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Blogging With A Rubber

Recent Blogsphere events have again brought to light the dangers of a misunderstood medium and of the corporate world. Call Center Purgatory coincidentally has posted about Work Blogs. But we thought it might be relevant to add our own thoughts.

Blogging is not much different than posting a personal website. While personal sites have existed for several decades, blogs are mostly an invention of the last five years or so. The only true difference is that most personal websites tend to be static while blogs are frequently updated. Blogs have increasingly become influencial. The mainstream media loves reporting on "the power of bloggers."

Due in part to the rise of popularity of blogs and their influence in society, people have begun to take notice. Like most new technologies or changing social patterns, blogs are misunderstood and feared. Plenty of high profile cases exist where people have lost their careers or have been harrassed because of what they say or do online. While we wait for laws and society to catch up to changing cultural patterns, there is in some cases a genuine threat to people's livelihoods or safety.

Take precautions.

Play Within the System Because You Can't Beat It

Many articles recently have suggested bloggers go underground and cover their tracks to avoid real life problems as a result of blogging. Inevitably, you will be caught, so play within the rules.

Know The No Policy
Some places of employment have specific policies addressing blogging. Others do not, and have an implicit policy addressing the issue. Other places actually encourage personal blogs, such as Sun Microsystems. Know what you are allowed or not allowed to do on company time or using company resources such as the internet. Some states such as California have laws prohibiting employees from being fired for off hours legal activity. This doesn't protect you while you are "on the clock."

If you are looking to circumvent this and need to blog during work hours, most blog programs allow you to set the time stamp on the post to whenever you feel like it. You could date the whole thing in 1985 if you wanted to. Of course, some places will monitor incoming and out going net traffic, or randomly screen capture computers on the corporate network, so you aren't entirely safe.

Make Hoffa Proud
Labor organizing is federally protected by law and can have harsh consequences for employers who fire employees discussing unionization. Discussing issues of organizing your workforce may offer you some protection. This defense has not yet been tested in court specifically relating to blogs, or whether a blog that contains both union and non-union posts would be protected.

Don't Violate Their Trust
Don't violate the trust of employers by giving away corporate secrets. Don't pose nude wearing part of the corporate uniform. Many states allow "firing at will," meaning employers can fire employees for any reason other than race or sex. However, most employers are not going to fire a valued employee who does not violate their trust. That is to say, if you are blogging on your own time, without reference to your place of employment, most places will not care or merely issue a warning at first. Don't rant about your boss and expect him to pay a blind eye if he happens to discover your blog, even if every other post is about your new cat fluffy. But in most cases, if you keep a personal blog purely personal, most people will ignore it.


Going Underground
The internet has always been seen as an [semi] anonymous public forum. Sometimes this is abused with harrassment, but most often users enjoy the freedom their otherwise restrained lives prevent them from having. However, the internet is rarely truly anonymous, and even casual users can use basic tools like google to find information that is thought secure and private.

Red 5, Standing By
If you want to remain anonymous, the first thing you must do is never reference your name or even the names of those around you. Intials are sometimes ok to use, but even then, its probably best to use an alias. Change your codenames for different things: don't make your anonymous blog name the same as your email address or even a private log in for your bank account or other service. Your anonymity is only as strong as the weakest person who can identify you. Change the names of people you blog about. Don't give away to your friends that this is 'your blog'. Make sure people who do know who you are protect your identity when linking to you or blogging about you.

Private Information
Just like you shouldn't give out your mother's maiden name to people, you should never give away information that can identify you. For instance, don't say you live in "Muarry Hill", say "New York City" or even better, "A Major East Coast City," or best, "A Large American City." Even a simple post like "today is my birthday" reveals when you were born. This of course is difficult if you have an entirely personal blog as some events such as "Partied like a rockstar last night, really hung over," require a qualifier like, "because it was my birthday."

The One Armed Man Did It
Blog from public computers if you are really afraid. Most places like libraries can track their uers, date and time. However, for the most part, matching an IP address with a specific user in a public setting is very difficult. Internet cafes are another possibility, especially independently owned operations that don't keep track of users or net use.

A blog "Some Blogs Are Better Than Other Blogs" made a career out of poking fun of other blogs. The creator lived with two other people, who shared his IP address. After his roomates were accused of creating the blog -- they had semi public lives as psuedo journalists -- he had to confess to clean up their names. Be careful who is using your IP address. Just because you are taking precautions to remain anonymous, doesn't mean everyone else is.

