Speakers Are Not Always Right

While attending WordCamp La Vegas I had the opportunity to hear to Dave Taylor speak. I was hoping for an informative speech about the rights and wrongs of the blogging world. However I ended up little annoyed and very disappointed by what he had to say. I felt it was more of a Sunday sermon with bad comedy.

What I gathered from his speech is “play nice on-line, don’t use bad words “because you might lose readers/followers.
I completely disagree. You should portray yourself and your blog as you present yourself in real life.

Because at some point you are going to meet at least one of your readers/followers and if you are completely different in person than you portray yourself on line you will lose readers/followers anyways.

I am not willing to present myself in a false light, on-line or in real life. I feel being fake is a complete character flaw. I have lost many friendships over this issue, I consider it lying. I would be more offended finding out someone has been faking their persona to me rather than if someone used the word fuck in a post. I believe in being true to yourself regardless of the medium and in turn you will find more loyal relationships and readers/followers.
More importantly the main purpose of a blog is for one to be able to express oneself freely.
The comments are there for your readers to express their thoughts freely.

You will not always be right nor will your topic always be interesting, and sometimes you need to hear this. Take negative comments and learn from them rather than complain about them.
If you only want to receive nice comments have a privet blog, only allow your friends and family to read. I am sure they will leave you nice comments.

Furthermore, if you leave a comment and at a later date regret it you can chalk it up to a learning experience. Just as in life we all make mistakes, learn from them.