In his post Trying To Be Complete, T.Scott Plutchak discusses the private versus official aspect of an weblog. He suggest to be more complete someone should blog everything from intimate to personal to job experiences into one single site.
The challenge, with all of these audiences, is to not let myself be stifled in what I have to say. There’s a simple rule of thumb — can I stand behind every word I write, no matter who might come across it? I’m no longer looking for „balance“ because that still seems to imply managing two poles. I don’t have a „personal“ or „professional“ side. I strive to be complete.
Puuh, that’s really tough. Jane Blumenthal argues to keep official and personal live more seperated. Readers don’t know what to expect from your writing, if you mix-up things. And she is comfortable with the split personality of her blog(s). Maybe I’m a split personality too because I need three blogs at least for keeping all my stuff…
I didn’t actually mean to imply that everyone „should“ blog everything in one place, only that this suits my purposes well. And it is a good reflection, I think, of who I am. I suspect that it does reduce readership, however, which is why most blogging guidelines argue against it. The more important and universal part of my post is that regardless of how many blogs you have, you still need to remember that it is a public forum, and you have to be willing to stand behind everything that you write.
I oversimplyfied things, I know. Of course, you didn’t suggest it as a matter of „I do this, it works well for me and therefore everybody should do the same“. Instead, I take everything you write as a kind of suggestion to ask myself: What would I do?
> you have to be willing to stand behind everything that you write
I cannot but underline this statement very much, because it literally shaked my blogging basics. But nevertheless I would like to add, that it depends. It depends on the context. If I write something in medinfo it’s more „official“, if I write something in this blog it’s more personal – on the average. The reader will take this into account when judging if a posting is appropriate.