Blog Indiana 2008

Anonymity and Blogging

As I’m getting back into blogging again, I was going to write a post about my little group of friends and their blogs. It seems that Prust | Interactive is blogging his endeavors again. I’m glad to see that. Also, in the past week, My Financial Journey had the number one post on both del.icio.us and reddit and ended up on the front page of Digg with a post on a Frugal cure for a sore throat. Congrats!

The bad news

What I came across this morning, however, makes me want to cry, and I’m not the crying type. Kathy Sierra, at Creating Passionate Users has all but been scared off the internet by a bunch of hateful threats. She blogged about it in her post Death threats against bloggers are NOT “protected speech” (WARNING: Its not pleasant, so if you’re squimish, don’t click). I don’t know Ms. Sierra, other than reading her blog, but I hope that those threatening her are caught and punished to the full extend of the law.

This brings up an interesting point, though. How anonymous should we be on the interwebs? My policy has been to keep my wife and children as anonymous as possible. They are referred to as “The Wife”, the “Eldest” and the “Youngest” on posts here. There have been some days I’ve wondered if I should even be using my last name as a domain for blogging. Other days, I wonder why I’m anonymous at all. I have friends who post pictures of their kids and their names on their site. What’s the problem with that, I wonder?

Then an experience like Ms. Sierra’s happens and I remember the value of boundaries.

Ultimately, I need to remember that we live in a fallen world. People have slandered, threatened and even carried out their evil intentions for thousands of years. I know that we have not been given a spirit of fear, but discretion and wisdom will also guard us. While there is nothing new under the sun, it is so very easy for others to remain behind the cover of a computer monitor and hurl vileness at others. So, the policy of boundaries will continue here at uhri.com.

I pray that Ms. Sierra is vindicated in her situation. Good luck, Kathy!

Posted on March 27, 2007 in Uncategorized.    

2 Comments

  1. ^Lestat said:

    Trouble is, if you own a blog, or any domain you are easily findable. There is really no unanimity on the net.

    Nicknames, or pen names like my own are only a minor deterrent. Hopefully enough to keep the creepies at bay. Assuming most creepies aren’t net savvy.

    March 27th, 2007 at 9:03 am
  2. Dan said:

    Hey man, you’ve inspired me to do so :-) Fear of how the BLOG will affect my employment prospects is always there, but outside of a few statements I get through my contact form, like “u suk”, that cut me so deep with their lack of spelling prowess, I’m glad I do not get death threats (yet). It seems common on the Interwebs (nice House reference, btw.) to be mean. I wish I had a thicker skin (which is why I don’t implement comments).

    The nice thing about your BLOG is that it makes you look GOOD.

    March 27th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
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