April 21, 2003
Identity, please!

One thing that bothers me the most about weblogs recently is just how many of them have absolutely no information about the blog's owner.. For anyone who is not a regular reader that becomes a pain.. I don't mean vital statistics, but a line or two about the author would be damn handy if linked from the vast menu every blog seems to have on the right, or left.. or both sides.

It's probably not something that bloggers think about, since they (obviously) know who they are.. so it may not occur to them that a reader who just stumbled accross the weblog is left wondering about 'who the heck is this person? Is it male? Female? Human? Alien? Microsoft employee?"

Now one may argue that identity of the author should have nothing to do with the content of the weblog.. but I beg to differ.. right or wrong, I will react differently to an article commenting on the glass ceiling in the computer industry when written by a female rather than male (first hand experience counts, you know).

So come on.. it's not hard.. one page, two lines.. little info, please?

Posted April 21, 2003 03:41 PM in Blogging
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.unix-girl.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/675
Comments
On April 21, 2003 04:01 PM Chris B added:

Thanks Kasia, I hadn't thought of doing that on my blog. I will start working some personal information into the blog I try to keep uptodate.

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On April 21, 2003 06:58 PM gregory added:

I was just thinking bout this last night. I was looking at my own blog and realizing that I just didn't have much in the way there about me. I mean, someone could read through my various pages and learn a little bit about me, but it still doesn't say a real lot. It got moved up on my todo list just in time.

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On April 21, 2003 09:43 PM Scott added:

Just finished mine, not much there, but I have a page up now. Funny, after reading a blog it is one of the first things I look for, to learn more about the person and yet I never had my own.

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On April 21, 2003 10:19 PM Damon added:

*nod* Good idea - especially since I've started to randomly post on people blog's that I read. I'll see what I can whip up.

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On April 22, 2003 04:09 AM Mike Short added:

Guilty as charged. Mind, it means sorting it out for the whole team. Prolly worth it though...

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On April 22, 2003 10:30 AM Chris added:

Remember how in the early days of the net everyone was telling people how you should't post any personal information on the internet because anyone can access it? I grew up with my parents constantly yelling at me if I even told someone my name, let alone anything about me. Its funny, weblog's are going to become a stalkers best friend...not only is it a peice of cake to get names and IP address but we'll even give them enough personal information to acertain daily habits. The government doesn't need their single multi-database entires...we'll provide a constanty updated one for them! Just an interesting perspective...

So now let me go post my about page, its been long overdo. ;)

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On April 22, 2003 12:44 PM David added:

Perhaps some people like their anonymity. Perhaps the intended audience of their blog is for people who know them. Perhaps they don't feel that other people would be interested. Perhaps I'm just a lazy ass.

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On April 22, 2003 10:41 PM Jeremy Zawodny added:

Hm, that sounds familiar.

Ah, yes.


http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/000521.html

#5

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On April 23, 2003 09:17 AM Spike added:

Profile page is up, has been since I rebuilt (link under calendar!). It's always very difficult to know what to put in there, though: just how much should one say about oneself? Is too much egotistical? What if someone one writes about visits, recognises you and (even worse) recognises themself in the blog text? Ah, the dangers of admitting who we are...

Anyhoo - mine's there. :)

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On April 25, 2003 10:45 PM Mark Hurley added:

Since the first day Unix-Girl...I'm not skeeeerd!

:)

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Trackbacks
life - listed chronologically:About Me
Over on a blog I just started reading there was a post about blogs that have absolutely no information about...
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April 22, 2003 04:16 AM
Adventures as me:Who am I?
This, I think, is the second time Kasia has made a request for the identity of bloggers. Or perhaps Jeremy made the request initially? I cannot recall. Either way, you will find no reference to my ID on this blog,...
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April 22, 2003 08:46 AM
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kasia makes a good point that I’ve been rolling over for a few days about writing up a page on one’s weblog about oneself. After much thought, I don’t think I will....
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April 24, 2003 06:27 AM
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"Kasia":http://www.unix-girl.com/blog/archives/000875.html says that people who run websites like this one should let people know who they are. I agree ;) "About Clint":http://www.phaedo.cx/about.php I've been a pretty big proponent of being open about...
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April 25, 2003 09:51 PM
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April 26, 2003 04:02 AM
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it's been 7 months since I wrote my 100 Things list (and I never had a permanent link from the...
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April 26, 2003 03:13 PM
Ryan Lowe's Blog:Who Am I?
kasia in a nutshell: Identity, please!One thing that bothers me the most about weblogs recently is just how many of them have absolutely no information about the blog's owner.Good point, Kasia. I added a Who Am I page to my...
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April 26, 2003 03:49 PM