No Comment?
Why do we blog? It's a gross simplification but I think the reasons are three-fold. Firstly when you write a blog post you have something to say, you need to find the right words and write them down, albeit virtually. Secondly, you want someone to read what you've written. Thirdly, sometimes you want to stimulate or generate a debate on a topic, to provoke discussion and to participate in a dialogue with the people who've read your words. The last of these reasons is why comments are open on my blog by default and why it's not necessary to register on my blog, just to provide a name and an email address.
So why then, after writing all of the above, have I closed comments on my recent post on the Ordnance Survey supported GeoVation awards?
I woke up this morning to discover that the post had attracted a reasonable amount of traffic; I saw this from the stats on the bit.ly link to the post that was publicised on Twitter and on Facebook, I saw this from a quick peek at my analytics logs and I saw this from the number of comments waiting for approval.
I firmly believe that everyone has the right to an opinion and a view on a topic and that they also have the right to air those views and opinions. But I also firmly believe that I have a right not to display abusive, offensive and derogatory comments on my personal blog and so I've removed those comments and closed the post for further comments. I've never had to do this before and I sincerely hope that I don't have to do this again.
I made an informed decision as to whether to support the GeoVation scheme; you may not agree with that. You may feel the having the Ordnance Survey support the scheme and provide the seed fund is not something you want to be associated with. That's totally fine but does it give you the right to be abusive towards me and have me publish that abuse? I don't think so.
I'm really happy that you had a similar awards program in your country and that you feel it was better, or superior or vastly different that the GeoVation awards were in the UK. I'm not really sure that "my awards are better than your awards" make for meaningful or informed discussion though.
I'm sure that you think you could have come up with better ideas, better venture submissions, better applications, better uses of geography. So why didn't you? Why didn't you participate in GeoVation if you're UK based or in a similar scheme in your country?
Time to move on from this topic I think.
