Weddingbee PRO
When I first started Weddingbee, I didn’t have much experience with negative comments since I’d only blogged on my personal blog. You can get away with a lot more on a personal blog than you can on a community site like Weddingbee, which people consider to be a public platform that should be open to any critique. During our first year, whenever I’d read something negative about Weddingbee, I’d get really upset and sometimes my entire day would be ruined. I’m a pretty sensitive person. 
But when you manage a community of any kind, you have to develop thick skin. You get tons of angry emails from users, law suit threats from vendors, and blog posts that slam you and your site. Since our launch, I’ve received regular emails from readers telling me how much Weddingbee sucks, and how much better it used to be. They’re definitely entitled to their opinion, but I think sometimes people forget that there’s an actual person (me!) behind the site. And it’s easier to criticize someone online because people will say things to you that they would never say to you in person.
Three years later, pretty much everything rolls off my back. My skin is officially thick.
Then there are trolls who only come to your site to provoke you. It’s natural for a person to react emotionally and rashly as soon as they get a negative comment. But when you engage someone who’s attacking you just for the sake of attacking you, you’re giving them exactly what they want. I completely understand the desire to respond — those comments used to hurt me too! But whenever anyone asks me for advice on how to deal with trolls, I usually advise them to ignore the commenter, and they’ll just go away.
No matter what you do, you will never be able to please all of the people all of the time. But you always learn more from your critics than from those who agree with you, so I try to see the positive in any criticisms of me or Weddingbee. Some of our harshest critics probably inspired some of our best improvements to the site.
How do you deal with trolls and negative comments?
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I deal with negative comments the same way I deal with advice. Listen to what people have to say. If what they say applies to you, then see if you can improve. If it doesn’t apply, thank them and move on with your life. Realize that some people are just being mean for no other reason than to be mean…something I realized a long time ago is that the person who flips you off in traffic isn’t mad at YOU…he’s already angry about something else.
Enjoy the praise you get, you deserve it! See if you can improve with any constructive criticism. And if you get negative comments with no actual idea to improve, then blow them off! A person who tears down with no attempt to fix or rebuild is not worth your time. 
If I am going to respond to a comment that is negative or critical, I always wait about a week to do so. This gives me time to cool off and respond rationally.
This just reminded me of this post on Dooce. When/if I ever start getting trolls I will refer to this and realize people are “Two words: Lame”.
I just wanted to say a HUGE BIG THANKYOU for weddingbee. It has ‘upped my game’ on the wedding planner front. It has made me realize that an injection of our personalities into the wedding details is so much more valuable than what we can spend. I enjoy and refer to weddingbee everyday and love the diversity of the bee’s and their style, budget and ideas. I have to credit weddingbee for making our wedding what it is, therefore I want to thank-you Mrs Bee for your faithfulness and endurance through the hard days and negatiive comments.
I can definitely relate on this front. I have put myself out there with pictures of my body and everything for my recipe blog. I used to post all my meals but I don’t anymore. I’ve gotten everything from you’re fat to you’re skinny, are you anorexic? to, “you’re such a b!tch” to reallllly hurtful things I would never, ever repeat. I’ve had a comment make me cry. I am almost embarrassed to say it, but trolls can just be so terrible.
And here I admit: It still stings. No, it HURTS.
I don’t understand why people need to be so mean? When i am given constructive criticism I love it, it means that someone cares enough to help me be better and for my site to be better, but when the comments are solely to provoke it just really sucks.
I hope that over time I develop thick skin too. The funny thing is I am usually so good at letting things roll of my back, the trolls just really know how to get me.
And on that note… how do you feel about censoring comments? Do you delete the troll ones or leave them for everyone to see? I used to leave them but it would cause madness so now I just delete them.
@rhodeygirl: i almost never delete a comment that attacks me or weddingbee. we’ll delete a comment on a post if the author requests it. and we’ll delete a comment if it is racist, has a personal attack, etc.
but generally, we delete very few comments.
The trolls are filled with envy. The more they attack the more jealous they become of your success.
Weddingbee is the best wedding website for ideas and creativity. Period. No questions about it.
Keep making it real!
I have been very fortunate to rarely receive snarky comments on Weddingbee…. I think although there will always be trolls and mean people on the internet, overall the way you run the site has fostered kindness in the majority of comments. The moment you would stoop to their level is the moment that it would all change. I really admire you for that, Bee!
Listen, my own sister has “dissed” my sense of style and taste. This Christmas she told me that she didn’t like the cropped pants I was wearing and that she wasn’t loving the 40’s retro makeup look. If she was a style and makeup guru I would have been hurt, but guess what - she ain’t!! You have to consider the source and know that you can’t please everyone. Style, humor, taste are all subjective and you can’t like it all. I hate to be misunderstood and tone is very easily misinterpreted. I think we could all give people a little more benefit of the doubt.
I had someone comment “bad acting” about my eyelash video! Duh, it was meant to be campy. You don’t have to have much of a brain to type a comment! You hang in their girl.
PS you are gorgeous, Gorgeous!
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Mrs. Bee, New York
Age and Occupation: 29, Weddingbee Publisher
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 33, Internet
Engagement Date: May 7, 2004
Wedding Date: March 5, 2005
Venue: Westside Loft, New York
About Me: Yes, my name really is Bee! I love my blogging, wikis, and tabasco sauce!
I can imagine how difficult it has been for you. For what it’s worth, I LOVE weddingbee and weddingbeepro, and it’s been my saving grace in my wedding planning process- I seriously don’t know what I’d do without it! So thank you for enduring the constant criticism to keep the site there for those of us who are true fans! Best wishes, Bee!