Okay, here's the deal. Mark, my husband-type person, was bragging about me (yeah, ain't that great) to a work buddy today. He sent this buddy my url in an email - and thank god he copied me on it, otherwise I'd never have known.

This presents a problem for me. As some of you know, I've kept a fairly personal, yet pseudonymous, journal there since December 1998. I've talked about my sex life, both pre- and post-Mark. I've talked about certain illegal activities. I've bitched about various issues. I've talked about some sensitive things in my past. Namely - what we do in our journals.

I really don't want this getting out of hand, so I took the journal down. Immediately. Hopefully before the work buddy read any of it. All of the entries are still there, on the site, but the index page for the journal is 404, and I've removed the link from the front page (www.polygloss.com, if you want to see what I'm talking about) and the about page.

Now I'm not sure what to do. This sucks. I really don't want to move the journal to a different site. Should I password it? I would have no clue how to do that, but I suppose I could figure it out.

Please advise. Beth, I hope you don't mind me posting this here, but some of the readers of this board are I think at least passingly familiar with me and the site, and are long-term journallers themselves.

I'd love to also hear stories of some of you who, I know, have gone through similar things.

mz

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

Answers

Well, I do have some advice -- and complete sympathy, by the way -- but you probably won't like it.

This seems to be a sort of coming-of-age thing almost for online journalers. A whole lot of us start out revealing a whole bunch and depending on anonymity or luck to keep our real life acquaintances from finding our journals. I don't think anyone can do that forever, though, or at least they can't feel secure about it. Sooner or later you get found out, or you become so paranoid about being found out that you just can't write the way you used to.

The decision you have to make, I guess, is whether you want to continue to try to have it both ways -- publish a revealing online journal and protect your privacy. Some people do try to do that, going to passwords and mailing lists or new URLs. I tried it for a while myself. But once you've had that first intrusion, you can't ever really trust your anonymity again, which is a good thing, because it was never trustworthy.

I think there are only a couple of choices that can work over the long term. You can be like Gus and Justin Hall, and just decide you have no secrets. If people are going to think less of you once they know your private information, then fuck 'em. Put it all out there for anyone to find.

The other way is to accept that nothing out here is private. You can't engage in a public form of self revelation and maintain your privacy. You either have to restrict the stuff you put in the journal, or accept the fact that whatever is out there is out there for anyone to see. You can still tell the more private stuff to people on a mailing list, but you can't publish things and expect them to stay secret.

I don't envy the place you're at. It was extremely difficult for me to reach the conclusion that nothing I posted was private, and that I needed to change the way I wrote. I don't think that process is easy for anyone who is used to treating their online journal like a paper notebook. But I don't know of any other way for a journaler to feel totally secure about who is reading. I really don't.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

Well, you could always try the Alice route. You know, Alice of Assume Nothing?

In the past two or three years, she's changed journal sites a number of times -- also titles and pseudonyms. I lost track of her for awhile because of this. But she's managed to keep the wrong people from reading.

Until recently, that is, when she finally had to password-protect her journal because of some personal-possibly-legal issues. Until then, she still had a good three-year run at least.

So you could stop being Molly Zero and start being someone else, and get a new URL. Eventually your old readers will find you (especially if you have a notify list) and maybe this time Mark won't send the URL to the wrong people. This won't work forever but it might work.

Beth is right, it's a very difficult tightrope to walk and you know that anything you publish on the Web, the wrong people will eventually find. But at least you can lead them on a chase and make them work for it. Hee.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

I was wondering what happened to your site!

#1. What Beth said.

#2. When I first started my website, very few people I knew were online - and if they were, they were strictly email users. I wrote about whatever I wanted - worked out a few personal demons, wrote very personally about stuff, was as honest as I could be. It was very liberating, to discover that I was not the only one carrying a little pain around, or being a big doofus.

Now, everyone is online. My mom reads my site. My mother in law reads my site. All of my friends read it, not regularly, but they pop in. And maybe in some ways this is good - they get to see a little more of who i am than they did previously. The flip side though, is that there are a number of things I don't want my family to be privy to - not that I am out clubbing baby seals as a hobby - just stuff I wouldn't be comfortable with them all discussing at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

So I went through my archives, and I kept the funnier stuff, the stuff I really liked, and the lighter stuff, and I pulled out anything that would cause anyone any discomfort, including me. It is a different site, now.

