Wow, he's awful rantful. It doesn't appear that you've actually deleted his profile like he claims. Why in the world would someone be so bitter? Hopefully he'll calm down. I just left him a comment, we'll see if I get deleted too.

No, I haven't deleted his profile at the moment - just blocked him from accessing Blotanical. This is more of a protective measure to the site and our members than trying to quelch his tirade. It will remain open for a few days until I delete it, as he has requrested, or he quietens down and wants to remain a member. We shall wait and see.

Will you take my pick of him off! I mis-read his post from the first line. I thought he was praising blotanical. I thought you had done an article on him. Then I got to the end of his post and it clued me in.

I visited his site several times..it would not let me comment--so I went to his messages here to say I liked his site. If he visited my site--I don't remember.

Stuart if it's any consolation to you, all us bloggers get comments that we quickly delete. Yours in on a bigger scale but still hurts the same.

Done Anna. It's okay, I'm not at all fazed by this (possibly been toughened up over the years responding to disgruntled bloggers). I would love to see Eric go on and do well with his blog, I'm just not sure he's going about it in a way that's going to prove most helpful in the long term.

Just how some people are, you know? I know you know. Water off a duck's back. Or under the bridge. Or, better, on the new plantings (new blotanical blogs?).

Wow, we have had our first troll. Here I am waiting to get my posts back on Blotanical as soon as the feed situation gets figured out, and that bozo is bashing a lovely site and group. Too bad.

Debbi.

I'm kind of confused. I've only been a member for a few weeks and I've been overwhelmed by everyone's friendliness. It seems as though this guy was visiting a website in an alternate universe.

I saw the funny side of this, I'm still chuckling. It just sounds so childish to me. I ignore people like that, thankfully this one is going to go away. I appreciate it is annoying when you work so hard, Stuart. We appreciate your hard work and you have lots of fans around the world. Best wishes Sylvia

I've mentioned this in today's post for ESTHER IN THE GARDEN , Stuart.

Hope this is alright.

If not, let me know.

Esther

You always get one who has an overinflated sense of their own importance!!! It is definately true that you need to make an input to get a return - I notice that now I'm back at work fulltime after the summer break I cant comment as much and my stats have dropped accordingly but thats life

I felt really sad for him when I read that post yesterday. I did feel it was hard to break in when I first joined. I can be a little shy, but I also understood that you really have to put yourself out there to make friends. But I never felt the people were unfriendly. That was the one thing that really struck me when I joined. The people are so friendly. I found so many wonderful blogs to read here and so many wonderful people the write the.

He's not likely to make new friends with comments like, "...it's a bunch of cliques and "good old girl" networks...", though I rather fancy being thought of as "a good old girl". :) I'm rather sorry I missed all the hooplah -- what childish behavior. Personally, this falls under the category of don't-let-the-door-hit-ya ... on-the-way-out. It all reads like a [garden] troll.

Never mind Stuart, you can't win 'em all. One unsatisfied customer versus hundreds who love being here.

A side issue emerging from what Eric said, was about his 203 picks being enough to show he was friendly. The point is of course, that unless you're the first to pick, the posters don't know that you have picked their post, so the "friendliness" impact is relatively small in comparison to eg messages -which is why I often spend the time I've got here contacting people personally rather than picking. (Would love to do both but time ...)

Also, I always try and go to thank my "first pickers" but have always thought it would be nice to be able to thank the others too. Any chance? Could you put it on your list - though I know it's probably long enough already to keep you going for the next ten years :)

My first thought was that he needed to have his mouth washed with soap and put in the corner for a time out.
My second thought was are there medicines for Male PMS.
Try a chocolate bar Eric you will feel better.
Hang in there Stuart,we all appreciate your hard work.

What a sad life he must have. It does seem he wants lots of praise and people to just love his blog and him without doing much. Oh well, there is no point in trying to have someone like that on Blotanical anyways. There are many males on here and many young people too so hmmph. I'm glad I found Blotanical, it has given me many friends and great blogs to read. I relate to many people and read tons of blogs that have nothing to do with balcony gardening or plants that I grow. I guess he wants the whole world to grow tropicals and talk tropicals even if they can't and don't like to. Good riddance.

