It's My Blog So...Nah!!

So while sitting here reading down through some folks blogs, I noticed that both Tobold and Gevlin wrote posts about commenters and their view points on this subject. I respect both of these individuals and their respective thoughts. It got me to wondering about the whole concept of blogging. Now I am new to this and I will freely admit this, but why do we write blogs? For me, I started writing so that I could respond to people's posts without critting the comment section; or in the case of people who may want to moderate a comment, then I can use my own blog to preach my own sermon. I also chose to start blogging because I felt that I have my own story to tell about how I see the World of Warcraft and the world as a whole.

I find it funny that some of the people who I consider to be good bloggers choose to shut down their comments or moderate their comments. Now it is completely their decision and I respect that, but I would like to ask why? Well, actually I do not need to ask why as they both kindly explained their own reasons and thoughts, but it was more of a metaphorical why. Perhaps even rhetorical? I may have even made up my own words there, but it is my blog so I can pretty much do whatever I want to, correct? I mean isn't that what we are really saying when we start to restrict comments or "moderate" them? Moderate is such a nice way of saying that we do not like what you have to say. Now if I were a lesser person I could ask if the Nazi's used the word moderate when they decided to moderate most of Europe, but we will not go there. Oh wait, we can. That's right! Why? Because this is my blog and I have complete control over this thing.

Sure I was being silly just then, but I was trying to stress a point at the same time. While we may not all agree, each of us (the blogging community) have the right to decide how and what we want to allow on our site, whether it is via what we post or what we allow to be commented on. I prefer to have an open blog where I do not restrict anyone from saying anything. Will this take away from the blog? I can absolutely see where it could take away from the blog, but it is a risk I am willing to take. I often times read every last comment on every blog I go to. I often times will return to a blog to read new comments on the blog. Why? Because I believe every person has something to say, even if it is something that is incredibly stupid or meant to create a buzz (either negative or positive). Do you have to agree with me? Nah, you can actually do whatever you want but that does not change the fact that this is my blog and I can do whatever I want to with it.