Blogging Obligation

Well, now that there are two different posts on the horrors, er rules of blogging in the small sphere of blogs I travel in, I feel I should post something about the topic as well.

Kimota94 referred to an earlier posting he made about a woman who was fired for blogging. I followed up on the link and found the following under the "about this site" link:

I started this website in February 2001. A year later I was fired from my job for this website because I had written stories that included people in my workplace. My advice to you is BE YE NOT SO STUPID. Never write about work on the internet unless your boss knows and sanctions the fact that YOU ARE WRITING ABOUT WORK ON THE INTERNET.

Seems like pretty sage advice. Guess one should watch what one writes about. Unless you can use words to cloud the truth to the extent that the original meaning becomes lost in a word torrent of unending analogies, with long sentences that wind like a mountain road - narrow, dark and twisting with no end and precipitous drop on one side.

I have thought about these things myself. As I have written recently, I wouldn't and couldn't start writing with even the implications of constraints. I just wanna let it flow, let myself go, paraphrase Beasties to the tempo. Guess I've always had that stream-of-consciousness style, back to grade school where I would write for the fun of it. But knowing that I would be open in what I wrote, I simply didn't create a blog for a long time. I knew that it would be easier to avoid problems that way.

Things have changed though. Started up something and found that I enjoy it quite a bit. About as much as I'm enjoying hockey - really it's becoming one of those things that I don't want to give up. I'm also finding out how to create appropriate, um... I want to say barriers, but it isn't a hard stop. More like a touchstone or heuristic - something that will help prevent me from typing my way into a corner. Or out of a job. Or a place where I've written causes a second party to interfere with a third party. Guess that means I don't want to commit treason, even accidentally. I'd like to think this is wisdom or maturity (hard to tell the difference), but it is also the product of some good advice, well timed.

I'm not going to post a DOs and DON'Ts list. I'd be happy to tell people what I think about what they write, if they ask me. Otherwise it is some kind of common sense - not everything that you feel is a good idea will be a benefit in front of others. Like strolling around naked at work. May be liberating, but not appreciated. May have detrimental effects on your career. Similarly in what you post - it may feel good to vent your spleen on your co-worker (or their fictional duplicate), but it may cause problems. Some things are still better left private.

Guess I would say that blogging should work on the inverse of the basic rule of computer security. With security, it is best to shut everything down, unless it is absolutely necessary. The inverse being feel free to do and say whatever, but there may be times when that isn't prudent. Takes me too many words to describe simple dicta - but I'm trying. Maybe later I'll come up with something more concise.