Do you avoid conflicts in Blogs?

Recently I have written a few posts with subjects that are debatable. I have expressed my opinions on something and I am sure that there are out there a whole bunch of people who would have different opinions than I do.

I know I have been there. Through Voiceboks and other sites I have met a lot of mommy Bloggers and I go to their pages and read their posts and we are all here to create a community. But what happens when you go to a site, with the best of intentions and you read the most recent post and it talks about something that you are completely against? Or if they are bashing something you really love? Or if it's talking about a different Religion than your own? Then what? Do you comment on their posts anyway? Do you make a non specific comment like: "Following from so and so website :)." I must admit I have done it. And I have thought to myself, well, I am here to meet new people, we are both mom bloggers, I want to show support for the other moms, but the truth is that in other circumstances I would not read this blog because it goes against my beliefs. I go and do what I think its best at the time. Sometimes I will just like their facebook page, and leave a generic comment, or find something that I truly can identify with from the other blog. I read several posts and see one that might be something I can relate to, or just comment on wordless posts, you can always find nice pictures in most blogs. But most of all I am honest, whatever I say it comes from the heart. Sometimes though I read a post about something I don't like and debate to myself whether I should comment and mention my difference of opinion. The truth is that I welcome debate in my Blog, I really truly want to know what people think, whether it is agreeing  with my opinion or not. But I also don't want drama, people doing snarky comments and being all rude and nasty. I want nice and polite honest opinions. It makes me wonder whether my controversial posts don't get comments because of this issue.

What do you think? Do you also encounter yourself with these situations? What makes you leave a nice thoughtful comment in a Blog? What do you do if you read something that goes against your own views? Would you comment on it? How about if someone writes in your Blog that they have a different opinion about what you are writing, and you feel really strongly about the subject, what would you do?

The Brooklyn Blogfest 2011

Tonight I had the privilege to attend the 6th annual Brooklyn Blogfest.  It started of with a video of images by Gabriella Herman of Bloggers by the light of their computer screens. Followed by 3 women bloggers who let us inside the minds of real bloggers by reading excerpts from several different blogs, it was funny, clever and a great presentation. We then had a talk with Jeff Jarvis, author of  What Would Google Do?. and blogs about news and media at Buzz Machine He is also the director of the interactive Journalism Program at CUNY and he brought in students to do research on us bloggers. He was interested in creating a bloggers network where bloggers unite for a common purpose and promote each other in the process. His theory is that a group of bloggers working together can reach a bigger audience and could help each other out as opposed to many individual blogs acting on their own. After the excellent talk from Jeff then they did the classic Blogs-of-a-Feather were they divide the space into areas and have bloggers of each category group together and trade business cards and talk about their specific topics. I always hesitate to choose as I'm not sure were I can be classified. Should I go talk to Jeff, or go into the eclectic blog group, or the mommy bloggers or the just starting bloggers? Where does my blog belong? I ended up going to the mommy blog section and I met 3 new faces in the mommy blogging group. I saw the usual group that I used to see often on the Momasphere Events, like Melissa Lopata and Ellen Bari who recently released the book Jumping Jenny about a little girl who uses her love of jumping to change the world. Rahti Gorfien who is a Life Coach for creative individuals plus has her own radio Show Radio Rahti, Joyce Szuflita and met Nancy McDermott from Park Slope Parents, Paula Bernstein from Parents Connect , Amanda Wiss from Urban Clarity, Kirby from Baby G and sitting next to me at the main event was Donna Minkowitz. 
Not only I re-united with a few old friends, but made a few new friends along the way and even got to be interviewed by Sam Newhouse from the Brooklyn Eagle who wrote an article about the Blogfest and it mentioned ME!! 
So overall, the Blogfest was a success. I learned a few things, met new people, networked, promoted my Blog.  I'm going to cultivate my new friendships and wait for the next time the Blogfest comes to town.

Charlotte Maier, Nancy Graham & Elizabeth Palmer

Jeff

Louise Crawford and Atiba Edwards

Jeff Jarvis