Change.

Change.

GOSH. We asked a question. Do you think Parent Blogging is Becoming More Competitive?. The post wasn’t one sided. It didn’t say there was anything wrong with change. It didn’t say there was anything wrong with creating an income using your blog. Just as it didn’t say there was anything wrong with reviewing products. The aim of it… to simply explore whether there was an increased trend of such competitiveness and change in the blogging world, to get opinions on anonymity, the use of social networking and to highlight some favourite and new blogs too.
This post was an idea after being absent from blogging/tweeting for a few months and returning to ask on twitter “So what have I missed?”….
It seems I missed a lot.

What was created simply for feedback for a magazine feature about parent blogging, had me looking far too deeply into analysis of individual words used in my post, as quotations of them were being thrown back at me with interpretations that clearly weren’t in the original message.
This is not what would have happened if we’d skimmed this subject via blog post a few months ago. Discussion used to be healthy and you didn’t need to don your armour once you had pressed ‘publish’. It also became apparent that the way a post is interpreted can be led by it’s initial comments.

There are many new mums joining the parent blog world as it is featured more in the media.

What concerns me is that new mums can often need support, it can be an emotional and sometimes vulnerable time.
After the birth of a baby and the decision to dip your toes into the parent blog pool, would you have wanted to be faced with defending yourself against fellow bloggers intent on repeatedly commenting against your words until they had achieved a feeling of having ‘won’ ?

Bloggers, no matter how new, how old, how successful, how big, how small, how many followers… they are all the same.
They are people, just like you, just like me.

Although I personally have never suffered from blog bullying, it has been mentioned on more than one occasion recently.

A post by Karin pointed me in the direction of Linda’s post about Blog Bullying, (coincidentally something Flying Start magazine is also looking into as part of the feature). Here is a link to Linda’s post. Go and read it. http://www.gotyourhandsfull.com/2010/08/my-tips-for-countering-online-bullying.html

If you have any experience of blog bullying, whether it is your own experience or you feel you have witnessed someone elses, we would love to hear your stories. Obviously all in confidentiality. Email online@flyingstartmagazine.co.uk

Together, raising the awareness of an etiquette expected between parent bloggers might just help minimise the current all too familiar tale.