Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Outed - But then Put Back In! Hurrah!

Ok, so sure, I outed myself yesterday, but another blogger has taken it upon him/herself to out me on his/her blog. Even after I asked nicely that no one do that. Is it just me, or is that a really fucked up thing to do?

I suppose I have myself to blame, but if the person will not change the reference to Dr. Crazy, I may be changing pseudonyms and changing addresses, or stopping blogging altogether. This is mainly because I do not want this blog to be google-able with my professional name. I didn't set this up as a "professional" space, and I don't want it to become one. I don't list it on my cv, and I don't ever want to. I also don't want to have to explain it to people unless I choose to do so.

So, that's the dealio today. I was going to do a post about shopping, but you can thank the Outer for killing my shopping buzz, so that post will not be happening tonight. Tonight, I will be drinking some wine, prepping for class, and being irritated - both at my own carelessness and at other people's assholery.

EDITED TO ADD:
Thank you all for all of your comments. You should know that I emailed the blog in question, and all is well. (This is one reason why I did not link to the offending blog, as I wanted to give the opportunity for the mistake to be corrected.) At any rate, the whole thing was coincidental. They had no idea about my own foolishness yesterday (early) but just picked up on some other foolishness. See? I told you all I was careless. At any rate, to anybody out there who finds a blog that does not have the person's real live professional name out front and center: Even if you make the connection, DON'T PUBLISH THE REAL LIVE PROFESSIONAL NAME ON YOUR BLOG! At any rate, until further notice, I've no plans to move, to change names, whatever. God! So much drama! And all of my own making!

14 comments:

Hilaire said...

Ew - that's horrible. Very, very bad. I'm really sorry.

Greg Weeks said...

This morning I linked to your blog as a way to discuss anonymous blogging, and after reading this post immediately went back to make sure I hadn't somehow written something wrong. Just that gave me a taste of how tough anonymous blogging can be. For someone to out you intentionally is really plain mean.

Rhonda said...

Oh, that's just crappy.

If you move spaces and/or pseudonyms, I hope you find a way to let all of your loyal readers know where you are. It would be a shame to lose you.

Anonymous said...

That's about the shittiest thing I've heard. It's one thing to out a person who is going around leaving malicious comments or libelling people on his or her blog, but outing for the sake of showing how--what? smart? powerful? uh, no--you, the outer, are? That's so fucked up. I'm really sorry.

Field Notes said...

I can't remember where I heard it, maybe a couple of weeks ago over at Propter Doc, but it is possible to install code to make it impossible to get to your blog through google. Unfortunately, whoever posted about it also made it impossible to find it again! I bet if you search around you could find it. Good luck.

ScienceWoman said...

Yuck. Maybe in the wake of all of us saying what a shitty thing the Outer is doing, he/she will change his/her mind. Because really - it's a pretty crappy thing to do to someone.

~profgrrrrl~ said...

The outing is gone, gone, gone ... and from what was written there it sounds like it might have been somewhat clueless.

Musey_Me said...

gah!

Dr. C said...

I was actually just wondering about this "etiquette" of blogs. It stemmed from another person changing their "posted by" and then I had to go back and check and see if I referenced you (which I didn't...but even if I had I couldn't have "outted" you since I don't know your real identity). Regardless, I posed the question about how to refer to other bloggers. Now I know.

New Kid on the Hallway said...

So glad that it's all been resolved!!!

Inside the Philosophy Factory said...

YEA for the resolution.

If someone figures out who you are, would you want them to tell you or keep it to themselves (assuming they would also tell nobody else while keeping it from you..)?

Dr. Crazy said...

Truth? Honestly, it's ok with me either way. I generally assume most people can figure out who I am. If you tell me you've figured it out, maybe it's possible for us to become friendly, so that's a good thing, right? If you don't tell me, that's ok, too. I suppose the point is this: I'm comfortable with people thinking of me as Dr. Crazy. If somebody finds out my "real" identity, but wants to continue to think of me as Dr. Crazy, I think that's fine. if somebody wants to get to know me as me, after they find me out, that's fine, too. I guess what I don't want is to be forced into being other than Dr. Crazy publicly, if that makes sense.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Crazy, that does make sense!

I am so glad this worked out. Blog life sure can be tricky. :-)

See my comment for your other post...I have more to say about my comment...

Joy

Anonymous said...

I've thought a bit about this lately, as one of my recent entries has circulated widely, after being picked up by IHE, and conceivably, one could read it and figure out some things relatively quickly, if they were a part of the cohort in question. Like you, I have taken up the position that when blogging, there will come a time when some will know who you are. It is a risk one has to take. Oh, it also helps to have been outed before, and warned before too much damage occured (although the blog had to die an untimely death).

I found out at a recent conference that some of my readers are leading figures in my field, all wondering who I was, and if I was for real. Another part of the field (OK, that gay part) knows who I am in real life. I was surprised that these sides of the field don't talk, even when they work in the same departments, in some cases. But then again, one's Judas might be closer at hand. Last summer, my *Barber* told me he had recently cut the hair of someone who worked at Cold City U, and asked this dude if he knew me. Dude in question did, then Barber told him about the blog. Well, you can imagine, I was a bit verklempt. But Barber, because he is not an Internet person, didn't remember the URL and couldn't tell him, although I did make Barber look through his book for the name (turned out he was a gay staffer I had met briefly at the National Coming Out Day luncheon). So, someone at work knows, in an intellectual way, I blog. But as far as I can tell, it hasn't gotten around.

The moral lesson? Don't trust gay Barbers! They're venemous fishwives (although in this case as reliable as the Farmer's Almanac!)