No matter how well you know the rules of netiquette, you will eventually offend someone who doesn't. ~Don Rittner
First of all, I would like to address the very first excuse used in defensive of blog crashing by most who do it, which is the blog is in the "public domain." Okay, if I am at the park, that does not mean my purse, which is visible to you, is now public domain and you have the right to look into it to find my address book and copy it down, all without my permission; my purse and its contents are still my personal property. I did not want to make my blog completely inaccessible except to approved friends, but I also did not want to broadcast it to the entire Internet either, so I set my blog so it is not picked up by search engines. The only way people find my little sanctuary is through an invitation from me personally or through the few followers I have, who found my blog worth recommending. All of which has been working well. I picked up a few very respectful followers from other people's blogs.
However, there always are going to be people who seem to push the boundaries of etiquette, using one to link to others, and it saddens me greatly that the worse offenders seem to do it in the name of the Lord! Just because I love the Lord and hope I am worthy to be called a Christian does not mean that a fellow Christian has some special right to ignore etiquette, push my buttons to have his way, and not apologize for such trespasses. (My daughter would be in the corner thinking this one over, believe me!) Jesus Himself did not let the Pharisees tell Him how He should be doing things. Yeah, they were not "Christians" and Jesus was Jesus, but they were the religious leaders who seem to have a way about telling everyone else how to do things to please God and it seems we have Pharisees among the Christians of today.
Now many of my regular readers, my friends, are probably thinking what in the world happened get me so riled up, after all it was merely an invitation to a blog in the comments of a post, which I deleted because I could see that the only interest, the only purpose, in commenting at all on my blog was to advertise another blog and get as many followers as there as possible. If one simple deletion would have been sufficient, I would have not had to pursue this, but it continued. So, I was discrete and sent a private email asking the blog owner not to continue using my blog to advertise, but there it was again again the next day. Then I tried to leave a public comment on that blog again asking not to use my blog to advertise, which you will never see as the comments there are moderated, but I did finally receive a reply in an email from that.
Now I am not completely unreasonable...at least, I don't think I am, but you be the judge. I don't mind someone giving a link to their blog if they have a post relative to the subject in my own; I have done this myself and I suppose some people would be offended by that and in such a case I would apologize readily. I also don't mind being invited to another blog (once will do) in the comments section if it is obvious the person doing the invitation actually read my post and made a comment relating to it in a respectful manner; actually a new follower recently did this on my blog and his comment has not been deleted. (I do think this is better done privately in an email though.) However, I will not enable someone who seems to have a boundary problem and tries to make me feel guilty for not enabling him all in the name of the Lord we both serve.
Also, please do not use the excuse that your blog is not about you but all about God when the very name for your blog more than suggests otherwise. Being honest with yourself, being respectful of your fellow Christians, and practicing good blogiquette is a far better witness for the Lord than any of the spiritual truths you have written in the blog itself...not that the blog crasher will read this, but it may be helpful to someone else. While my blog is not all about God, it is my purpose to honor Him in all I do, particularly in blogging.
Oh, and to my Christians friends, please do not enable other Christians to be bad witnesses for our Lord or to make you feel guilty in the name of the Lord because you do not enable their ill-mannered behavior, but do pray for such people as God has a purpose for everyone. Please pray that we all are directed in the way God wishes for us to be.
~ My Lord, please forgive me when I have not been worthy of being called a Christian, when I have use Your name wrongly, when I have trespassed on another, and when I have stepped outside of Your will. May I be as forgiving as You are when others do the same and always be encouraging to them to stay on the path of serving You as You wish.~
