SunMink

Simon Phipps's other Weblog
(a WebMink in the Sun)

The Blogging Experience

As well as being amused and stung by UserFriendly this week, I've been enjoying the comments John Clingan has been making about the blogging experience. His concern, which I share, is that speaking with an authentic voice means taking the risk of one's comments being used elsewhere unwisely or even maliciously. More than once I have posted things which are my view and seen them cited as "the view of Sun's Chief Evangelist" and thereafter with the words "Sun says..." - circumstances under which, sadly, non-authentic marketing cuts in. John says:

I think being paranoid about these things defeats the value of blogging and can quickly become an inhibiter. I will, while blogging, do my best to get things right and leave it at that. Let common sense rule. Just keep in mind that, while I work for Sun Microsystems, my blogs are my own and represent my opinions, and that, well, I am only human.

John also writes on a topic I've been considering recently, the subject of anonymous postings. He's right on the nail in his discussion but I can hear in my memory the arguments of those who say that anonymous posting is essential to allow free discussion. That may be true, but I agree with John when he says:

Anonymity unfortunately encourages posts that are so chock full of opinion with baseless claims that you wonder if the poster was really a computer program that generated random words.

and that's why on my webmink blog I have set house rules requesting people posting anonymously to advise me of their identity or risk removal of their remarks.

But the problem is deeper than that. Pseudonymous posting is much more sinister. The recent debacle on TheServerSide was caused not by anonymous posting by by pseudonymous posting, with assumed identities being filled out over time and used to rubbish the critics of those controlling them in a way that would not be respected if the true identities were known. While we can invent ways to mitigate the problem, ultimately all blogging - in fact, all reportage - should be taken with a pinch of salt and trust only placed in it to the extent one's relationship with the speaker permits and the authenticity of the voice supports. To be otherwise is to be a techno-utopian.

Posted by webmink ( Jun 12 2004, 10:43:36 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [1]