I just had a very interesting conversation with an elder relative. He was worried that perhaps, I write a bit too much on this blog about things that I should be "reserved about." His advice is well taken. I am sure different people have different views about how much they like to tell others about themselves - for example, if you are on Facebook, on one hand, you might have friends who share very little about their personal lives and a lot about their political and philosophical views, while on the other hand, some will even share pictures of their feet after a pedicure!
In the academic blogging world, there are many who write very frankly about their daily lives (both personal and professional), but take great care to hide their identity. I realised soon that anonymity was not really an option, given the kind of posts I was writing. I wanted to give an account of what I feel as a young academic here, and that means writing about new science institutes, Mathematics, balancing teaching/research with admin duties, experiences specific to women - so, given our small community, that pretty much rules out anonymity.
But, even with the real identity, I do not feel the need to be too reserved.
I know of bloggers who have had to either turn off commenting on their blogs or do not allow anonymous commenting. But, this blog does not require that kind of moderation. The Indian academic blogging community is mostly friendly and cool (or possibly does not not care that much) about the kind of things I write [1]. I have never had to think about closing down the comments due to any large scale trolling.
My only negative experience was when an idiot kept putting up comments repeatedly on a post I wrote on my two-body problem. His/her comments were more in the nature of personal attacks and added nothing of value to the post. But after getting deleted a few times, this stopped.
Perhaps, my relative was concerned that I would be judged for the things I write here, or by revealing too much about myself, I would give others a chance to attack me on perceived weaknesses. These are valid concerns from his point of view, and I have had a few negative experiences, in which I felt that personal considerations like my marital status were unnecessarily brought into professional matters. But in all these cases, the offenders were not reading this blog. Overall, this is not something I worry about. If someone wants to be judgmental or find reasons to attack someone else, they would do it anyways, blog or not. If I can just learn to stay away from such people, both professionally and personally, why worry?
The blog just gives me a chance to vent. Sometimes, writing things down can also reveal a wholly different perspective from one offered by muddled up thoughts in the mind.
Questions for readers:
1) While interacting with colleagues, is keeping your personal life away from such interactions of importance to you?
2) If you write blogs, do you have rules about what you would be uncomfortable writing about? If you retain anonymity, does it make writing more comfortable for you?
[1] There is much more intensity in discussion about politics. For example, see the comments to this post by Rahul Siddharthan. As you can see, people can get really offensive and defensive.
In the academic blogging world, there are many who write very frankly about their daily lives (both personal and professional), but take great care to hide their identity. I realised soon that anonymity was not really an option, given the kind of posts I was writing. I wanted to give an account of what I feel as a young academic here, and that means writing about new science institutes, Mathematics, balancing teaching/research with admin duties, experiences specific to women - so, given our small community, that pretty much rules out anonymity.
But, even with the real identity, I do not feel the need to be too reserved.
I know of bloggers who have had to either turn off commenting on their blogs or do not allow anonymous commenting. But, this blog does not require that kind of moderation. The Indian academic blogging community is mostly friendly and cool (or possibly does not not care that much) about the kind of things I write [1]. I have never had to think about closing down the comments due to any large scale trolling.
My only negative experience was when an idiot kept putting up comments repeatedly on a post I wrote on my two-body problem. His/her comments were more in the nature of personal attacks and added nothing of value to the post. But after getting deleted a few times, this stopped.
Perhaps, my relative was concerned that I would be judged for the things I write here, or by revealing too much about myself, I would give others a chance to attack me on perceived weaknesses. These are valid concerns from his point of view, and I have had a few negative experiences, in which I felt that personal considerations like my marital status were unnecessarily brought into professional matters. But in all these cases, the offenders were not reading this blog. Overall, this is not something I worry about. If someone wants to be judgmental or find reasons to attack someone else, they would do it anyways, blog or not. If I can just learn to stay away from such people, both professionally and personally, why worry?
The blog just gives me a chance to vent. Sometimes, writing things down can also reveal a wholly different perspective from one offered by muddled up thoughts in the mind.
Questions for readers:
1) While interacting with colleagues, is keeping your personal life away from such interactions of importance to you?
2) If you write blogs, do you have rules about what you would be uncomfortable writing about? If you retain anonymity, does it make writing more comfortable for you?
[1] There is much more intensity in discussion about politics. For example, see the comments to this post by Rahul Siddharthan. As you can see, people can get really offensive and defensive.
