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Where do we draw the line? (Blogging with responsibility)

January 10th, 2004  |  Published in Blogs  |  25 Comments

I had received an email some time ago from a new blog­ger who wanted advice. He wanted to write freely about cer­tain things, and yet he was not sure as to how far he should go. Also, he did not want to blog anony­mously. Melo­drama also writes about the prob­lems that she’s run into as a result of some stuff she wrote on her blog.

We can write just about any­thing since there is absolutely no one who can really stop us. And espe­cially since it is our ‘voice’ that is respon­si­ble for mak­ing the blog stand apart from the next one. That doesn’t, how­ever, mean that we should.

I don’t per­son­ally feel it is pos­si­ble to stay com­pletely aloof or imper­sonal when you are blog­ging. (Unless, all you post are links to new items, maybe.)

On the other hand, I think that there comes a point of time, when we all won­der where we should say, “Okay this is where I will go, and no further”.

My wake-up call was last year when I had made some flip­pant remarks on my blog regard­ing another blogger(s). Unfor­tu­nately, it was taken in a com­pletely dif­fer­ent spirit to what it was intended. In fact, I had intended noth­ing, but made some pass­ing remark just for fun. A rather seri­ous alle­ga­tion was made against me. I was stunned by the incident.

While, I can say it was through no fault of mine, the inci­dent served as a reminder that while my blog is a form of ‘per­sonal expres­sion’, things can be mis­con­trued and mis­read, giv­ing rise to rather uncom­fort­able (and unwar­ranted) situations.

And while we do make acquain­tances and con­tacts through blogs, we can­not take them for granted. I also realised that while I had built a friendly rela­tion­ship, I had a while to go before I could make com­ments of a flip­pant or fun nature, tak­ing it for granted that he/she would take it in the same spirit.

It made me more care­ful while blog­ging. I would call it blog­ging with a ‘sense of respon­si­bil­ity’. From my expe­ri­ence (please note that these are hardly rules, but more obser­va­tions that you can choose to take note of) here are 11 tips for you. Take what­ever is help­ful and dis­card what is not.

  1. It’s your jour­nal. And it’s your pri­vate space. But since it is online (and a part of a pub­lic space) — be frank, but don’t be rude.

  2. While you make many ‘friends’ while blog­ging, remem­ber that it takes a while to build deeper, last­ing friend­ships. A few blog post­ings and emails exchanged doesn’t mean you have gained a best friend. It might take a lit­tle longer than that. And don’t take any­one for granted. Or assume you know blog­ger ‘A’ as well as any­one else just because you read his/her blog everyday.
  3. Don’t post when you are very angry or ‘pissed’ off; it doesn’t solve any­thing. Your blog might be your place to rave and rant, but even that can be done with a sense of fairness.
  4. Don’t make ref­er­ences to peo­ple you don’t know well and who might take offence at what you say.
  5. Try and avoid blog­ging about work, your boss, your work­mates. Espe­cially if you have only bad or neg­a­tive things to say about them. Mak­ing ref­er­ences like “I was really angry with fat and ugly K at work today”, “I am really frus­trated, my work sucks”, is bound to get you into trou­ble. I don’t think it would take long for ‘K’ to fig­ure out who you are refer­ring to or your boss to find out you hate your work. There’s the all pow­er­ful Google for one thing! And in case, you do decide to blog about work, then remem­ber that you will be respon­si­ble for the con­se­quences. Don’t cry about it later.
  6. If you do want to get per­sonal about work, peo­ple, girlfriends/boyfriends/spouses do be pre­pared for them find­ing out. You can’t rant about them, and then com­plain that they didn’t like it.
  7. If you are unsure about a post (should I, shouldn’t I?) it is best to wait till the next day. Then read it again. If you’re sure, post it. While there is a ‘delete’ but­ton, why risk some­one read­ing it even for the short while it is online, espe­cially if you are unsure about it.
  8. Remem­ber that while post­ing, you are car­ry­ing on a con­ver­sa­tion. With the per­son who is read­ing your post. Don’t say things that make you uncom­fort­able and that you might regret later.
  9. Don’t write about peo­ple who don’t like being writ­ten about and who tell you so. I have some­one who specif­i­cally said that he does not like his name men­tioned. I respect that.
  10. Don’t pub­lish per­sonal emails on your blog. Do ask the sender if he/she is okay with it too.
  11. You’re the edi­tor of your blog. So be a respon­si­ble one!


I am sure you will have your own, learnt through your own expe­ri­ences. And if you’re won­der­ing if these ‘rules’ will make it very hard for you to blog, ‘what­ever comes to your mind’, I would beg to dis­agree. These will only help you become a bet­ter and more respon­si­ble blog­ger. And at least you won’t live in regret. Or lose your job, for that matter!