The people you least want to find your site, always do, eventually. For me, the answer was writing something more akin to a column than a journal. There are things I wish I could write about, but don't. I have a mailing list, and more personal stuff sometimes ends up there.

What about creating a second, 'hidden' site on your domain...so that people can find the journal pretty easily, but you have another folder that more personal stuff goes in, and you never give that section of your url out to people you know in real life?

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

Adding to Kristin's post (because I too went through my site and culled most of the too personal stuff some time ago):

You could also password protect only ONE part of your site. Um, and use .htaccess files to block domains you think the work guy would visit from.

If I were you, I'd make sure the one page you have showing up has a site tracker on it. Then you could see if the work guy had checked for the page at all.

But really, you either post more personal stuff (and deal with people whom you'd prefer not to read it reading it) or you don't.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

LyndaB and I talked about archives at JournalCon 2000. I asked Lynda about her taking down her archives. She and I talked about being authentic, and owning own's past.

One of my "things," my beliefs, is that I am not ashamed of my life at ALL. As I was pondering my regrets at (the dreaded) 3WA recently, I was struck by how firmly I still believe the "no regrets" punk rock ethics of myself at 15. My, how things don't change.

ack. So what am I saying here? I want my archives and personal writings to remain accessible to anyone who has an inclination to read them. What I'm afraid of is people taking the stuff I've written and using it against me, or my darlin' dear Mark.

Thanks, all, for your feedback thus far. Maybe we can have a good conversation about this as time rolls on.

In fact, I'm going to go to the JournalCon 2001 mailing list right now, and propose this whole issue as a topic. As long as they hold it in the afternoon, *that's* a roundtable I'd attend.

More? Anything, any comments, welcome. Don't be shy. Please.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

Well, I think it's possible to have no regrets and to own your past without necessarily wanting to share every detail with the entire world. Wanting to keep something private does not necessarily mean you're ashamed of it. I mean, I'm not ashamed of my PIN number, but I'm not going to tell you guys what it is.

And sometimes keeping a few things private has nothing to do with shame. I don't tell you guys about my sex life (well, except for the funny parts) or about some different areas of my life not because I'm ashamed of those things, but because they're mine, and if I shared them all something would be diminished.

I'm not criticizing you for wanting to take another route, but I don't think it's fair to imply that journalers who do something different are afraid of "owning their pasts" or whatever.

One of the very valid reasons people have for not sharing everything is to avoid having things used against them, which is a risk you will *always* run if you put the information out there. There isn't any way around that. Edited to say, oh my God, I put "their" when I meant "they're." I'm going to go shoot myself now.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

I've outed myself repeatedly by accidentally including my url in my sig - once to my family, once to my husband's family, and once to a coworker. Regarding my family it made me uncomfortable, but I stood up to my own words there - the only thing that would be affected was our existing relationship, and there already wasn't much of one. That was very hard though - my family has a strong code of silence on..oh, everything.

His family was rougher, because of the potential of affecting, no my relationship with them, but his. In that case, I asked him - and HE told me not to censor myself because of that. It did cause some discomfort... but it also got some long overdue discussions going between them all. No regrets there at all - although I still feel uncomfortable knowing his ex-wife is peeking in, and it's affected what I write. I'm not ashamed at all - it's just that it's someone predisposed to be hostile regarding me and I'm not thrilled with her thinking about me at ALL.

My work is yet another thing again, and the trickiest - I don't know if anyone's reading, although I suspect they are (things resolving themselves after I've mentioned them in the journal, for example). In previous jobs, the idea didn't even bother me - if it had ever caused problems, I would have found another job with no grief. This one's different in a lot of ways, and I'm more cautious about what might jeapardize that, although I'm still probably more honest than is strictly practical.

My way of dealing with that is just to make sure that anything I write about something I'm feeling about a situation that involves others (or for that matter about myself) is something I either HAVE said or would be willing to say directly if it came up.

As to the portions of the journal that were from earlier, more open days... at some point I just decided that while I'd needed to challenge myself to be that open, I wasn't under any obligation to keep it there for all eternity, once it started doing me more harm (in the sense of discomfort over all those eyes from my 'real' life now looking in) than good, that they were MY words and I could return them to a private space anytime I wanted to - and so they were taken down.

It means that people who have been looking in for years have maybe a different sense of me than those who've only started reading in the last year or so - but that's how it is in any relationship, isn't it? Who you think you know depends on what was happening with them from the time you met them onward.

