In light of the personal attacks on my character this week both on this blog and a number of other blogs I feel the need to vent.
1. Nobody is forcing you to read this blog.
2. If you dont like what I publish then feel free to move along.
3. My reasons for my career choices and my method of attenting my goals are my own and these reasons are not open for debate or otherwise. I am more than happy to debate all other issues.
4. Anonymous posters really are the lowest of the low and will be treated with the contempt that they deserve. An anonymous poster is more than willing comment on something but are not willing to nail their colours to the mast.
7 comments:
O Dear B2B, I feel somehow as if allof this is my fault, in which case I offer you my sincere apologies. It's just that I read a comment on your blog from a poster who posts on other blawgs and is habitually negative and mistrusting about all and everything he reads there, and so felt in turn compelled to comment. I agree with you. There is nothing more cowardly than an anonymous poster.
I was tempted to call my self Mr Pot-Kettle! There is a certain irony about your reference to the contempt you feel for anonymous posters - whilst you call yourself BARRISTER 2 B, that really doesn't identify you. Are you not essentially anonymous too?! You make it more difficult for people to make comments when you insist upon them having a Google Account - not really in keeping with the freedom that is my namesake, but I guess you have your reasons.
What about anonymous posters who say nice things?
>In light of the personal attacks >on my character this week both on >this blog and a number of other >blogs I feel the need to vent.
*nods* - I haven't seen anything approaching a personal attack on you, (I think such comments have been deleted) but I do understand the need to vent! And yes, obviously we're into the problems caused by a text based medium that just add to the potential for misunderstanding.
>1. Nobody is forcing you to read >this blog.
>2. If you dont like what I publish >then feel free to move along.
Both of these points are true. They're not, IMO, good reason to dismiss legitimate debate (as opposed to personal attacks) about something you've said.
>3. My reasons for my career >choices and my method of attenting >my goals are my own and these >reasons are not open for debate or >otherwise. I am more than happy to >debate all other issues.
Hmm. I commented initially because I thought you'd misunderstood what you were trying to do and I was concerned you were going to end up in a mess. It seems, from the comments I've seen since that my interpretation was wrong. I'm sorry. I also understand that it's frustrating when you've got a whole host of people shouting 'that's not going to work' when you've already done the research to prove that it will and that having lots of people criticise one's choices can feel very much like an unwarranted personal attack.
All of that said, defensiveness about your position may be counter-productive. You've got a fair number of commenters (and presumably other readers who might correspond by email, even if they don't comment publicly), many of whom would be in a position to offer ideas/advice/suggestions and so on. [And yes, with many of us also being lawyers, such comments may be phrased rather more forcefully than would be ideal!] Possibly you aren't in a position to divulge enough information about yourself on this blog to get salient, targeted comments, without compromising your anonyminity, but email exists for a reason. Make use of your friends & acquaintances!
>4. Anonymous posters really are >the lowest of the low and will be >treated with the contempt that >they deserve.
Yes. If you're going to say something, you ought to be prepared to stand by it.
Karen McAtamney (with a bit of ingeniuity you could now find my home address & probably telephone number)
Law Minx, I do not post on other blogs in a habitually negative and mistrusting way. I have posted once on yours because I couldn't understand why you were applying for a BVC scholarship this year having already started the course. You enlightened me by saying that you were on the part time course. End of story. How that justifies unpleasant and personal comments from you mystifies me.
I had left a previous comment on this blog asking if its contents were fact or fiction, primarily because the description about the behaviour of a tutor was quite extraordinary (and there are some blogs out there which are meant to be a fictitious account). A perfectly reasonable question I think. I have also left comments on other legal blogs recently without having been accused of the hostility which you appear to accuse me of.
I did then post again on this blog because I simply wanted to point out that the method of qualification that B2B was pursuing would take longer, would be perhaps more arduous (nore exams to sit) and I wondered why he hadn't apparently made applications for pupillage (although I understand from a comment he made on another blog which he subsequently deleted that he has in fact made some non-OLPAS applications) - that's a fair query. This, it seems, justifies the pouring of scorn in bucket fulls.
I note that it is not only I who considers the manner of response to the various comments on the topic of B2B's plan to have been overly robust (I am being generous here); that is probably for a reason. All I would say to B2B on this subject is that you have pointed out yourself that it took the best part of a month for you to research this alternative route to qualification. You can hardly expect your readers to spend an equivalent amount of time researching the same so that they can respond to your post authoritatively, which is what appears to have been your expectation. Or perhaps you only wanted people to respond and say what a great idea it was (without having researched it). Or maybe you wanted no response at all, in which case it seems pointless posting it somewhere in a form which generally invites response and participation. If people (myself included) had misunderstood the process, it only required you to put the correct information out there; not launch a personal attack of your own in response, something which you appear to find so distasteful yourself.
As Karen points out (above), your audience is largely going to be lawyers, who do tend to phrase things in a direct manner. I, like her, have not seen anything which resembles a personal attack on you. It seems to me that it is perhaps time that a line was drawn under all of this...
Archbold, I am sorry if you feel this way, but I dont believe my comments are either personal or unpleasant, and why it is you choose to construe them as such is something of a mystery to me, given that we are complete strangers who happen to have knocked heads on the internet.
To be constructively critical is one thing; to be habitually negative is quite another.
If it does any good to apologise, then I apologise, and do so with sincerity. Blogs are meant to be fun, not the source of flame wars.
I totally agree with freedom of expression. B2B you dogmatism does you little credit. I am extremely sceptical about the route you are taking, but since you have made your mind up I will not bother to say why. What is the point of trying to persuade the judge who has already made his mind up?
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