There have been a few conversations recently (in person, online, on the phone, on this very blog) about what to post and what to not post and where does the line between public and private fall. I thought I take up this conversation and turn it into a post of its very own. Perhaps the other semi-anonymous and completely public authors we know could chime in and relate their decisions about what to post and what name or identifiable statements to include...
For me, one of the most important elements is that my identity here remain un-google-able. As a student and teacher, I don't want this blog and the things I say here to come up in the first 10 hits of my name. I don't post things here that I'm not willing to say in public, but I don't think my random musings about life in Iowa, world travel, or the cat should be what my students, colleagues, or potential employers should see first. This means that I obfuscate details (school names, my own last name, my program of study etc) so that people typing in those key words don't find the blog. Other folks have created much more public blogs, and have good reasons for this. Blogging is an emerging field of communication, and as it evolves, there will be a lot of flux and change until a standard (or standards) emerge.
It's also very important to me (and PEter) not to identify people who haven't chosen to be public. This means that Sissy remains Sissy, CultureProf remains CultureProf (unless she herself uses her name in a comment) etc. The people in our lives haven't chosen to be public, and it's important for us not to "out" them without their permission.
Finally, there's the issue of internet safety. Some things, while not identifiable, are facts that could be important to online banking and other online identification (hometown, high school, first grade teacher's names, maiden names etc). We leave these things off for that reason. As a rule of thumb, it's never a good idea to add identifiable information to the comments of someone's blog that they themselves haven't used before. Obfuscate, obfuscate, obfuscate!!!!
So, these are my reasons for semi-anonymity. Why do you chose what you chose? What consequences do you see for your choice? If you don't blog, did you know about these issues?
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4 comments:
You know, we had very similar discussions in our household before I started this whole blogging thing. Especially since my original reason for starting the blog was to communicate with out of town family/friends about Will. I also don't use our last name, use anyone else's last name,really talk in detail about the type of work Dan or I do. Also, if you read enough it's pretty obvious where I live, but I try not to spell it out. I guess like you said, try to make myself "un-googleable".
I hadn't thought about the internet security stuff as far as online identification. That is something to keep in mind!
All that said, I do like the word obfuscate. I need to use that in daily life more.
You know, obfuscate is one of my favorite words. It just sounds great, and then it means something handy. Really, is there a day where obfuscate isn't applicable?
Back many, many years ago there was a bumper sticker "Eschew Obfuscation" which was attributed to Agnew (the infamous running mate of Nixon).
Your dad & I saw it driving home from college and had to look up the words in the dictionary but I've never forgotten it!
kll
This is such a fascinating debate...blogging as revelation, yet blogging as obfuscation. To be known "through a glass darkly," as opposed to face to face...the need to share as opposed to reveal. What interesting times we share together!
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