None of that's any advice for you, Molly - I know that you'll give it some thought and then choose the path that best balances honesty and practicality for you. But Beth is right when she says that it's difficult, that first time you realize that it means compromise. I still struggle with it.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

I don't have a spouse to worry about, but I do have potential issues with other significant people and work. I just decided a long time ago not to write about anything that I wouldn't say to anyone.

It's safe, but sometimes it feels really, really limiting.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

#1 -- What Beth said.
#2 -- Kristin, I think we were separated at birth. You said everything I just went through. Very ditto, there.

I've taken most of my journal down now. There are a lot of issues involved in why I'm not putting it back up there, at least not now, (in spite of telling Kymm that I thought I was about to) (I'm an idiot)... but one important reason for taking it down is that my distant / extended family found it recently and some of these people are very mean-spirited and cruel. They would think nothing of taking something I said out of context and trying to embarrass my parents / brother / husband / children with it. (It's one of the reasons I've had no relationship with them for years -- not a nice group of people.)

If you still want to let it all hang out there without regret, then you'll have to decide how valuable the negative information would be to your or Mark's worst enemy. Calculating the possibility of someone using it is difficult, but I think the greater the risk to either of you (the greater the damage that can be done)... the more you'll need to protect that information. It's one thing to live with no regrets -- it's another thing to put yourself in the position of beng made to regret it, legally or relationship-wise/work-wise.

What I think is an interesting facet of this discussion (and I have been struggling with this as well) is how much we want to carve out a piece of the internet with our identity, a virtual time capsule of saying "We were here." What does that accomplish in the long run? Short run? That there is a benefit is obvious or so many of us wouldn't have been doing it, but in the sense of the bigger picture -- the whole social fabric of this type of communication, I think it's a relevant question for you to ask yourself why it's important to you to live online with no regrets, letting everything about who you are be accessible for anyone who wants to read it. (The answers I would have for myself for these questions probably wouldn't apply to anyone else -- so I'm not trying to say don't do it; I'm more curious as to why we want to own this identity so much -- particularly or maybe even ironically -- when that identity is written under a pseudonym.)

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

I think there are only a couple of choices that can work over the long term. You can be like Gus and Justin Hall, and just decide you have no secrets. If people are going to think less of you once they know your private information, then fuck 'em. Put it all out there for anyone to find.

To a certain extend, I agree with this, and follow it. I'm out there in my journal. Way out there.

But I also don't like how I'm treated sometimes, as if because I'm out there, I'm not "normal", so I'm not out there on mailing lists and on message boards! LOL I use my garden journal, my home website address, etc., so I'm treated "normally", like I have an intelligent thought in my head, things to contribute, etc.

Yeah, I know some people have put two and two together, and that's cool, but I clearly don't have all this worked out in my head, eh?

Good luck with whatever and however you work this out.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

Okay, let me preface by saying that I have a different life from yours, I have nothing particularly controversial on my site, I have no significant other, my words don't affect anyone but my own life, and I have never been anonymous, but in terms of being found by someone that I don't want to find me, all I can really do is not care.

I am not being flip, honestly, I made the decision that worrying whether certain people are reading or not takes too much away from me, and caring what people read or think isn't worth my time. And, as others have said, anonymity is a sham, you will be found by the wrong people eventually, that's just the way it goes, and sometimes the hardest thing, but the easiest in the long run, is just to let it go and not care.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

What everyone else said. I've taken the Gus route before and have written stuff in comment tags and found that helpful for awhile, except I forgot what stuff I wrote in comment tags and what stuff I put live. For awhile I had whole subplots going on in comments.

Now I have a hidden directory that I use to write my more personal thoughts and things I want to share with no one. (Started during th time of the marreid man when I was afraid, somehow, his wife would find my site and read and everything would come crashing down.) If, however, I've written about something and actually put it on my site, I generally try to 1) keep other people's annonimity (since I can't keep my own), 2) not write personal attacks on people - though I'm not always successfull and this doesn't apply to public figures and 3) accept that someone will find things I've written.

What's that song - "oh blah dee, oh blah da, life goes on, lalalaala life goes on? That.

