When is it your story to tell?

[rebeccmeister]

Starting to read this blog post about blogging about intersections between one's personal and professional lives just after starting to read In the Darkroom (Faludi) is interesting, especially after thinking recently about whether or not it's appropriate for young children to participate in political activities. I have a lot of respect for parents who work to maintain their kids' privacy.

And overall, I still stick by my policy of using initials or handles when blogging about other people, plus removing anything where serious objections are raised. It's certainly not a perfect system, of course.

Comments

[ivy]

A lot of the time, I ask other people before blogging about them or linking to their content. There are entire relationships that I've had that are 90% undocumented because of that person's preference. That was kind of hard on my psyche -- I'm a talker and I work through ideas by discussion -- but I don't want to make them feel uncomfortably panopticon-examined, so I think it was the right thing to do. Context is important in whether I ask or not, I think, as well as how they present themselves and where. For really sensitive things, I'll usually let the person read it before I post and then say "please kill that" or "can you change the second paragraph" or "you left out the best part, the one where..." as needed. Those are all adults, though.