Slightly Off KIlter

When I started my weblogs, I made a few decisions.

• I will be as honest in my writing as I am in “real life”.
  
• I will not go out of my way to offend other people.
  
• I will only very rarely (if ever) discuss the more “controversial” topics (e.g. Iraq, religion, politics…).
  
• I will not mention The Company That Employs Me by name.
  
• I will not provide identifying information about friends or co-workers that would easily allow other people to locate them (unless I am linking to their “public” personae).
  
• I will treat my weblog the way I treat my email. Never put anything actionable — or that you wouldn’t want your mother or company CEO to read — in writing.
  

I ran across an interesting article today, published on the EFF website in their Privacy/Anonymity section.
The article is entitled “How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else)“. It discusses blogging anonymity, topics to avoid, topics protected by the First amendment, etc.

If you blog, there are no guarantees you’ll attract a readership of thousands. But at least a few readers will find your blog, and they may be the people you’d least want or expect. These include potential or current employers, coworkers, and professional colleagues; your neighbors; your spouse or partner; your family; and anyone else curious enough to type your name, email address or screen name into Google or Feedster and click a few links.

The point is that anyone can eventually find your blog if your real identity is tied to it in some way. And there may be consequences. Family members may be shocked or upset when they read your uncensored thoughts. A potential boss may think twice about hiring you. But these concerns shouldn’t stop you from writing. Instead, they should inspire you to keep your blog private, or accessible only to certain trusted people.

Here we offer a few simple precautions to help you maintain control of your personal privacy so that you can express yourself without facing unjust retaliation. If followed correctly, these protections can save you from embarrassment or just plain weirdness in front of your friends and coworkers.

I found the topic interesting in an academic sense, the way I find articles about high-energy physics, world travel, or swimming with sharks to be interesting.

I don’t intend to go there…

Still, it was an interesting article. I liked the way it started out:

Blogs are like personal telephone calls crossed with newspapers. They’re the perfect tool for sharing your favorite chocolate mousse recipe with friends–or for upholding the basic tenets of democracy by letting the public know that a corrupt government official has been paying off your boss.

That first sentence has a nice ring. It reminds me, in some ways, of a recent description of IM I read:

Sending chat messages is akin to throwing notes on loosely wadded paper across a crowded classroom.

Back to the topic at hand, I’m not quite sure I understand why anyone would publish, in what is inherently a public forum, anything they didn’t want a random person (friend or stranger) to read. Perhaps some people like to take risks. Perhaps some people don’t think ahead.

I expect my friends, family, co-workers, management, and random acquaintances to read my weblog. The information is not highly publicized, but neither is it secret.
I have links to my weblogs from my home page (and links to my home page in my email signature).
I wrote a program that composes and sends automated notifications whenever my weblog is updated. My parents, sister, spouse, and friends are subscribed. (Feel free to join. Look to the left on this page, under the calendar.)

I follow the rules I set out for myself, then don’t worry about who might read my weblogs. My essays provide information about me that would take hours, days, or years, for me to provide in bits and pieces over dinner or during breakroom conversations.
When I have been unemployed, I send my weblog links along with my resume when applying for a position.

My writing is part of my self. My weblog is a subset of my writing, thus it is a subset of my self. But it’s the subset I’m willing to make public. My private self remains at home, in my journal entries, conversations with spouse and friends, or my own thoughts.