Responses

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  1. Shivvi says:

    January 10th, 2004 at 12:22 pm (#)

    Thanks for your advice…

  2. Resh says:

    January 11th, 2004 at 9:59 am (#)

    sane observations:)thanks.

  3. lazydad says:

    January 11th, 2004 at 5:37 pm (#)

    good advice..anita

  4. Abhinav says:

    January 11th, 2004 at 8:08 pm (#)

    A great post, Anita .. :)

    Indi­ans , espe­cially, face a lot less of this prob­lem as we are , by nature, pru­dent enough to decide what should go in a blog ..and what shouldnt .. and we almost always tend to keep our iden­tites out in the open :)

  5. Khushee says:

    January 12th, 2004 at 7:52 am (#)

    Good post :)

    Hope you are hav­ing a good new year so far :)

  6. aqua says:

    January 12th, 2004 at 10:49 am (#)

    Great post Anita. It really puts into per­spec­tive and sum­ma­rizes what’s been ail­ing the blog world these past few weeks. Melo and Sukanya have closed their blogs. two other friends of mine stopped blog­ging because their in-laws got to know of the blog. Infact, my friend’s sis-in-law would read the blog and call her mother all the way from Toronto with details of what was writ­ten. need­less to say it caused problems :)

    I’ve tried to make my blog an anony­mous one but didnt work. i’m faced with the same dilemma as the guy who mailed you. your point­ers help …will try and fol­low that.

  7. Better be anonymous says:

    January 12th, 2004 at 11:00 am (#)

    Point.11 sums it all Anita. Prob­lem is, most of the blog­gers in the frenzy of post­ing “often” or “a lot” (includ­ing the so-called most pop­u­lar blog) cross the line many times. If you don’t believe me look at the car­toon posted by this so-called pop­u­lar blog today. Unfor­tu­nately peo­ple who solely write about filthy top­ics do attract vis­i­tors, and that gives them rea­son enough not to adhere to any “edi­to­r­ial guideline”.

  8. :::LL::: says:

    January 12th, 2004 at 2:28 pm (#)

    This post is a mas­ter­piece Anita… Must say a very very saga­cious post!!!

  9. :::LL::: says:

    January 12th, 2004 at 2:50 pm (#)

    I’ve linked your post… hope it’s not a problem :)

  10. Avlokana says:

    January 12th, 2004 at 2:50 pm (#)

    I had the same set of rules in my mind as well all the time after a sim­i­lar feel­ing of regret after post­ing. Though my blog will take more time to mature as a full-fledged inter­est­ing blog, I have learnt sim­i­lar lessons as youve mentioned.

    Thanks for mak­ing them avail­able for oth­ers to read. I will com­pile a list too some­time soon and post it up…

    Cheers

  11. Sandeep says:

    January 12th, 2004 at 4:01 pm (#)

    Good post, Anita. I was inspired to write one along slightly dif­fer­ent lines.

  12. amit says:

    January 12th, 2004 at 6:07 pm (#)

    hmmm.. i think point 2 is a great remain­der :) but then all strong friend­ships start from scratch and some­where down the line a deep bond is formed… the things u men­tioned r just the first steps towards form­ing that bond…

    it was a great post to read.… :)

  13. Patrix says:

    January 12th, 2004 at 10:10 pm (#)

    Great post…i bet it will help the new blog­ger gain a bet­ter under­stand­ing of this medium.

  14. Anita says:

    January 12th, 2004 at 11:52 pm (#)

    Shivvi, Resh, Lazy­Dad: Glad you found it use­ful and thanks for stop­ping by!

    Abhi­nav: Yes, we do tend to be open about our iden­ti­ties, though many of us write under dif­fer­ent ‘blog names’. Also, I think when we first start blog­ging we don’t really worry too much about what we’re going to write/whether it will affect others/how much of our­selves we will reveal. So by the time we’re really into it, and we want to open our hearts out, we can’t really try and hide our iden­ti­ties. unless, of course, we main­tain a com­pletely dif­fer­ent blog, with a dif­fer­ent iden­tity. Though that would be really time con­sum­ing and too much of a strain, I think!

    Khushee: I am actu­ally! Hope you have a good year too :)

    Aqua: Hi. Yes, I noticed Melo­drama pulled down her blog entirely and Suku is going to lay low. Quite sad actu­ally, con­sid­er­ing they’re such good writ­ers and com­mu­ni­ca­tors. But, I think the great thing about blogs is that they’re ‘per­sonal’ and not cut and dried. But as I men­tioned that ‘bal­ance’ is the tough­est to main­tain. And whether you like it or not, you’re writ­ing about your life, so you’re bound to attract feed­back. Unfor­tu­nately, when it’s neg­a­tive, it does prove to be a damp­ener on the spir­its. But on the pos­i­tive side, I think there’s still hope for per­sonal blogs.