Chances are that if someone who knows me reads my journal, knowing me, first of all it isn't going to shock them that I have strong opinions about a lot of things and don't really give a damn if you disagree with me or not. It's my opinion - I'm allowed to have it every much as you are allowed to have yours. Second thing is that if I've said something about that somehow is, shall I say, a negative comment about a situation or whatever... The person reading the comment probably ain't gonna be too damned shocked that I'm less than thrilled about XYZ.

For the intensely personal (or melodramatic) stuff, I write in a paper journal every so often.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

By the way... Good luck figuring out what you choose to do. Your situation must be quite an anxiety producing incident. No matter what, I think you should be proud of who you are and what you've written. Really, noone has the right to judge you unless they've lived you life. We all make the best decisions and best choices based on the information we have at the time and this makes us who we are. If your husband's coworker (or anyone else) judges you based on your past, do you really want to know him anyway?

Good luck to you - be really proud of who you are chica because you rock!

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

I say a lot of things in my journal that I wouldn't say to my family, and they are the only ones I wouldn't want reading my journal. Naturally, I sent my sister a message that included the URL to the journal in my sig file, and then I spent some anxious moments moving everything to a new directory. She could find me if she searched on the title of the journal. She's not Internet savvy enough to do that.

When I started the journal, I planned to be as honest as I could about my life (at least what goes on in my head). I've been able to do that, even though a few people who know me in real life have stumbled on the site. They know me very well, though, and I would say most of the things I've said in the journal to them if the topics came up in conversation.

If I knew that someone with whom I wouldn't ordinarily share the weird stuff that goes on was reading, I would want to change the way I wrote, and I would hate to do that. I'd rather endure the hassle of changing the name and location of the journal that compromise on what I set out to do.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

I'm more curious as to why we want to own this identity so much -- particularly or maybe even ironically -- when that identity is written under a pseudonym.

Identity, to me, has little to do with name. Is my identity as written and read online any less me because I use a pseudonym? No. The way I see it, the pseudonym affords me the opportunity to be even more me, as vomit-inducing as that might sound. I own this identity purely because it's the story I choose to tell of parts of my life, and I am myself no matter what I happen to call myself.

And, as others have said, anonymity is a sham, you will be found by the wrong people eventually, that's just the way it goes, and sometimes the hardest thing, but the easiest in the long run, is just to let it go and not care.

I know there are masses out there who see the pseudonym route as completely futile and naïve. But it's worked for me so far, and for lots of others. Is discovery by someone we don't want to find us inevitable? Maybe. Maybe not. Say we're living in denial. Fine. But those who talk about the stupidity of anonymity need to know that those of us who journal anonymously aren't a bunch of numbskulls cowering under a blanket of delusion. We understand how the internet works. In the back of my mind has always been an awareness that there's a strong chance that I will be discovered. I deal with that possibility. I acknowledge it. I comprehend it. I choose to remain anonymous for as long as I can. I know that could change at any moment. I'm aware of that.

I guess I'm rambling, but I just feel totally comfortable with the Enjoy It While I Can scenario. I love that no one In Real Life knows about my journal, because I feel like it's my own corner of the world that I don't have to share with anyone who actually lives in my world. I know a lot of others feel this way, too, and insisting that we will ultimately be "outed" isn't telling us something that we haven't already considered and for which we haven't already prepared.

All of that said, Molly Zero, I certainly feel for you right now and really hope that you're able to find a solution with which you're comfortable.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

If those of us who think anonymity is a bad compromise sound like we think you're delusional, it's not because we're just being snotty. It's because we've been delusional ourselves.

I was anonymous for nearly a year. It wasn't until much later that I found out how many people I knew in real life had been reading all along. My boss was reading (I found that out after he wasn't my boss anymore). A couple of relatives were reading. A real life friend was reading and stopped being a real life friend because of it. One of Jeremy's coworkers was reading. A couple of casual acquaintances stumbled across the journal and figured out who I was, but didn't say anything. Two former classmates did the same thing.

None of them ever told me until long after I stopped being anonymous. I don't think that's a very uncommon scenario, either. You assume you'll *know* when you've been found out, but that's probably not the case.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

If those of us who think anonymity is a bad compromise sound like we think you're delusional, it's not because we're just being snotty. It's because we've been delusional ourselves.

I know I was being pretty defensive. I really don't think you guys are snotty even though it might have seemed that way. I know you've been there and I appreciate the value of your experiences. I realize, as you probably do, that both my defensiveness and my eagerness to justify myself stem largely from my paranoia and my reluctant acknowledgement that you're all probably totally right.

