Unfriendly Feedback
Besides my LJ here pretty much my only public presence on the Internet is the Nature Walk website I first put up last year. I've really enjoyed photographing my nature hikes and putting my impressions of each walk up for people to see.
When I put up my new nature pages most of my feedback comes from family and friends who read this LJ and fellow walkers over on the "Walk to Rivendell" message boards. I do have a contact address over on the nature walk page, though, so once very rarely I will get a letter from someone who has stumbled across my page. A few weeks ago a very friendly woman from Mississauga wrote to me recommending John and I go hiking at Mono Mills Conservation Area north of Orangeville. We had been there before a few years earlier, but her letter did encourage us to go back again and it really is one of the prettiest hikes in our area.
Tonight I received this letter in my e-mail:
"I just looked over your site pertaining to elora gorge and being a resident of this area was completely amazed that you could spend a whole day exploring the gorge, and take the time to make a web page entry on the experience and not even come close to the reality that you were on the GRAND RIVER not the credit.
sincerely stunned"
Well, I was rather stunned myself by the miserable tone of this letter. Of course, the writer was correct, Elora Gorge is on the Grand River, not the Credit River, and obviously I had made an honest mistake, being that I had hiked on both rivers around the same time, but I really was stung by getting such feedback.
Now, I know I am showing my webpage naivete by letting such a letter upset me at all. I know people with much more high-profile websites who have dealt with far worse correspondence, but I'm still sheltered enough that I don't expect to get nasty e-mail out of the clear blue sky for webwork that I have lovingly done.
Anyway, I sent a brief response back to the person, more polite than they deserved, and then I went over to my website and pulled down the Elora Gorge page. Possibly I'll correct it and put it back up on the site or possibly I'll just finish the Seaton Trail/Humber Valley Heritage Trail page I'm working on at present and just replace the Elora Gorge page altogether.
Yes, I'm over-reacting to this situation. Still, I have never understood why the anonymity of Internet communication allows some people to think they have the right to be rude, ignorant and cruel beyond what is called for. There are message boards on the Internet that are so nasty and mean in their tone that I've surfed away from them in horror and it always surprises me when I have moderated on-line discussion groups and people have -complimented- me because of a lack of pettiness and flame wars in the discussion. Why would people want to get bogged down in other types of discussion? What is the fun in that? Shouldn't -all- on-line discussions be that way? :) (and once we accomplish that, hey, we can work on world peace)
I'm getting seriously off-topic here. I recognize that opening up a public website with my e-mail address on it leaves me open to feedback from all kinds of people, both friendly and not so friendly. But I don't have to like it.
Exercise log: Went hiking tonight (surprise! :)). We went to the Heber Down Conservation Area in Pickering and walked all the trails there. I walked 6 miles taking me to 268 miles on my walking challenge.
When I put up my new nature pages most of my feedback comes from family and friends who read this LJ and fellow walkers over on the "Walk to Rivendell" message boards. I do have a contact address over on the nature walk page, though, so once very rarely I will get a letter from someone who has stumbled across my page. A few weeks ago a very friendly woman from Mississauga wrote to me recommending John and I go hiking at Mono Mills Conservation Area north of Orangeville. We had been there before a few years earlier, but her letter did encourage us to go back again and it really is one of the prettiest hikes in our area.
Tonight I received this letter in my e-mail:
"I just looked over your site pertaining to elora gorge and being a resident of this area was completely amazed that you could spend a whole day exploring the gorge, and take the time to make a web page entry on the experience and not even come close to the reality that you were on the GRAND RIVER not the credit.
sincerely stunned"
Well, I was rather stunned myself by the miserable tone of this letter. Of course, the writer was correct, Elora Gorge is on the Grand River, not the Credit River, and obviously I had made an honest mistake, being that I had hiked on both rivers around the same time, but I really was stung by getting such feedback.
Now, I know I am showing my webpage naivete by letting such a letter upset me at all. I know people with much more high-profile websites who have dealt with far worse correspondence, but I'm still sheltered enough that I don't expect to get nasty e-mail out of the clear blue sky for webwork that I have lovingly done.
Anyway, I sent a brief response back to the person, more polite than they deserved, and then I went over to my website and pulled down the Elora Gorge page. Possibly I'll correct it and put it back up on the site or possibly I'll just finish the Seaton Trail/Humber Valley Heritage Trail page I'm working on at present and just replace the Elora Gorge page altogether.
Yes, I'm over-reacting to this situation. Still, I have never understood why the anonymity of Internet communication allows some people to think they have the right to be rude, ignorant and cruel beyond what is called for. There are message boards on the Internet that are so nasty and mean in their tone that I've surfed away from them in horror and it always surprises me when I have moderated on-line discussion groups and people have -complimented- me because of a lack of pettiness and flame wars in the discussion. Why would people want to get bogged down in other types of discussion? What is the fun in that? Shouldn't -all- on-line discussions be that way? :) (and once we accomplish that, hey, we can work on world peace)
I'm getting seriously off-topic here. I recognize that opening up a public website with my e-mail address on it leaves me open to feedback from all kinds of people, both friendly and not so friendly. But I don't have to like it.
Exercise log: Went hiking tonight (surprise! :)). We went to the Heber Down Conservation Area in Pickering and walked all the trails there. I walked 6 miles taking me to 268 miles on my walking challenge.