Conflict vs. Love-Fest

Following up from the discussion yesterday on blog comments, I came to the (pretty obvious) conclusion that you want a balance. Not too much angst, but not too much love. Prease consider:

Obviously, if the comments are antagonistic, or even just reckless, with people not thinking enough about how they will be taken or mistaken, then people get hurt, and people then are too scared to comment again.

But on the other hand, I don't think you want a blog to be a complete love-fest and completely avoid topics that others may not agree with you on. It is interesting to hear peoples' differing views, and often a blog is one of the few places where people feel comfortable to do that. You see some blogs where conflict is avoided to the point of making the comments kind of inane.

That said, conflict stresses the heck out of me, so I am happy for my blog to be relatively peaceful. I reckon don't balk at discussing touchy subjects, but tread carefully when you do so. And do it on someone else's blog, not mine.