You assume you'll *know* when you've been found out, but that's probably not the case.

I think deep down part of the reason some of us keep our pseudonyms is the sick thrill we get, even subconsciously, wondering if maybe someone we know or knew once upon a time is in fact reading now or might stumble upon us eventually. Maybe that ex- boyfriend we bash or pine for in writing is reading and knows how we're feeling. Maybe that bitchy co-worker knows just what we think about her. Maybe our friends, family, or past acquaintances are seeing parts of us they wouldn't otherwise see and talking to us as if they haven't seen them. Maybe wondering all of that is part of all of this. Sometimes I play twisted games with myself, walking a fine line of one form or another, and maybe this is one of those lines. Maybe I'm daring them to find me. I know it sounds kind of depraved, but I wonder if it's true.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

You assume you'll *know* when you've been found out, but that's probably not the case.

I think about that a lot, actually. I suspect that someone at work reads my journal. I don't know for sure, though, and I can't ask her, can I?

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

Well, that's the thing... whether they read it the day you write it, or a year later, the possibility exists that at some point they will. And at that point, it may be long in the past for you, but the effect on them will be fresh.

It's just something to keep in mind before you write, and decide if you're willing to face the results without warning. If you're not, it probably shouldn't be there.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

Just throwing in my two cents, as someone who journaled completely anonymously for a year, then semi-anonymously (real first name only) for the past year and a half, and has yet to be busted by anyone.

I struggled with this back in February, when a reporter for the Wall Street Journal called to interview me about my Oscar pool, and insisted that she would need my full name if she was going to use me at all. In the end, it wasn't worth it. My journal is what it is because of my anonymity. If I knew my parents or my friends or my co- workers were reading it, it would be something completely different, something I doubt I would enjoy doing and I doubt others would enjoy reading.

I don't think this makes me dishonest, or cheapens the art of journaling, or makes me somehow "less" than journalers who use their real names and tell everyone they meet about it. It's simply a different avenue. I choose not to be completely open about it for the same reasons I choose not to walk down the street naked -- mostly, I like the privacy. As I said in my entry about the WSJ thing, I need the security that the secrecy brings me. I need a place to go that is "outside" my real life, and that just happens to be what my journal is about.

And yes, I'm aware of the irony of calling my journal "private" when any chucklehead with a modem can read it. But just because discovery is possible does not mean it is inevitable. I have been journaling for two years and nine months and the only people in my "real life" who know about it are the people I've told myself. If everyone in the world found out about it, I wouldn't keep doing it, because -- call me crazy -- I do happen to care what my loved ones think of me. I just wouldn't be comfortable sharing myself with them through an online journal. I don't think this makes me better or worse than anyone else... I'm just making different choices.

As for people reading in secret... yes, it's a possibility. Beth, I'm curious -- how many of those people found out about you because of the Salon article? (Which, by the way, was how I found out about online journaling -- "DJR" was the first journal I ever read.) I run a fairly small-time operation, and the possibility that there are people who know me reading in secret is not enough of a motivation for me to come out of the closet, so to speak.

(Okay, that was probably more like three cents, maybe even four.)

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

It's funny I should see this question come up today. Yesterday, I followed a random link to somebody's journal, and after reading a few entries, I thought, "wait a minute, that's ... who used to work in my office." Then I found an entry where she dissed her co-workers from her old job, including me and (more prominently) a friend of mine. (No names, but I had no trouble recognizing myself and three of the other people she mentioned.) I sent her email correcting something she said in that entry, but I haven't heard back from her yet.

This journal, I think, reflects worse on its author than on the people she gossips about, so I am tempted to share the URL with the gossippees; if every one of them dropped her a cheerful note saying "I just read ... and I'm glad you've found a job where you're more comfortable", it would be poetic justice. But I try to rise above such petty and spiteful impulses. Usually.

I agree with Beth: if you don't want it to appear in tomorrow's New York Times, don't put it on the Net. Just don't.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

I went through what Molly is going through last year when an ex- coworker found my journal and wrote to say so. What I did was pull down my archives in a panic, then I edited them over the course of a few weeks and put them back up. Mainly, what I commmented out were stories about other people (including my husband) that someone who knew us could recognize despite my having given them psuedonyms. I realized I was using my sense of anonymity to tell other people's stories which was just wrong. Also, I was ridiculing my boss which is not a good idea either.

