When people say negative things about you or what your doing and you reply with a positive and mature tone it shows others that you’re an understanding and open minded person.

This quality within a person alone attracts more people to you. I mean the last thing anyone wants is to be judged when all they’re doing is exercising their freedom of self expression…feel me?

This is reminiscent of a Real Estate blogging cycle that recently took place:

1. Dude makes a blog about running. It is a bad bad blog.

2. In an effort to show others what NOT to do in blogging, RSSPieces.com tears Running Dude a new one.

3. ARW (me) writes an article on BloodhoundBlog.com noting that if RSSPieces’ unsolicited searing had been made toward a business blog, most would note the harsh language as unprofessional and the criticized blog would permanently look like a dunce, thus hurting business.

4. RSSPieces writes an article about how much their traffic increased because of the BLoodhoundBlog.com critique and ultimately agrees that the intent was not to blast someone’s business.

5. RSSPieces has increased traffic due to the “controversy” and people have caught on that they can have their blog criticized and are actually REQUESTING it (which solves the “unsolicited” problem).

6. People are getting their blogs criticized and are happy about it, RSSPieces has increased traffic, and I am happy because we all agreed that personal blogs are subject to more harsh criticism than professional and that in business blogs, maturity is mandatory.

See the cycle? We all win when boundaries are set, but as you said, negative comments can show a maturing blog AND there can be winners in the situation!