Most people noticed I left comments off and didn't blog yesterday. It was for two reasons. There was a blogging day of silence in honor of a family whose little boy died of heart problems yesterday. I went back and forth about posting it here, but I didn't want anyone in the family concerned their child or blog was associated with a "hate site". Not everyone approves of MWOP, you know.
The second was because I had an email from someone close to MckMama letting me know how badly this site is affecting her. I won't go into more details because they asked me not to, but I admit, I'm a softy and their words did get to me. They begged me to take the site down for her health and well-being. I don't think that's the answer, but as the comments and readership have been growing, I worry this site will turn into a nitpicking "Mean Girls" place, rather than one that focuses on the bigger lies she tells to spin things for money. But on the other hand, I completely understand that what's "big" to one person is small potatoes to another, so where is that line?
There were a few requests for new posts, for example. There's a MckMama user account under the name Dana, and it's definitely questionable, but I wonder how far to take it? I mean, Dana exists, according to people (and myself) looking up her Twitter account name, and she has real relatives that exist, so what do I do to find out if it was MckMama pretending to be someone else, or if someone copied her information? And since it was only one comment many months ago, does it really matter that much?
There was also a video where MckMama spent all her time on her iPhone. I felt sad after watching it - she is missing out on time with her children that she'll never get back. But on the other hand, she was at a dirt bike track. How many minutes would I last, or you, before we would be looking for something, anything, else to do?
Then there was the "oil" pictures. I know how I personally feel about them, but since they have been hashed through in the comments, do I need to put up another post because readers think the pictures are in bad taste or because she did it to start a debate? Personally, I think she is uneducated about what is going on in the Gulf, and that it was obvious in her post and comments. I seriously doubt if the same traumatic events were taking place on her "beach" that she would have felt the same about those pictures, or had so little to say about the spill itself.
On top of everything else, I want to keep the posts on this site as fact-based and true as possible. I don't want to put up the things we find without looking into it and knowing for sure there are lies or manipulation behind them. I also don't know how I feel about putting up comments posts just for the sake of comments. I tried that a few months ago and it did not go well. Maybe things would be different now?
Most of all, while I do laugh hard at some of the comments on here and see the small friendships and like getting to know the regulars, I appreciate all those who try to keep this site on topic. We do everyone's "investigative" hard work a disservice when we veer off track too much, and when that's what new readers see.
I don't know. I'm thinking about these things. When is it nitpicking or being mean? How do we give her a chance to be a better person when there are so many of us here who think so little of her already? Can she change, or will this blog still be around calling her out two years from now because something in her personality tells her that it's only the Internet, and she can lie and manipulate for money without regrets?
Those are my thoughts this week. If you have suggestions, I would absolutely love to hear them.
