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What is appropriate protocol? When

Posted December 29, 2000 10:13 PM.

What is appropriate protocol? When someone writes something about your site that you think is incorrect - or you think should inspire further conversation - should you e-mail them and talk to them about it. If the original comment is a criticism, should you be able to address it? Or is it more appropriate to "rise above" criticism?

I've just been reading dissing.org. Brief bit of history on this one. A while back someone who posts to dissing.org wrote something about plasticbag.org that wasn't a criticism - but brought some fairly standard concerns about weblogging (how useful/interesting personal content was on a site for example), and asked a couple of questions (like how many people read sites like plasticbag.org).

I wrote an e-mail which I thought explained why I thought personal content had a place. I don't know - perhaps it sounded harsher than I intended. I don't think it did. I'm now trying to work out if I should have said anything at all or not. The reaction I've got from the site seems completely out of proportion to the e-mail I wrote. So here's my question to you - is it better to respond to criticism or to ignore it?

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