This is one of my first blogs of the year - mostly due to all the travelling I've been doing (you'd think that alone would be a reason to keep a regular blog). But today there was an interesting (for want of a better word) experience with my boyfriend's blog. He used to use one site (all sites and names will remain anonymous...for now! We'll call this one Site 1), but after several times of blogs not posting and other little annoyances, he switched over to another site, and has been happily blogging since (Site 2!) The only thing is that the privacy settings are much easier to control with Site 1 as opposed to Site 2 and for some reason they were not on the settings that he had hoped for in the new and better Site 2. So a few 'bitching' blogs about his roommates later, he was caught out and one of the roommates let him know that he was not happy with some of the offending blogs.
Now this raises some questions - can the people who have been bitched about demand the author of the blog to delete the offending comments? It's a little quandry - because I know when I blog, I use it as an opportunity to vent - and when I do vent I don't exactly leave a most flattering impression of the people whom I am ranting about. But after I have this rant, I forget about it and move on, happy in the knowledge that I have had an outlet for this, otherwise it would continue festering in my mind. And this makes me feel a lot better afterwards because it is just ONE small moment of pissiness. It is not ongoing and I get over it pretty quickly, thanks to my blog which allows me to vent in the first place. So back to my inital question: If I have a rant about a person and they read about it, can they ask me to delete said comments? I say no, because it was just one little moment that becomes insignificant a short while after posting. It doesn't matter anymore. Secondly, while the people may be named, they still remain unknown to the rest of the cyber world. Do you know how many people in the world are named Jessica* or Dylan*? I could be talking about Dylan from Timbuktu for all anybody knows, but then the Dylan I know reads a blog by me bitching about him being a neat freak and Dylan gets all defensive! (I'm using an example here, the only Dylan I know lived in Beverly Hills and I enjoyed watching him every week)
Fair enough, I accept that Dylan is going to get narky about it and have a little fit of "Why did you say that about me to an open audience?" I not only accept it, I EXPECT it. But what I do not expect is to be told to delete the offending posts like all of a sudden I'm a sitcom writer and am being sent to the censors. Get upset, tell me about it, I can apologise - and mean it - but I will not delete said comment. Once others have editorial control over MY blog, it will be the end of MY blog. It is MY blog for a reason. By all means, if Dylan would like to open up a blog and bitch about me, he is entitled. I can be narky, tell him about how it made me feel but at the end of the day, it is just a moment and the feeling of hurt will pass (if I cared! To some extent I do, but not nearly as much to say, "get rid of that at once")
I have said my piece. Nobody has editorial control over my blog but me. So that's what My Blog is about. I welcome your comments :)
*These are names I've just come up with and not people I know - it's just proving my point of how many people in the world have the same names!
2 comments:
As far as editorial control, it would ultimately depend on who you are. Certainly, You, Andrea, the Fitness freak on a world tour can say whatever the hell you want. Your boy O, can say whatever the hell he wants as well, but, if O were to be, say, a reporter for major news network he would have to reign himself in just a shade more.
At the same time... if you were to be a celebrity, and you were railing on and on about someone by first name, and we can all guess who you are talking about, you could be held accountable, however...
When I get pissy with Suzy Cinderbrick, and I just want to let off some steam, I'll call here whatever the heck I want, because I do not have the restrictive lashings of a public persona, and, cannot be accountable for what I have said, because, first off, I won't use any real names, I'll just rail indefinitely for the purpose of exposing mind rotting hypocrisies.
Do it more!
Here are my thoughts. If I'm annoyed about something I will write about it, unless I know that 1) it will definitely get back to that person AND 2) it'll cause much more problems than if I just kept quiet. I can bitch about people I don't know, but I wouldn't bitch about a friend who's driving me nuts because they'd likely read my blog and be offended, and frankly, I just don't want to deal with that situation. I have one friend in particular who seems to think every time I bitch about anything at all it has to do with her, which drives me crazy because I'm always having to reassure her that if she was bothering me, I'd let her know. But I know if I blog about THAT, it would be a huge mess and she'd apologize to me endlessly for half a year. Not worth it.
Frankly, I don't like the idea of Oisin's blog going private. Private blogs are so much harder on readers. If the roommates want to complain, who the fuck cares? I read that post about Miriam, and it sounds like a minor irratating complaint, not like he was calling her the spawn of satan or anything. I dont' even remember any other posts about roommates at this particular residence. That goes to show how insignificant they must have been in my mind. Do I care about Miriam at all? No.
so anyway, I'm rambling, but that's what my opinion is. If the roomates are unhappy with what Oisin says, let them bitch about him on their own blogs.
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