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?
Comments
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.
Posted by: Chris B | April 21, 2003 04:01 PM
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.
Posted by: gregory | April 21, 2003 06:58 PM
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.
Posted by: Scott | April 21, 2003 09:43 PM
*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.
Posted by: Damon | April 21, 2003 10:19 PM
Guilty as charged. Mind, it means sorting it out for the whole team. Prolly worth it though...
Posted by: Mike Short | April 22, 2003 04:09 AM
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. ;)
Posted by: Chris | April 22, 2003 10:30 AM
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.
Posted by: David | April 22, 2003 12:44 PM
Hm, that sounds familiar.
Ah, yes.
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/000521.html
#5
Posted by: Jeremy Zawodny | April 22, 2003 10:41 PM
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. :)
Posted by: Spike | April 23, 2003 09:17 AM
Since the first day Unix-Girl...I'm not skeeeerd!
:)
Posted by: Mark Hurley | April 25, 2003 10:45 PM