Other than that, there wasn't much in my archives that I would mind anyone knowing about, even though the sort of things I write about can be very personal and don't necessarily come up in day to day conversation with anyone but old friends or new drinking buddies. Heh.

Finally, my use of a pseudonynm has nothing to do with hiding or not wanting to be "found out" and everything to do with maintaining some basic level of personal and professional privacy. By basic I mean a web search on my real name does not pull up my journal. So far it has worked just fine for me since 1998.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

Even though I don't use my last name in my journal, a Google search of my real name *does* turn up this site, which is sort of annoying. I think it's because people link to me with my real name. I'm not sure how these things work, though.

By the way, Viv ... you're right, a search of your real name doesn't pull up your site. But boy, does it turn up some interesting sites. Apparently there's a lady who shares your name, and ... well, let's just say it's all very exciting.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

When you guys say you "comment out" things you want to keep private do you literally mean you use HTML comment tags like this: ? It's pretty easy to look at the source code and still see that information. Not a crit, just curious about the methods people use and why.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

Doh! I just realized that the comment tag I put in that last post was INVISABLE BECAUSE IT'S A COMMENT TAG. Duh.

Anyhoo, if you do use them you know what they look like so you'll still be able to answer my question. Thanks for accomodating my dorkiness.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

Kat, I'm totally giggling over that! That's probably because I'm a dork, however.

Thanks to everyone who has shared. I'm still thinking it all over. I'll *probably* end up doing something like what Viv has done.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001

Jette is right about my adventures in hiding...I will admit that I lost some "drop in" traffic since I went password, but I do feel I have a little control over the situation at least for the moment. Most likely I will come out of password in the next few months as it was a temporary fix... hopefully by then my writing won’t be an issue...however I will Assume Nothing

-- Anonymous, May 26, 2001

First, I'll preface by saying I've been anonymous for more than four years, and nobody's pegged me yet. Though, as Beth points out, it could have already happened and they simply haven't told me.

My good reasons for starting out anonymous were illicit activities and an extreme lifestyle; now it's more about protecting myself from stalkers and protecting my family from feedback. And that, I think, is the gist of Molly's problem: protecting Mark.

As Molly said, she's still got the punk rock fuck 'em attitude, so it's really not about whether a friend finds her (though I'd be concerned about the boss). It's more about protecting the intimacy she has with Mark, and saving him embarrassment.

In that case it seems like the obvious thing to do is keep on writing but don't talk about Mark so much. I hate to suggest that, though, because he is an integral part of her life, plus I hate censorship.

I vote for password protection; it's a good compromise between being forthright and being wary.

-- Anonymous, May 29, 2001

My sister got me hooked on online journals a couple of years ago and we each decided to start one of our own. Neither of us bothered with anonymity and the only people who read our journals are pretty much people we've given the URL to, including siblings, but not including parents, in-laws, or grandparents, so we can freely rant about our lunatic mother, etc. We are spread across the U.S. so we thought it would be a good way to let others know what's going on in our lives at their leisure instead of writing letters or email which we do very infrequently.

My sister, Audrey, uses her journal more as a daily account of happenings in her life. I use mine more as a means of entertainment for my friends and therefore do not discuss deeply personal things there, that's what my paper journal is for. So basically we both edit things we say because we don't want to offend certain people who we know might be reading. My boyfriend reads my site and so of course I don't use it as a way to rant when we are fighting! Most journalers I've read might not consider it a real journal, but I do it more for my own fun than to to try to get additional readers. (Although I love it when people who read it say they enjoyed it; it just feeds my little ego)

The trouble started when our sister-in-law decided to start an online journal also. Other than our own journals, Audrey & I don't really keep in close touch with her or our brother. The problem is that she gave us the URL and then proceeded to complain about the lack of communication in our family and about US in general in her journal instead of talking to us directly through email or by phone.

Audrey got pretty pissed off about the whole thing and bitched to our brother and confronted our sister-in-law (who refused to respond); I had quit reading her journal long before because it's just not interesting to me. Now she apparently password protects pages she doesn't want us to read, which is good, but frustrating for Audrey because she knows that means she's bitching about us. There's a situation where I wish she'd just change her URL.

Hmmmm, my point? I guess that would be this: if you put something out there, whether it's anonymous or not, you must be prepared to deal with someone reading it and calling you on it, or "using" it against you. Otherwise you are using the wrong medium to express yourself.