    Thanks LL!

    Avlokana: Do send me your link then.

    Sandeep: Glad it inspired you to write more!

    Amit: Yes, def­i­nitely you gain great friends from blog­ging. But what I’m say­ing is that per­haps we shouldn’t jump to con­clu­sions about peo­ple too soon either.

    Patrix: Thanks and do hope it helps!

  15. kash says:

    January 13th, 2004 at 10:05 am (#)

    This is a truly amaz­ing list. I also tried main­tain­ing a pub­lic blog and a pri­vate one, doen’t work. So now since blog­ging has become a way of life, i main­tain an online dairy on my own com­puter for my rants and the blog for my raves, :)

  16. Shail says:

    January 13th, 2004 at 11:56 am (#)

    What a coincidence.Yesterday only I posted my first entry and got an oppor­tu­nity to go through your blog :).

    Thanx for the info.

  17. Deepak says:

    January 13th, 2004 at 3:19 pm (#)

    Eleven Blog Com­mand­ments from Anita. Very good and prac­ti­cal observations.

  18. Pallavi says:

    January 13th, 2004 at 6:39 pm (#)

    Yes we should be care­ful before writ­ing some­thing or then maybe main­tain an anony­mous id if one really wants to rant or something…

    Keep it safe, writ­ten words can always be mis­con­strued… if not writ­ten carefully,

    sad to hear about melodrama…

    hey ANita, am back from rid­ing trip to Goa, wait­ing for the snaps … will share them once I upload it, ride was fan­tas­tic… the write up in com­ing on soon !!!

  19. melodrama says:

    January 15th, 2004 at 1:56 pm (#)

    Anita, am read­ing your blogs after a long, long time. I’d like to point out some­thing, it is all very well for blog­gers to be respon­si­ble but what about the read­ers who read the blogs? Don’t they have some kind of respon­si­bil­ity too? Read­ers too should remem­ber that just because a blog­ger blogs does not mean he/ she wants intru­sion. One may blog when one is bugged and one may not be very PC when one does that, but that does not mean that the reader con­strues mean­ings when there are none or indulges in name-calling and/or the like. If you dont like what you are read­ing, you have an option: click­ing on the cross at the upper right­most cor­ner of your screen. I’ve closed my blogs, but some idiot has taken over and posted some rub­bish pre­tend­ing to be me. How respon­si­ble is that? Any­how, I have no pearls of wis­dom to offer since I do not think I made any mis­takes on my blogs but shit still hap­pened to me, mean­ing that you have screwed up peo­ple on the inter­net too. How hard is it to remem­ber that?

  20. Anita says:

    January 16th, 2004 at 10:57 am (#)

    Melo­drama: Yes, you do have a point. Read­ers should be ‘respon­si­ble’ of course. And they always have an option. After all, we’re not hold­ing a gun say­ing ‘read this stuff’. That’s why I’ve never under­stood why peo­ple leave silly com­ments. But unfor­tu­nately, the way I see it, you can’t really con­trol the ‘reader’ and make him/her respon­si­ble. So you have to do the next best thing, and watch your­self. And there are screwed up peo­ple in the world. Some of them hap­pen to be online. That is a given. We have no option but to deal with them. I don’t think that what we do can be termed as ‘mis­takes’. But you do live and learn online too.

  21. jayesh says:

    January 20th, 2004 at 2:58 am (#)

    beau­ti­ful just beau­ti­ful your post sums up the blog­ging expe­ri­ence.. i feel like tak­ing it and hit­ting a few nasty peo­ple with it for the com­ments on my site.. which suf­fice to say geoc­i­ties in its infi­nite wis­dom.…. wiped out oh well :) this just earned itself a dog-eared bookmark :)

  22. Beautiful Life says:

    January 29th, 2004 at 1:50 pm (#)

    Yes.

  23. Rado Marok says:

    January 12th, 2006 at 9:49 pm (#)

    Happy black black­jakc was very unhappy with
    gam­bling so
    online gam­bling bet­ter
    online casino or
    online casi­nos but
    party poker win­ner is.Red
    slot machines unclock
    online poker .com and
    texas hol­dem .

  24. adus says:

    March 20th, 2007 at 4:32 am (#)

    Jak to otworzyć bo wiem ze sie da na bank odp na maila

    dark117@o2.pl

  25. arpan says:

    November 2nd, 2010 at 6:15 pm (#)

    Yah most of the cases blog­ger ends spread­ing vul­gar­ity and attack­ing indi­vid­u­als when writ­ing about any impor­tant arti­cle which should not be the case at all.I feel blog­ger is kind of journalism .

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