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Blogging question?

04:14 / 26.04.02

Okay, so I have this blog called Kopi's Mind. A while ago, I posted a not so nice entry about some people in my residence hall that painted derogatory slurs about homosexuals on our university "graffiti wall." Said persons somehow found my website and told a reporter, who came to ask me if I wanted to be interviewed, and said that they were considering legal action. I took down the offending post off of the main page, as I am a resident assistant in said hall, and didn't want to lose my job. I was also afraid of the angry accused (who still live in the building) harassing me in my building.

Now someone else from the university newspaper has found my blog and has asked me if I would like to be interviewed for a story about blogging. I'd like to, but I'm not sure I want other non-friends and open-minded people finding my blog. I don't want hate-filled notes on my comment system.

One of my residents has already found my blog, but she's pretty cool, so I don't mind.

I don't like to censor myself on my blog, and I feel I would be forced to if others found my blog. Should I throw caution to the wind and be interviewed, or should I politely decline?

Kopi

10:29 / 26.04.02

Welcome to the wonderful world of publishing, and make no mistake about it, that is what you are doing every time you hit that "post" button. Sooner or later every blogger gets to a point where they are forced to think of the legal and ethical implications of what they are publishing.

Everyone has different solutions to these. But I think the best rule of thumb i can think of is are you comfortable saying whatever you are saying to potentially everyone in the world under your own name.

If the answer is no, you have two choices- don't publish it or publish it anonamously under a differrent name/identity.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

14:17 / 26.04.02

Errm. Sorry, total threadrot, but the poem you have on your blog is Alcestis on the Poetry Circuit, by Erica Mann Jong. You can find it here.

17:47 / 26.04.02

Thank you, both of you.

Esp. MC, because I've been looking for the author for a week!

Usually I don't have a problem with what I write on there. I guess it's a case of standing up for what I believe. Oooh. Conflict. Not good with that, I am. *grin*

17:51 / 26.04.02

If the answer is no, you have two choices- don't publish it or publish it anonamously under a differrent name/identity.

I think there may be a third choice - publish under the same name, but keep anonymous in the interview. Have you asked about that? It might even make a better story, give you an aura of mystery...

07:12 / 27.04.02

Well, there's that. But then there's also the sticky issue that the person sent to interview me may also be the new girlfriend of my ex.

Her name is Suzanne. His gf's name is Suzy (Suzanne).
She lives in Hoover (honors dorm where he lives). Suzy lives in Hoover.
She works for the Post. Suzy works for the Post, or so I've heard.

It might be a wee bit......awkward? Especially since a lot of the time I rant/talk about him and my other friends.

*sigh* The longer I stay here, the more people I get attached to. Oy.

11:44 / 27.04.02

Er.

Well, um... I guess if she already reads your blog and knows who you are, you won't be really giving anything else away in the interview. If you still go anonymous, you won't be giving it away to friends and so on, unless she tells them, which she could do anyway regardless of the interview.

If she doesn't know who you are though, and finds out, then that might be a problem, but she'll probably have worked it out by now, I'm guessing.

(Or, you could kill everyone you know, so they won't be able to read about themselves, and as a bonus it would give you lots of stuff to post about.)

I know what you mean. It's bad enough that a lot of the online people I might want to rant about all know each other, so I don't really do that much, but there's quite a few RL people who read it as well. I'm thinking I might just start another online identity entirely...