handle it sensitively as I’m reticent to dredging up old wounds again. What I want most is to end this on a positive note if possible.

So you tell me who was the “nice one“ in this exchange? And she never even bothered to respond to me either.

So there you have it folks. The fact is Ms. Strauss was wrong when she said she had never visited InstaBLOKE before, let alone leave me a snarky comment. I know there is at least another snarky comment somewhere but it continues to elude me at this time.

Could it be just a bad memory like she suggested? Maybe. I guess I can forgive that, but it is another matter when someone with an admitted memory problem has the cheek to accuse me of being a liar as well as her snark.

I feel vindicated and relieved that it was not me who said something that was not true or somehow misconstrued the facts, but now I’m wondering who really owes who the apology now?

I lost a lot of sleep and readers over this. I was accused of everything from being a liar and a creep for daring to criticize Ms. Strauss. At least now any reasonable person can see for themselves that Blog Bloke is not a liar (and in fact the nice one).

Here is a recent email (slightly edited) that I sent to a reader who felt that I was wrong and sums up my feelings on the matter:

Thank you for your email. Loyalty is a quality that I admire in a person…You will notice that I didn’t name her anywhere in the actual post. I did that intentionally and I even considered not adding a link to her piece but I felt I had to under the circumstances, so I made it as innocuously as I possibly could.

It was a commenter who first mentioned Liz’s name (not me). I wouldn’t have called Liz out if I wasn’t sure it was her (maybe I caught her on a bad day).

I was just thinking out loud at the time and I later regretted it. Nevertheless, I decided to take down the comments because I didn’t want matters to get worse and it was getting off topic anyhow.

I was deeply troubled by the way things were regressing. Believe it or not despite the fact that I can be a contrarian blogger and seem to be a tough nut to crack, it hurts me when people leave snarky comments.

I’m also a nice person, but it really angers me when I see so much unfairness and BS going on in the blogosphere, and I will use my blog to speak out against it.

I use tongue-in-cheek humor to make my point but some people take me the wrong way and they can get a little belligerent.

I’ve been shut out by the Pro Blogger types because I have criticized them, and when I see Liz cozying up to them I’m obviously going to associate her with them.

I also find it interesting the way you describe Liz’s style of blogging (i.e. relationship blogging) because it is very similar to what I preach, but I have never even received a link from her. Don’t you find that interesting?

It’s not right when bloggers use my information and don’t give me the credit I deserve because of pettiness, jealousy, or whatever.

Anyhow, I’ve said my piece and the issue with Liz is over as far as I’m concerned.

Sidebar: In the writer’s own words (comment #8):

“Sometimes I write the post FIRST. Then I look for bloggers who have written on something similar. Yeah that means that I sometimes end up reworking what I wrote, but it always gets better.”

Bloke’s Response: All that I ask is you practice some basic linking etiquette and link to me the next time around please. Thanks. The only reason I bring this up again is because I took a lot of flak that I didn’t deserve, especially now that there is a call for a blogger’s code of conduct. I was accused of things that were not true so I’m setting the record straight, and if I can be accused of anything it might be that I was too nice throughout this nonsense.

According to my traffic data I also took a hit and lost a lot of readers. Obviously those readers were Ms. Strauss’ fans. This is a good example of not letting our loyalty blind us or jumping to conclusions before all of the fact are presented. I respect loyalty as much as anyone but as we can see first assumptions are not always correct, and I will continue to use my blog to speak out against BS and unfairness in the blogosphere.

So that is the end of it as far as I’m concerned and it was with some trepidation that I wrote this post. I hope that matters won’t regress any further and frankly I don’t care if Ms. Strauss or her friends apologizes to me or not. At least my conscience is clear.

Further reading:

• Linking Etiquette/Ethics for Blogs: The Last Word