Monday, April 12, 2004

Blog-Humbug
A weblog is a venue for self-expression, while a diary is a personal method of introspection. While you are generally free to put whatever you want in your weblog, you must do so with the knowledge that anything you choose to place on your blog has entered the public domain.

The utility of a blog should not be underestimated. I know people who because their own emotional baggage, maintain a blog under a pseudonym both as a manner of introspection and self-expression. Many of my friends have major personal ghosts in their past that continue to haunt them to this day; they find it very difficult to discuss matters face to face coherently without being overcome by the weight of such emotional baggage. In this medium even the most socially inept person can place their feelings down for their friends to read and gain support from them, without having the immediate self-conscious doubts stopping them mid-conversation in person.

People may have privacy concerns, and that is completely understandable, and for the most part I am careful naming individuals in my blog I if I am unsure of possible concerns of that nature from them. Heck, for a long while I kept trying to use a male pronoun when referring to Raven (a personal quirk of hers). If you don’t like being named let the author know and they will ‘scrub it’ clean (likely) or not (possible), but… it’s their blog… and you don’t have to read it, or any other for that matter.

This (barely-justified) rant courtesy of Co-Co, Binky and Dave, as well as my disclaimer clearly denoted on the left side of this page.