I do understand the conflict between being true to yourself and editing what you say. Good luck to all of you faced with that dilemna. I guess I have just chosen the easier route.

-- Anonymous, May 30, 2001

The primary reason I started my old journal (under a pseudonym) was so my partner could know more about my days in Chicago while I was doing coursework for my PhD and had to live 500 miles away from him. Then, a few other people started reading, I was nominated for a diarist award, I got caught up in the desire to become an Online Journaler (capital letters) and started to develop more of a persona than just my "Here's what I thought of that movie I saw today" stream of consciouness entry. But that got old fast because I could never figure out what I wanted the journal "to be." I'm a writer, and I have many outlets for the many sides of my life. After two years, once I moved back to daily life with my partner, and I lost the reason for writing. It got old keeping the journal, so I stopped.

While writing, I didn't tell a lot of people, only those from high school or college that I hadn't seen in years. Sometimes, I would get really personal about my past, but only in the way that I do in creative nonficiton. If anything, I started to get a little confused when I wanted to take a scene I first wrote in the journal and use it in a more formal essay. Could I do that? By posting it on the web, had I violated some publisher's rules against "previously-published material"?

Also, I struggled with what I was going to do in a few years after I earn my PhD and enter the job market. How much of myself do I want available on the web? Would universities get nervous at the thought of my students reading about my daily life? Would they get nervous that I might rant about meetings and classes in such a public forum?

It was just mentally easier to stop the journal.

But I missed the interaction with readers and the act of posting to the web. Then, last month, it hit me that I could go the route of a "thematic" journal, and I started my garden journal (after Beth's inspiration). It's a place where I can talk about one particular side of my life, using my real name. It's a place to think and explore issues that I don't have a place to explore, a very focused set of issues. It's much, much more low key, more of an exercise, which is what a true journal shouyld be. There's a link to it on my main webpage which all of my friends and students and collegues can access. So far, judging by the low, low, low hit count, absolutely no one reads it, and that's fine. It may change.

It's a real tough question to decide what our journals should be.

PS: "The Clouds...The Leaves...The Wind" is available at: http://www.disquietmuse.com/garden/

-- Anonymous, May 30, 2001

I've always been first-name-only, but like Beth, have been Googled and am fairly findable by my full name. I've also been pretty careful about references to other people, have never named employers or clients and generally have been pretty cautious about what I've written. It still sucked big time when I was deposed as part of a lawsuit between an employer and a previous employer, and the litigant's lawyer printed out two years worth of entries from my site (entirely irrelevant to the matters at hand), for the sole purpose of making me angry during the deposition. Understand that what you're posting is public, and can be used in much the same way any other public content can be.

-- Anonymous, May 31, 2001

Hi Nels! I started reading your thread and went "wait a minute...." (Everyone: go read his garden journal! It's good!)

I've been anonymous for 3.5 years, and I simply don't expect that anyone I know is reading the journal. I mean, anyone who wanted to find me after a long time (say high school buddies) could--and have--punched in my real name and found my real web site and contacted me that way. I just don't see anyone punching in keywords and coming up with the journal. Though of course one never knows.

The only problem I ever had was when I had to take down some entries pretty quickly due to a legal situation with my ex-employer, and there are entries for the past 6 months which I have not yet been able to post for the same reason. It really hurts because I *want* to discuss this situation, but it could have serious ramifications in real life, and probably already has. That's the point at which Freedom Of Expression goes out the window as far as I'm concerned, and I won't even discuss it on the mailing list.

The funny thing is that none of my regular readers seem to have sussed out my real identity, which they easily could. I use this as a watermark--if my near-stalker hasn't discovered me in real life (and he would gloat if he had), then I'm probably safe.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

I linger from time to time just on the outskirts of paranoia (mostly late at night in bed thinking, "Oh my God, what if someone I know has just discovered my online journal!"

But then again, up until about 6 months ago, I had never had an interest in online journals and never read one. I wasn't looking for online journals and never found one - which leads me to believe it isn't as easy to "come across one" for an average web surfer. And, unless they are looking for online journals, I don't know a whole lot of people who would read one.

So, in that case, and since I am writing under a pen name, I don't feel so concerned about someone I work with, or my parents, for example, running across my site. To make that less of a likelihood, I've told no one that I keep this journal - and I'd never purposefully give the link away. I'm also attempting to protect my pen name, as I use it for writing other than the online journal.