I just clicked on the link and WOW! I didn't realize that there was a problem other than the feedburner thing (which is why I switched to wordpress). I've left messages for him in the past & never got any response. Such a shame.

I'm a HUGE fan of Blotanical and I read and interact with many bloggers around the world. There's so much to learn here but it's sad that Eric, despite his knowledge of plants, couldn't make that li'l bit of effort!!

The 'rules' for making friends on Blotanical are the same as those for the blogosphere as a whole. Get out there and meet people by commenting. I think the strength of Blotanical is the messaging system, especially if you have an off-topic conversation you want to start with someone.

How sad! I suppose with Blotanical's explosive growth it was bound to happen, and will probably happen again in the future.

I've always felt happiness, success and satisfaction generally require giving to others what one wishes to receive. When it comes to friends, in order to have them, you have to be one first. Just kind of seems like one of those universal truths to me, and this sad situation reinforces that to me.

You can fight these truths, but if you do you lose, as you can't change them!

Don't let this one guy worry you.

I wish that I'd found Blotanical a lot sooner! I'm fairly new to Blotanical, and have been so amazed at the friendly folks and wonderful blogs!

I've been garden blogging since March 2007 and I appreciate this circle of friendly folks! :-)

Cameron

Geez, ...I go away for a little while, and look what happens here...In every public contact job, you will run into abusive hateful people who are just looking for an enemy to beat up on. Obviously, this guy is wacko- I really hope you won't take anything personally from this incident. You are totally amazing for what you've done with Blotanical. Don't have any regrets about blocking him...and just for safety's sake, keep an eye out in the bush down there in the Outback.

This hits home with me as I've just had my first run-in with a troll (didn't know that was a common term for mean commenter but I was thinking of him as that before I read this today!) and have struggled with whether to try to engage him in a mature dialog or just delete and forget. Seems like it's nobler to do as you did and try to give the benefit of the doubt, but it's probably going to be rare that someone with so much trouble expressing frustration civilly will be able to actually have a real discussion. Good for you for trying, anyway!

I think that if you're shy or insecure, it is difficult to jump in and message people or comment. But I also think Blotanical is a shining example of getting out what you put in. I've never found anyone to be unfriendly or cliquey. It's only natural for some people to gravitate towards a group of friends who have something in common - the plants they like, where they live, a twisted sense of humour or whatever. I'm glad you wrote about this because I think it will reassure new members that 99 per cent of the time, Blotanical does seem to be a pretty happy little community.

yeah, trolls can be very creepy...and i've seen it happen on the best of websites, unfortunately. But i'm optomistic that most of us who are joined by an interest in gardening, will be a bit more jolly!

It's a shame things went this way, I hate to see bridges burned, hopefully there is a peaceful outcome. Reading this is helpful to me too, because I realize that I'm not a good participant, because I don't know exactly how to use Blotanical. I signed up, forgot for a while, then came back, and found some very welcoming comments in my profile that I had never responded to because I wasn't sure how, and felt bad that it had been so long, and figured people wouldn't remember the original. So maybe this already exists, and maybe eric would have been upset either way, but would there be some benefit in a "how to be a successful member of the blotanical community" welcome message for new members? Of course, the horse might be out of the barn in this case, and there is no pleasing someone if they are a true troll, but for future members, it might help get the ball rolling.

I'm with Megan - I want to be a good Blotanical citizen but I'm afraid I lack the time to wade through the many (many, many) aspects of the site. As a full-time freelance writer (i.e. damn close to unemployeed at any given moment) I need to be smart with my time. Maybe there's a Blotanical "mentor" that wants to take this newbie, an others like me on. If so I'd love the opportunity. I look forward to meeting y'all and playing in your sandbox!

I love your idea Lorene. This could make for a whole new feature which I think would be really useful. Congrats.