| First, I think it is obvious that we allow anonymous, well, actually pseudonymous, blogging here. There are a number of bloggers at varying levels of anonymity here. For my own part, I began this site as sfbriancl, a derivative of my name (The C standing for Charles, the SF for...uh...SF). And jsw, well, those are Jeremy's initials. Juls seems pretty easy to link to Julia Rosen, same with dday. Lucas was Lucas from the get-go. And we also gave you most of that information in the About Page. But, I guess there was still enough to attack on the basis of anonymity.
Flip it over, please... |
| Most, if not all, of the "A-list" Bloggers (I don't want to get into that, but just read this Republic of T post for more on that) are in fact open about their identity at this point. Heck, even Digby came out of the closet. And here at Calitics, that is now the case as well, as we have had a big shift in the past week towards using real names. I think that's cool. You see, it's not that there isn't value in using the pseudonym, it just gives people a bit more trust if they see that real name.
That being said, there is a very real place for pseudonymous blogging. Heck, even Jon Fleischman understands that there is a place for non-attributed blogging. It could be because a paying job doesn't want you taking political stances, or it could be shielding grassroots friends. Whatever, if you have a reason, and you can still get your point of view across to an audience, I wish you the best. But one thing that should not be tolerated is the "outing" of a pseudonymous blogger by somebody who was supposed to be on the same team.
I won't get into the details, other than the fact that here in California, a really cool person was outed by somebody that had no business doing so. That incident hurt both sides, and little was gained, other than showing that old school politics aren't dead. Leaders should know who their friends are, but it's painfully clear that some demand perfect loyalty and drones to the cause (ie themselves). Folks, it's not going to happen. You will sooner tame a zebra (look it up...you can't do it) than you will the blogosphere. You have friends, but sometimes those friends will *gasp* disagree with you. Get over it and move on.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that if you can be out front about who you are, you should do so. But if you can't, well, your "friends" should respect that. And hey, if anybody wants to change their username, shoot me an email. |
