It is now the final week of this class and I’m completely done writing everything except this last process post. I thought I could summarize my entire process of creating my blog as this is the last post. In the beginning my site was a very simple one page with all my content coming one after another. The background was white and the text was black, everything was really simple and lacked any personality besides the few pictures I had at the time. After a while It was getting really cluttered and confusing to distinguish what type of post you were reading so I decided to try something new with having the homepage be just a page with 4 buttons, one for content posts, one for process posts, one for mini assignments, and one for peer reviews. I liked the style of this because it was really simple but at the same time it made the homepage an extra step to get anywhere on my site and I knew eventually it wouldn’t work because I had to add more sections for the essay and about me. This made me once again change the style up completely to what I have now. Now the homepage acts as the content posts page and has a navigation bar at the top to get to every other part. The sections I have are for home (content posts), process posts, mini assignments, peer reviews, my essay, and about. I changed the background colour to an off white as it’s a little easier on the eyes and I also added a dark mode for if you’re using my site late at night. I think it’s been a very tough process to get to where I’m at now, especially with all the trouble I had at the start to even get my site to work in the first place, but I’m happy with where it’s at for now. The readings this week are mostly about community guidelines and comments. The readings; The Psychology of Online Comments and The dark side of Guardian comments, talk about how interactions on the internet are oftentimes more aggressive and negative compared to real life. They mention the online disinhibition effect which explains why people say things they wouldn’t say in person because of the sense of detachment and anonymity they get from being behind a screen. It also talks about trolling which is when people post comments they know will make you have a reaction and they get joy from the attention they receive when you respond to them. I don’t think this necessarily affects my website as I have yet to receive any comments on my posts and don’t think anyone actually reads the content I’m posting but I will definitely take this into account when using the internet elsewhere for example on social media. I don’t think the best way to combat this is by removing comments and banning users as it doesn’t really affect them as they can always just make new accounts, but rather I think the best way to combat this is to just simply ignore it as if they don’t receive a reaction they’ll eventually stop
References
Gardiner, B., Mansfield, M., Anderson, I., Holder, J., Louter, D., & Ulmanu, M. (2016, April 12). The Dark Side of Guardian comments. The Guardian. Retrieved April 8, 2023, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/the-dark-side-of-guardian-comments
Konnikova, M. (2013, October 23). The psychology of online comments. The New Yorker. Retrieved April 8, 2023, from https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-psychology-of-online-comments