This post might not be about what you'd think from the title. I've made a few little "housekeeping" changes to my layout: cleaned up some buttons I'm not using while I take a hiatus from writing poetry (more on that in some other post, some other day); got rid of my blogroll and replaced it with a "followers" list; deleted the part in my profile about which town I live in. This was after reading an excellent post about blog safety by my good friend Aubrey. Which is just the segue I needed to transition from housekeeping into safety...
Recently Aubrey had a truly horrific experience with her blog and some very benign pictures she had posted of herself being viewed by an unintended and unwanted audience. She had an unfortunate crash-course in blog safety, and has generously passed on what she learned. It's definitely worth a read.
The reason I replaced my blogroll with a followers list is to safeguard the online privacy of my family and friends whose blogs I follow. Instead of using a blogroll to see when you update your blogs, I'm now doing it from the privacy of my dashboard. And I would request a favor of any of you who have me on your blogroll, if I may: if you have a link to my blog which uses my first and/or last name, please change it to "chicklegirl." I'd be ever so grateful.
I would strongly encourage any of you aforementioned friends and family who have used your first and/or last names as well as any information about where you live (like pictures of your house with the address showing, etc.) on your blogs to discontinue doing so. One of my friends who is a writer uses her full name on her blog to establish a professional reputation, but she is otherwise careful to omit any other distinguishing characteristics that would enable identity theft or stalking.
It may seem like a pain to go to all the trouble to remove information if you've been posting it on your blog. Especially if you've been doing it for a while. But it's worth every effort to protect yourself and your loved ones.
Better safe than sorry.
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2 comments:
I am going to copy you and get rid of my blog list. Thanks for the info. I am going to pass this along.
good post..way to make your family and friends aware!
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