I listened to a bit of the keynote conversation between Heather Armstrong and Jason Kottke, and heard of course the themes that occupy me most: civility, and how much or how little to reveal or keep out of the blog.
Heather said she has had comments off and on. Last she turned them off because of the fights that were getting fought there, and the nastiness of some of the commenters, and even mentioned she is careful about who she links to, because she does not wish some of her more acid readers on other bloggers. She just turned comments back on, mentions that "we'll see if people can be civil to each other", and said she has not had to delete a single comment because she is asking for authentication. (Goes back to what Bill Anderson said on the Us and Them panel, about being accountable. It's much easier to flame when you are anonymous.)
Jason Kottke doesn't have comments on his blog because he doesn't want a community to form around kottke.org, he doesn't want to be put in the role of community leader.
They talk about how much or how little to put on their blogs, and how it affects their loved ones. Heather says that yes, there are conversations about where the line is, and which things are sacred and just not to be put on a blog ... which segues nicely into the next panel, Bloggers in Love: Intimacy, Technology and Mask-Making.
On this panel: Julie Leung. Lisa Williams, moderating. Chris Pirillo. Ponzi Indharasophang. George Sessum. Jeneane Sessum. Heather Champ. Derek Powazek.
Jory has a great question. She's in "a mixed relationship: I'm online, he's off". Is is putting a relationship on a more even level if both partners blog? She says she feels like she is a position of power, and she needs to pull back because he is "sort of defenseless". Derek asks if Jory's partner reads her blog, and when she says yes, he contends that contrary to what Jory thinks, it's actually her partner who is in a position of power, because he has access to what she is thinking, while Jory does not have this avenue for her partner.
Derek adds that he feels like he gets additional insight into Heather by reading her words online and seeing her photographs, because those tell him what she pays attention to, and how she addresses an audience rather than addressing him.
This resonates with me. I do feel like the people who read my blog know more about me than most of my offline friends. (Although in the same vein it is true that there are things that my offline friends are privy to, that my blog readers will never ever know.)
I would have loved to attend this discussion as I have the same one at home right now. When I felt not so cheerful as usual, and I clearly blogged about how I felt, I assumed automatically that my boyfriend knew how I felt. Unfortunately he dares to not read my blog on a regular basis (bad mistake :-). I think I as a blogger assume too often that people know how I feel because it is out there on my blog - I don't assume that people I know don't read it - of course not.
Posted by: Silvia | Mar 12, 2006 at 05:17 PM
If I write something for somebody to read, I send them an email with a link to the post.
Posted by: Elkit | Mar 12, 2006 at 10:33 PM