One of the topics we discussed at length during the Cancer Bloggers Reunion was personal privacy and blogging.
This slides into the topic of simple discretion. For example, one of our number works for the same institution where she gets her cancer care. She needs to keep her work self and her patient self clearly separated, and for that reason can't blog about some of the topics that I can take on.
There is also the question of naming names. Do you use your children's names on your blog? What about posting their photos? We all do this differently, and I would have to say there is no right answer.
Ditto for naming the doctors and cancer centers who care for us. I do it, as I feel this information is helpful to other cancer patients (I also do it to hold them publicly accountable: See 15 Phone Calls to see what I mean).
One of the more interesting questions (at least to me) is what to do about the fact that our blogs are PUBLIC and can be read by anyone who has access to Google (like the entire wired world). You don't have to know my URL to find my blog. You can google my name, or just a few select key words, and up it pops.
So what do you do when knowing that certain people are reading your blog inhibits you from writing freely?
One answer is to have a second, secret blog. I know a couple of cancer bloggers who have both public and private blogs, for just this reason.
"My reasons for a private blog were that too many people I know in real life read my blog and there were things that I wanted support from my blogging friends about that I wasn't yet ready to share with the people I really know," one blogger explains in an e-mail.
"How to do it, on blogspot, when you set up your blog you answer a bunch of questions for the settings. You have the choice of making the blog searchable, password accessable, and linkable. I chose to make my private blog nonsearchable and nonlinkable, but not password accessable. You can also set it so that you provide the e-mails of the people you want to have access. Layers of protection."
So I can't find her blog unless she sends me the URL. It's that simple.
And of course some bloggers blog anonymously, and are careful not to give too many clues to their identities. I had e-mail once from a woman, who had breast cancer, who said her husband didn't even know she had a blog, and she didn't want him to.
Then there's the question of family members reading our blogs. How do you feel about that? And WHO does read your blog--your partner or spouse, your children, your siblings? Post a comment below and let me know.
@ Jeanne Sather 2008.
