i think sophia hyat is another wannabe and she calls herself british pakistani when she’s dressed half naked she should have aleast some respect for herself. She’s lucky she didn’t get killed for that come on sophia have some respect for other british pakistani and no thats not sexy thats disgusting what she wearing.

What?

i’m getting confused by the analogies. but the one i used earlier about a dinner party is probably the one that works best for me. comment boxes are in a gray land between public and private, just like conversation at a dinner party. you are expected to be polite and respect the hosts. if you don’t want to abide by the rules of the hosts, you are expected to leave.

that reminds me of a quote from my high-school english teacher: “An essay should be like a woman’s skirt, long enough to cover the subject but short enough to keep it interesting”

But that’s not what I was doing, I was stating how big budget, major studio filmmaking is distinct from blogging, and dependent on distribution, makes the individual more susceptible to aggressive criticism.

it seems ludicrous to me to compare it to something created by a filmaker, who no doubt feels that their art is the raison detre of their life. when making critiques it is important to note just focus on the post in question, but remember the whole person.

I’m not sure what you’re implying here. But filmmakers (especially amateur ones) have outside lives as well, including bills and day jobs. Any remembering of the “whole person” should apply here as well. In fact, your contention of a greater emotional connection between a filmmaker and her product should actually make them less of a criticism target by all moral standards – but in fact that’s not the case

i hope the bloggers won’t take offense, but comparing what they do with what M Night does seems rather hilarious. i mean, anna wrote this post on her lunch hour. i remember once a reader of mine who sent me a private email to the effect that i should work on my prose style, as it would improve the quality of the posts. i responded, “well, if i had time, i would probably reedit some of the material i wrote out in haste.” the correspondent responded that i should make some time, it would help me out in my life over the long haul. i responded that i’d be happy too if they were willing to remunerate me as appropriate compensation, seeing as i had bills to pay and my job compenstated me decently for doing something less interesting than writing. at this point they got a bit huffy. the point is that there is a bigger context here, and too many of the conversations directed at bloggers from readers seem to emerge out of a vacuum where the bloggers in a black box somewhere generating subpar content. therefore, despite the labor of love that this weblog is, it seems ludicrous to me to compare it to something created by a filmaker, who no doubt feels that their art is the raison detre of their life. when making critiques it is important to note just focus on the post in question, but remember the whole person. regular readers will understand the general outlines of the lives of the posters, but new readers often don’t and so they don’t understand how unreasonable or ungrateful their comments seem.

on a distinct note, another issue is that some value is generated by the comments. comments whose primary effect is to simply salve the need to express the opinion of the commenter, but don’t push the dialogue or fun further, add nothing. in fact, their net value is somewhat negative. summed up they start to result in a non-trivial subtraction from the atmosphere which people value.

Oh no, I didn’t mean it as a charge against this particular blog or anyone here, sorry if it came off that way. I meant it more from the point of view of the creator (citing my personal experience), that expressing sentiments like “I’ve worked hard on this, etc….” doesn’t and will never alleviate criticism, whether it’s constructive, light-hearted, or downright spiteful. What I was trying to convey, was that for me personally, it offered me no solace and only hindered my artistic development to entertain thoughts like “but I’ve put so much effort and no one appreciated…” and so on..

I’m curious if writers (not bloggers) and filmmakers are engaged by their critics as aggressively, closely and frequently as bloggers who, yes, freely choose to do this are? I don’t think so.

I don’t think so either, I think they’re engaged more aggressively, depending on the viewship, distribution, etc.. Night Shyamalan makes a movie, and it’s up for the entire world to criticize, and while he is getting paid A LOT, I agree, it’s still a truckload of work, effort, sleepless nights, time away from family, sacrifice, etc… And bloggers have another advantage, they can terminate the dialogue as they see fit, which is totally fine, that’s one right I think the bloggers are entitled to, by doing all the groundwork in establishing the forum. But let’s not pretend as if the advantage doesn’t exist.

This is a community with a history which you are the newest part of, sometimes it’s helpful to delve in to that past before making judgments.

…which is precisely why I said this.

Is that really what you think we’ve done? Because I can tell you that after two years of creating this, we haven’t. Not even close.

I’m curious if writers (not bloggers) and filmmakers are engaged by their critics as aggressively, closely and frequently as bloggers who, yes, freely choose to do this are? I don’t think so. And I know that no one makes a contribution because they want to be insulted. There is no desire or need for readers to appreciate obsequiously, but it would be more pleasant for all of us if they don’t hate.

This isn’t aimed at or inspired by anyone in particular, but I hope people realize that the Mutiny existed before they discovered it one, two or three months ago. What you might assume is new, might be old and v.v. There might be further context for situations than what you currently know. This is a community with a history which you are the newest part of, sometimes it’s helpful to delve in to that past before making judgments.