Take a Second!

WordPress is what I use to build/update my website. It’s so easy. In the “old” days, when I managed other websites, it was occasionally challenging to create a new page, rearrange information, or update anything. Not so much nowadays. You don’t have to be a computer genius to build a website. That’s a good thing, because I’d rather write than spend an hour trying to update a blog post. It takes me less than a minute to update it now. Not counting the time spent writing it.

For the posts, WP has one feature I love. If someone leaves a comment, it doesn’t magically appear on my website. It will sit there until I approve the comment, then it will magically appear. Luckily, WP sends me an e-mail letting me know there’s one waiting for approval. I could change the settings and not worry about approving each comment, but I won’t. You’re welcome. Why?

It’s amazing what people put in the comments section. For instance, when I went to WP last Saturday to update the blog post, there were three comments waiting for approval. The first was short, only two words. Well, I’m assuming it was only two words, because it was in some foreign language I couldn’t interpret. The next was long, about two computer screens full of foreign words, English words referencing erectile disfunction drugs, and garbage. And the last one was asking where they could download something for free on my website. What I don’t have on my website, btw, so I have no clue what they’re asking.

I’m pretty sure there are some people who just troll the internet, looking for blogs so they can try to put links to viruses, sell the latest snake oil, or generally make a pain of themselves. Thank goodness WP allows its users the option to approve comments before the internet is flooded with more trash than it currently is or viewers catch a bug.

What I find remarkable about the internet is how willing people are to say things, post videos, forward garbage, or send links warning about dire consequences of ignoring a myth debunked years ago. One post telling us to look for a lost girl has been circulating so long, I’m pretty sure she’s drawing social security now. She was found years ago. Two good rules of thumb: 1) Check your source before you forward something. There are multiple websites out there that debunk myths. 2) If you wouldn’t say it or show it to your grandmother, you shouldn’t put it out there in the big world.

How did we get where we are? Children killing themselves because they’ve been bullied so many times and for so long on the internet, they can’t take it anymore. People posting stuff that is so full of vitriol it’s disgusting. Someone putting links out there containing a virus, hoping someone without common sense clicks on it…and they do. I don’t get it.

President Bush’s “thousand points of light” is more like a thousand points of darkness now. God decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because they were evil. That’s scary. With what’s going on all around us, it almost seems like He’d give up on us and send fire and brimstone our way. I flashed on that the other day when they had a news segment about a cricket invasion in San Antonio. Cricket or locust…I don’t see much difference. Are the nasty bugs God’s way of telling us to shape up?

If so, I wholeheartedly agree. Stop the nonsense, be kind, live your life, let others live theirs, and stop trying to destroy each other. The way it’s going, we don’t need fire and brimstone, we’re doing it to ourselves. We’ve been told for years to engage our brain before we open our mouths, but it’s a new world. We need to start engaging our brain before we engage our fingers and put something out there on the internet that will hurt someone else. So, take a second and think before you post. It starts with us.

Spread the love