Thursday, October 7, 2010

Anonymity and Blogging

People keep asking me why I don't write this ("cool," "fascinating," "high-quality" - the adjectives have been suggested by the readers) blog under my own name. The main reason is that I write very harsh - and very honest - stuff about college administrators, both at my own university and at other educational institutions. Don't get me wrong, I stand by every single word I have ever written about them. I have absolutely no problem with telling the administrators exactly what I think. Since the beginning of this semester, I've had separate meetings with 4 people at different levels of university administration. Unlike some other (mostly male) colleagues who toadied to those administrators like there was no tomorrow, I said exactly what I thought and as loudly as I wanted.

The difference between blogging and speaking face-to-face, though, is that a blog post cannot demand an answer from those who read it. If I were convinced that people I criticize have the courage of their opinions in the same degree that I do, I would have no problem writing under my own name. What I want to avoid is people reading what I have to say and then - instead of discussing things with me directly - retaliating behind my back and without my knowledge.

5 comments:

Vinod Khare said...

Makes sense. But then, given the amount of detail you put on your blog, can't they tell anyway who you are?

Clarissa said...

Of course, it's easy to make the connection from the blog to me, but not from me to the blog, if you know what I mean.

Clarissa said...

Stupid troll from Port Orchard, washington, you are back?? Have you absolutely nothing to do with your pathetic joke of a life, you sad, miserable freak?

Anonymous said...

Is it the same troll as before??

Clarissa said...

Yep. The freak has been reading the blog religiously. Hasn't tried leaving comments for a while (until today) because I don't publish them anyway. Obviously, today the troll just couldn't contain itself.