The problem with sharing is that sometimes you get the freaks and stalkers which is a damn shame.

My blog is a mixed bag when it comes to what I will and will not say. My real name is on there occasionally, because my friends who know it leave comments, and they don’t always call me Asara. No biggie. Same with my hubby’s name. I’ve posted pictures of my kids, and their names, and stuff about them. I suppose if someone was really determined to find me, they could. But I’m a very small fish in this big pond, and I can’t imagine someone actually wanting to. Of all the time I’ve been blogging about WoW, I have had a grand total of One person actually make a character on my server to say hello to me. Which furthers my assumption that very few people really care who I am or what I do. Fine by me.

I tell you what, BBB. For all the times you’ve invited people to come hang with the Sidhe Devils, if you ever really want some anonymity, you feel free to come over to Malfurion and you can join my alt guild. It’s just me and my hubby in there, and I promise we won’t tell anyone who ya are! ;)

Seriously though, aside from the crazies, knowledge is power, and there are people out there craving power more than anything. It’s just bound to happen.

You should publish as much (or as little) about yourself as you like, but there’s no such thing as the right to privacy, no more than there is a right to know everything about someone. You can try to protect your privacy, sure, but it’ll be increasingly difficult in the digital world. In the future we’ll be able to know more and more about everybody.

But I think it’s ok. Then again, I actually feel that cameras everywhere will make us all safer, so YMMV.

I guess what I’ want to say is that it’s a bit sad that we’re potentially losing a great resource because of this whole thing. This whole “Right to know everything” thing? It’s actually pretty annoying as someone that likes their privacy. That’s actually been something that I, as a blogger and as a WoW player have had a couple issues with. First and foremost with a prior guild of mine. As odd as it sounds for a blogger to say this I’m a keep to myself kind of person. I don’t even really talk to most of my guildies, just a “Hi!” when they come online and “Bye!” when they are going offline kind of deal. In the last year I’ve spoken on vent once I believe – and I don’t think it was to my guildies. Over the years my behavior has lead to some very determined (and possibly mentally ill?) people trying to find out every little thing about me that they possibly could in order to try to figure out who I am outside of WoW and honestly the whole thing was rather creepy.

Though that’s different from the Paladin Schmaladin Author’s situation because he/she/they lied about who they are, stole someone else’s pictures and life story and used it as their own, but I did want to just say that having a bunch of internet sleuth’s going over everything you’ve ever said, using things you’ve said to identify you and looking at as much personal information as they can possibly obtain, whether you’re right or dead wrong, in the name of “We have a right to know”, is more than a little creepy!

That said, *continues to stalk BBB* <3

I can’t guess the mindset of the people who data mine for a stupid goal like decorating a blog, (if that’s what even happened – no reason to believe that Sarah is being any more honest than Ferraro, y’know. This is the internet!) but really, nobody should be feeling violated or betrayed here, except the person whose pictures and stories they really are, and Sarah further up this page doesn’t seem to care too much, so why does everyone else?

Oh noes, I posted using a real name :)

I’m the same person I am online that I am in person. I’m open and honest about who I am, and have no qualms about being myself. Yeah, of course I wish I were smarter, wittier, more creative- hell, even prettier. Don’t we all? Part of becoming an adult is learning to love and accept ourselves, the bad with the good. It’s hard for me to respect someone who dislikes his/herself so much, he/she has to create an entirely new persona to feel accepted. What would provoke somebody to go to such lengths? It’s.. mind-boggling, truly. It’s just too much for my mind to absorb.

I tend to keep personal to myself (anyone who knows me already hears more than they would like too), but it is nice to have a place to spew pages of “wow speak”.

I have no problems with people claiming to be purple people (or children) eaters online so long as they post their own content. My thoughts on children are loud, smelly and often sticky or greasy so why anyone would want to touch one no less eat one is beyond me. Oddly enough I also described bacon, but I digress.

I only first heard about Paladin Shmaladin like 2 or 3 weeks ago and my thoughts were: that site is way too busy, I don’t seriously play a paladin and oh she’s a girl. Perhaps if I played a paladin I’d of been more interested in reading further. So all in all I’m largely unaffected, but am displeased anyway.

[shamelessplug]BTW feel free to read my blog (along with the other 3 people a day). Mine is also mostly druid in nature (druid in nature, that’s like some literary thingamajigy), but I also play a hunter and shaman at 80.[/shamlesslug]

What a productive post, I stopped being an anonymous blog stalker, gave enough opinion to keep the comment related and a shameless plug.

Keep up the good work BBB. :)

But the person that writes everything on Too Many Annas (and my other, smaller blog) is 100% me. The chick from Texas. I don’t post pictures of myself on the internet very often, and I try relatively hard to keep “The Blog” away from any sites that could identify me personally with a real name, particularly because of what my husband does for a living. It’s hard, and I’m sure there are folks out there that could track me down if they wanted to. But I totally agree that maintaining a dividing line between “online” and “real” is both necessary and a good thing.

Reader entitlement can be a problem, sure, but in the words of Neil Gaiman – “[The writer] is not your bitch.” – They write, you get the privilege of reading. It’s something I think writers of any kind (blog, anecdote, published, famous, infamous, unknown) understand to some extent.

As for the Ferraro thing? It’s sad, and what was done was very wrong (in terms of stealing someone’s identity). I didn’t even know about the blog prior to that, and I have a paladin main currently, so I can’t say much to the content there, but it’s unfortunate that “they’ll never find out” turned into this mess – and even more unfortunate that someone chose to hide in that manner.