E-Mail is alot more easily tracked as the mail servers do keep track of IP addresses. Sending email and posting to an anonymous blog at the same time can reduce your anonymity.

Go Corporate
Foetry was once an anonymous site dedicated to exposing corruption in poetry contests, until GoDaddy.com revealed the user's name and address. Feotry's creator was less than happy since as it turns out, his wife, a semi successful poet, was attempting to win many of the contests he was exposing. Also, many of the people he exposed were not too happy he exposed them and sent him fan mail telling him so. In either case, to really shield your identity, go through a third party. A lawyer may be able to help you out, registering the domain and other things in their name rather than yours. Or create a corporation for your blog. For instance, the mythical reporter Wally Edge of PoliticsNJ.com has withheld the scrutiny of the New York Times [not that they are authoritative hackers] because he has the protecting of a private company behind him.

Final Thoughts
Blogging is very new in terms of cultural phenomenons. Attitudes will change with time. In most cases, bloggers have gotten in trouble for doing things that people have always done -- gossip, rant, spread rumors, give away company secrets -- but have gotten in trouble because they have left an evidence trail. How often has someone been fired for talking about the boss's extra-marital affair around the water cooler?

Protections for bloggers will develope both through statutes and through court cases over time. The decline of labor unions over the last two decades has also meant that employers have taken increasing liberties with regards to abusing employees and making demands about their personal lives. Looking back through the history of labor movement, many of the events that are happening today-- firing bloggers, demanding unpaid over time, abusing workers-- caused the creation of labor unions to begin with. The backlash from Corporate America will inevitably result in changes in workplace laws and more laws like those in California protecting workers from legal, out of office activities. But again, these things take time.

The Revolution Will Be Blogged.

Literary Wankers

We were going though submission guidelines to various literary journals today, and came across this lovely bit, from a journal we will not mention:

we consider it unethical for a poet to submit the same work simultaneously

Of course, we understand that simultaneously submitting is wrong. But we must have a good chuckle that a prospective publisher would call the practice unethetical.

Indeed, this might actually hold water if literary journals responded with any bit of efficiency. But due to volume of submissions, they can't and so they don't. After two or three months, submitting a poem [or a story] some place else is fair game. After all, most journals refuse to comment on the status of submissions. So imagine a story submitted, and subsequently lost. Should the author never submit again for fear of being unethical?

We're left wondering if the good folks at this unammed journal are comparing the submission of the same poem to different journals as an equal fault to say, looting Enron, or suicide bombings in the name of God. We'd only consider the latter two "unethical."

She Gave Me Wood

In you aren't reading out favorite Gawker Media publication, Fleshbot, you may have missed the mention of our favorite contemporary poet, Alexander The Poet, famed for his appearences at Rutgers poetry readings including several hosted by our favorite literary journal The Anthologist. Its like a virtual favorites fuck-fest!

Really though, why would you want to miss the Chest Hair. But if you have no idea who we're talking about, Reading This might spark a memory.

And in the great tradition of the rest of us, he now has a Blog. We expect this to become a favorite featured in a future favorite fuck-fest.

Sex Peddler Turns Bard

The publisher of Maxim has put out a book of poems,
A Glass Half Full. The book has an intial run of 25,000 in the US after selling 15,000 in the UK.

So will poetry be lowered to the level of soft porn? (and not even very good since none of Maxim's girls are nude). Perhaps it might surprise you that Playboy acutally prints Short Fiction and is recommended as a place to submit stories (if you are a young male author, writing for an audience of young male readers).

Perhaps Maxim will revive literature by bringing it back to mass audience. Har har, not likely. After all, the verse will dissappoint buyers looking for scantily clad women and I doubt it will be appearing in any classes taught by the readers of this blog. So will the volume (or future volumes) from the Maxim publisher do anything for poetry, other than cheapen the art and make a few dollars for a publishing millionaire?

A Victory for Free Speech

A few months ago a California Student was arrested for a poem he wrote. Today he was freed.

Its about time our Constitutional rights had some defending.

Larkin

I bought a copy of Philip Larkin's Collected Poems last night at the Barnes and Noble. This is the second book of poetry I've purchased, the first beingEveryman's Library Edition of Beat Poets.

In either case, I'm enjoying Larkin quite a bit. I'm particularly fond of The Mower, (12 June, 1979).

RL Stine

RL Stine has an interesting view on poetics

: "The world has enough bad poets. I try to discourage everyone from writing poetry."

Erik and Clayton can eat our shorts.

Apparently Poets Die younger than than novelists and other writers. Ha.