Sample Attacks and RSS Readers

Irresponsible comments

Hmm. In my most recent post, I've received generally polite comments, even from those who didn't agree, and I thank my commenters for that. However, I received one comment that just could not be allowed through because he called individuals or groups names. In the past, I simply didn't let this type of comment through without saying a word about it. But because of the current situation in DeafBlogLand, I am publishing it in this post and dissecting it to show why I feel this is an example of what none of us should tolerate.

(at 9:14) Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Call For Accountability For All":

Responsibility? The deafhood goons has [sic] hijacked deafread since last May.

Deafhood's favorite modality is bullying others so the mess seen on the deafread sphere is very representative of deafhood.

Richard Roehm

Calling a group "goons" should never be acceptable. I'd say the same if someone called Rachel and Elizabeth of Cochlear Implant Online goons, and I'm saying it about this comment. And blaming the current mess solely on deafhood is unfair. There is plenty of blame to go around.

And please note that how I talked about the comment focused solely on what was said, not on the individual involved. This is an important point.

RSS Readers

On to another topic, RSS feeds. Some people have been asking for subscription lists on blogs, but there's a far better way to be notified when your favorite blogs have new posts. That's to use a RSS reader. I'd like to encourage all of you who want another way to read your favorite blogs to look into using a RSS reader.

There are many options out there, both computer-based and web-based. I love RSS Menu for the Mac, because it puts my RSS feeds right into the menu bar. But I'd hafta install it... and update it on all the computers I use, which gets unwieldy. So I use Bloglines instead, since it's web-based and I can use it on any computer that has Internet access. There are other programs and Web-based readers out there that you can use. Check Version Tracker for computer-based RSS programs to try out. There are other web-based readers that I've heard of, like NewsGator, Google Reader, and others. If you know of any others, please do leave a comment so all of us can learn more.

For me, Bloglines is very, very easy to use. You sign up for an account, and it walks you through the steps easily. The DeafRead team posted a step-by-step tutorial on how to use Bloglines in the early days of DeafRead. There was also a video showing how, but it's no longer there. You do need to scroll down to How to read DeafRead in a RSS Reader, and the instructions are the same for any website. If there is no RSS link on the blog, you can just click on "Add" in the top lefthand corner, type in or copy and paste the blog address itself and Bloglines will look for the RSS feed for you.

A nifty perk is that Bloglines is offered in 9 languages, including French, but c'est moi... *grin*

I'm not here to advertise Bloglines, but to encourage y'all to use RSS feeds to directly access your favorite blogs and vlogs. I personally go to both DeafRead and my Bloglines home page. Which I do first depends on a lot of things at that moment. Experiment. Play. Find out what works best for you. Some of you may want to just stay with DeafRead, which is fine! Some of you may want to move exclusively to a RSS reader, which is fine! Whatever works for you. :)

*I know the person who commented above is a controversial figure in the community, but I will not tolerate any comments that attack him as a person. Any such comments will be rejected.