** UPDATE 2015: I know that most people, if digging here at this site long enough, could probably identify me. My anonymity is tenuous, at best. I just ask that if anyone desires to identify me, they consider the consequences for me: there's a reason I went from a serious blogger about ten years ago to a very infrequent blogger now. It's called family and career. And those two things take huge precedence over this little soap box. In order to protect them, I write anonymously. Thank you for respecting that. **
Dowd writes something today that is a little near and dear to me. The issue is anonymous blogging. I think the takeaway lesson is this: if you're an anonymous blogger, you have the right to say whatever you like, but there may be consequences for it when you start bashing other individuals or topics that some people are enamored with (politics and religion). But it's far less likely to wreck your life if you have an anonymous blog where you make fun of, say, Christians in general than if you have an anonymous blog where you call an individual a "skank" and "ho" and "ho bag"...After all, no judge can find for a plantiff in a defamation suit and out you if you don't single out someone by name (or identify them individually in some other way).
I think it's true that most people are anonymous on the internet due to the desire to hide from the consequences of their writing. Noble usage of pseudonyms through history was often politically-motivated and the writers feared for their lives or livelihoods. Today people just want to have a soapbox but wear a costume as they stand up there and talk. I guess you could say I'm like that now. It didn't start out that way.
The status of my being a blogger has changed a few times, for a few different reasons (most of the following links are broken because I moved all my posts to this new site and made most of the personal stuff private):
- I began writing a blog in Nov 2005. It was a public blog that used my real name. It didn't have many readers. One day, I wrote something on Sternberg and it got linked to, and from there, I had a lot of interest in keeping readers. Some of the original research I did has been incorporated into this article at Expelled Exposed.
- A few people from my hometown, and relatives, learned of my site and I learned of that. I got nervous in Feb 2006 and made my website private. I stupidly deleted a lot of my posts. A lot of this had to do with the fact that I was no longer religious and, while I didn't mind them knowing, I didn't want them reading my stuff in which I "debunked" their religion. If you hunger for more details, here they are.
- I changed my mind about three months later and began writing again on a public blog. Once, I realized I was in trouble with getting my Ph.D. finished because of the time I was spending online. We see where that worry took me...
- I ended up doing an interview on Hannity & Colmes in Nov of 2006 over a controversial topic concerning politics and religion. I got really active in doing hands-on real-world stuff for a while there and did less personal blogging.
- That trend was fairly unbroken until I got my M.S. and started the job search. Then, I decided to go private again, because I was afraid that people at my new job would find this site and I would have to deal with a bunch of BS from it.
- I planned to write less due to work; I'm pretty much still in that same boat, and my writing over last summer increased only because of free time.
- Now that we have a child, free time isn't really an issue anymore, since I don't have any.
- Finally, on around 1/11/09, I decided to use Blogger's export/import feature and start a brand new site. I used a text editor to search and replace all instances of my name and identifying information I could think of and also change all URL references to my old site to this new one -- that's why there are so many broken links, btw. I made a lot of my personal posts private (leaving only rants about politics and religion, mostly). I published them here at NSEFL. And I really want to stay anonymous here.
- ** UPDATE 8/24/19: Since I'm working at a public school (no longer at a religious school), I don't feel I have to maintain a pretense of anonymity. At the same time, I take professionalism as a teacher seriously and will refrain from posting personal information. **
“...the dangers of its misuse cannot be ignored. The protection of the right to communicate anonymously must be balanced against the need to assure that those persons who choose to abuse the opportunities presented by this medium can be made to answer for such transgressions.”Indeed.
Cyberbullies, she wrote, cannot hide “behind an illusory shield of purported First Amendment rights.”
