Advice for New Bloggers: Set Your Limits
Posted on April 29, 2008
Advice for New Bloggers is a new regular feature here at Sarah’s Cucina Bella. Inspired by Dine and Dish’s Adopt-A-Blogger event, and written with my adoptee in mind (Hi, Rachel! Click here to check out Fairy Cake Heaven), it appears every Tuesday.
Someone made a great analogy that privacy on the internet is like ketchup in a bottle: once you let it out, you can’t stuff it back in.
Decide early how much privacy you want to maintain. Do you want to share what city you live in? Your name? Your family member’s names? These are important considerations. Many people choose to err on the side of caution and keep all this information private at first, revealing bits and pieces later as they deem necessary and okay.
There are a number of great articles on blogging and privacy to help you. Here are two:
- Mommy bloggers balance writing and privacy @ SheKnows (by me!)
- Chewing on a blogger’s privacy @ Food Blog S’cool (read the comments)
And FINALLY! Congrats to Viktoria, winner of the Advice for New Bloggers contest - Viktoria, use the contact tab to send me your addy so I can get the book out to you.
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2 Responses to “Advice for New Bloggers: Set Your Limits”
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I’ve decided to only say that I live in Connecticut on my blog. I refer to most of my friends by initials, except for my boyfriend and a select few I know are OK with me blogging about them, or people who comment on my blog with their full names.
However, I find myself constantly thinking “would this offend anyone?” before I post. Even if you don’t mention names, people involved in certain situations could figure out who they are.
My blog is about living in a foreign country, and part of that involves writing about how you live, your job and what is different. But how do you write about a roommate without being offensive? How do you mention certain situations at work without risking that someone you work with will come across your blog?
I guess the answer is that there are no guarantees, so if you are hesitant, it is better to just hold off on the blog post until you are certain it won’t cause trouble.
P.S. Forgot about this… I frequently mention where I work and post links to my newspaper’s web site. I figured people can find me there any time anyway. My name is frequently in the newspaper and on the web, so there’s no extra protection needed on my blog. But I feel weary about people being able to find me when I am not at work, and I’d rather they didn’t.