I just jumped in on an interesting Glitter discussion about anonymity and blogging. As I’ve said here before, I like my visitors to know that I’m a real person with a real name and identity. Sure, this means I have to practice a little self-censorship every now and then, but I feel it’s a worthwhile trade-off. I also just find that I enjoy reading blogs about “real people” more. Just about every site on my links list down there is written by someone that I can identify by name and location. They’re my friends. Why would I want to read about someone completely name-less? As far as I’m concerned, that’s what novels are for.
Tracey
May 25, 2003 — 6:49 pm
I thought what you said was interesting, the whole topic is. Like i said in the thread, i don’t see the pointing in ‘hiding’ yourself when you’re writing in your online journal – if it’s about you, then i want to read about you and what’s going on with you. Not about someone who wants to remain nameless and faceless. And if i know you, why don’t you want me to read your journal? It’ll be great to see what you’re up too. If you’re going to openly write about something online, then it’s open for anyone! Having said that, i do think alot of things should be left out of a journal like full names, addresses, meaningless open bitching about specific people etc. It’s just common sense to not get yourself into that kind of trouble.
robert
May 25, 2003 — 7:45 pm
i have had to self-censor a little bit,but it was mainly details about my workplace, as only a couple of months after i had started blogging somebody at work stumbled acroos my site via a google search on the amazing race and managed to put two and two together. because i have neverbeen very complimentary about my workplace i had to then do a slight bit of reediting – i got a bit paranoid about a litigation-happy management. but that’s about it. everything else is the real me. 🙂
Max
May 26, 2003 — 12:22 am
I think we’ve talked about this before, Kris, but I’m with you 100%. I read blogs (and a few journals) because I want the “backstory” of the person putting all of that information together. Almost anyone can patrol the web and throw together collections of links, but without the context of an honest-to-goodness person behind it (with opinions and tastes and interests influencing the links chosen and the commentary), that’s just boring. I agree that a little self-censoring is necessary (we all do it), but when it’s taken to the extreme (like to annoying paranoia levels), it makes a site not worth reading at all.