My biggest concern is my husband. I don't like keeping the journal secret from him and am working on whether or not to tell him about it. Even if I do, I won't tell him the URL or any details - BUT, I worry that just by knowing it's out there and knowing enough about me, he could find it - and that would negate the point of keeping it...

I don't like keeping it a secret - however, I don't go around showing him my regular journal, so it can't be so totally different. Then again, my regular journal isn't readily available for others to read - and there are personal and private things in the online journal about my marriage, etc., so my husband is involved and doesn't know it.

Still working through it...am glad to see so much thought on this topic.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

I wasn't concerned with anonymity when I began transcribing my self online in early '96. I kept the growing series of vignettes in my university account where anyone could stumble across it. I told my parents that it existed and asked them not to read it, sure that they would eventually break down and do so. I had decided that I didn't need secrets anymore. So I laid it all out there. My younger brother read it and delighted in making me blush my dropping vague references to things from it in front of my parents, but mostly I never worried. I got a lot of email from people asking how I could be so open. I figured that if I was prepared to admit to all of my secrets, then none of them could ever be used against me.

After four and a half years of that, I got married to young woman who was an avid reader of my work (though that is not how we met). And I kept writing for a bit, but soon began to feel restricted. I never worried what anyone thought before, but now I felt the need to entertain her, as well as the desire to not say anything that would hurt her feelings. Having read my words for over four years, she well knew what she was getting when she married me, but still I didn't want to upset her. Even though I knew she could take it. Even though I knew she'd want me to be as open and honest as always. So I ended it, said "thank you very much" to my readership, and registered a new domain. I've been writing there ever since, completely unconnected to my previous work.

And I feel a little guilty, having this whole new site that I haven't told my wife about, particularly since our relationship was built on openness and honesty. But I needed a forum to express my fears in without worrying her; and I think it's better that I spare her.

So my advice is: get a new URL, a new nick, and post around with it in all the forums you love -- readers will find you.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Interesting, interesting topic...

I'm wondering if Father has the correct approach by keeping complete anonymity, that is to say expecting anonymity. I've been wanting to post a similarly anonymous on-line journal, but as of yet, lack the technical know-how. Is it possible to keep something completely anonymous by using pseudonyms and aliases? If, by disguising proper nouns, wouldn't it be more difficult for someone to be sure it was you? I have this picture in my mind that it's like an actual, paper-type diary, found on your living room table. Sure, it doesn't have your name on it, but it -is- in -your- living room...

I feel that Beth's approach would serve me best. Write conservatively. Keep what's initmately private, private. But at the same time, I don't think I'll advertise to my family. While I believe that it is the responsibility of the -reader- to be mature enough to handle the information (hey, -you- came to -my- site), I probably won't bank on it...

By the way, any recommendations of resources on starting on-line journals?

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Noone I know has ever found my journal simply because I haven't told them about it. It's mine, mine, all mine. There were times, especially in the beginning when the ball started rolling, where I was just bursting at the seams to tell someone about my "famous journal" but kept it to myself. And I'm glad I did. Of course, I don't get a million hits a day by doing that, but *ahem* you can shoot me now, for me, it's not about hits. It's about journalling. It's about free group therapy in a loving journalling community where everyone's soul is bared. I guess that's it.

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

You need to distinguish fear from discretion. Suppose you outed yourself in your anonymous journal and sent the URL to everyone who might have an interest. Would you be afraid (of some tangible harm)? Or would it just be tacky?

There are significant things to fear: mostly that twelve unsympathetic jurors will judge you from your words in some custody battle or tort action, but also that some unstable person will plunge over their personal edge.

Anonymity is a lie with which you comfort yourself (not unlike nearly everything else you believe: "I'm smart", "I'm sexy", "I'm competent", "I'm big-boned", "I've fulfilled a significant fraction of my potential", "I drive just fine after one beer") and as such there's nothing wrong with it: it's a tool that helps you get along in life and do the things you want.

But it's a falsifiable lie and a significant fraction of you will be brought up short by reality eventually. Is that something to fear? Or will it just be tacky?

If it's something to fear in the legal sense, or harm from someone with physical access to your stuff, a paper journal isn't safe either.

How safe is a passworded site if some SethG gets miffed?

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001