Even if there is no way to track the origin of a person’s post on that site, you could still figure out who wrote it based on that person’s writing style. We all have a unique writing style even though most of are unable to detect it. For example, I use the words “that” and “however” a lot (I also like using parenthesis a lot — and dashes, love the dashes). Experts are able to learn a lot about a person’s education based on their writing style – and their vocabulary. Grammar too, I guess (though, despite my college level vocabulary, I have elementary level grammar skills).

Although you are no expert in this area, I am sure you might have an inkling of who the originator of at least one or two of the comments posted. None of us are any good, ultimately, of hiding our writing style.

That’s why many companies use a third party to process the comment section of employee evaluation forms. They take the comments and pass them on only after everything is rewritten in a more standardized format. Even then, certain key phrases sneak by. I remember getting an evaluation and I knew exactly who wrote one comment because it contained the exact phrase he used over and over at work. You can never really hide yourself, something always pokes out.

Anyway, if you got a really, really (really) long comment on failin.gs it wasn’t from me. Nope. Uh uh.

But truthfully, the biggest failing of failin.gs is… that I completely forgot it was there until you posted this. I remember your original post about it, and promptly forgot the thing existed. There’s enough mean-spirited folks in the world, so I probably forgot about it because… why open yourself up to more of that?

My dad used to say “Stop kicking yourself in the ass. There’s a line running all the way down the block full of other people who’ll do it for you.” And you know what, he was right about that.