Blogging: Profile and Privacy

For those of you who have blogger profiles and like to leave comments but don't include your email as part of your profile or even have your profile made public, I have this question?

Why?

Do you think the anonymity is important? Are you concerned about privacy? Please, enlighten me...

It's impossible to get to know people when you don't let yourself be known. I have met some absolutely delightful women from blogging. Some I've now met in real life and I am very grateful for their friendship. That only happened because we let ourselves be known. We have email addresses as part of our profiles and our profiles are viewable. I've had some terrific discussions about reviewing books on my book blog with other book bloggers because our emails are part of our profiles and our profiles are public.

You can still maintain your privacy and protect your family by the way you blog. I have an email address that is only used for blogging and separate from my personal one. I choose to keep Facebook personal, but my Twitter and Pinterest accounts are not. I don't have a lot of identifying information on my blogs.

So often, people will ask questions in a comment, but there is no way to reply to a comment via email and so I have to respond in the comments themselves. But, how many of us have time to subscribe to comments every single time we comment on a post? That is a ton of notifications and I don't have time to go back and forth, especially when it is so much easier to respond via emails. Who really goes back to visit a post and see if there is a response?

So tell me, if you haven't made your profile and email public, why not? Just curious...

Post has been edited.

Comments

  1. I don't know if blogspot will let you but a lot of comment forms ask for an email from everyone.

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    1. Blogger doesn't give that option as far as I have figured it out so far. I'm on a quest to find the best comment solutions in blogger!

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  2. I think that people are just overly concerned with the fact that our privacy has become...well, unprivate. I see your point, but I guess I see their point as well. I suppose there are strange stalker type people out there. So far I haven't met any on my link-ups.

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    1. You know, I really haven't either. Most people I have met blogging are really nice. I try and keep identifying information off my blog and I have a dedicated blogging email and a separate personal one. I've kept FB personal and not blog related and I keep Twitter and Pinterest blog related and not personal! My big wish is that people make their emails known so that responding to comments or questions is easier. I realize that many don't care about that though.

      Thanks for stopping by!

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  3. I include my email address in my Blogger Profile. As for responding to questions asked, I have a note on my comment page that says I respond to questions in the "reply" area, and ask that they check back for the answer. That saves me time from having to look for a blogger's email address.

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  4. I keep thinking I need to get another email address, but I don't want to keep up with two! But I can see why it would be a good thing.

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    1. It's really not that difficult. And one nice feature about gmail is that you can look at each email simultaneously without logging out multiple times.

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  5. Privacy is nice, but hiding is something completely different in my mind. Once we become bloggers, we put ourselves out there to the public. If that makes us uncomfortable, I think we need to rethink blogging. If you find out a better commenting form for blogger, let me know. I just switched to Google+ comments. The verdict is still out, but I would say that it is OK so far.

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    1. I completely agree about the hiding part. I don't think you can blog and not put yourself out there. But you can do things to maintain some privacy.

      There aren't a lot of options for blogger comments, and I'm on the fence about changing platforms. I don't love Disquis although I have a profile there, simply for commenting purposes. I haven't joined Google+ simply because I don't need another form of social media in my life.

      My wish is that everyone would just include their email address in their profiles. It's easier to communicate that way.

      Thanks for stopping by!

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  6. I also think many people are not aware that they are a "no reply" blogger. Many times I will get an comment from someone who I have emailed back and forth several times in the past, but all of a sudden they come up as "no reply". When I tell them, they have no idea how it happened. So it seems not everyone does it on purpose. I think it is something bloggers need to keep up with.
    Shelley

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    1. Great point! It surprises me how many people are "no-reply", especially those who seem to be active bloggers. I think that is probably the most common reason for people coming up as a no-reply blogger, actually.

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  7. I blogged for quite some time and didn't even realize that I was a non reply blogger until someone told me. I quickly changed that. It is hard when you have someone who leaves a sweet comment and you can't respond to them. Some of us are just slow learners. lol! Thanks for sharing with SYC.
    hugs,
    Jann

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