notes on blog etiquette

Since the days of yore, if you subscribed to a newsgroup or bulletin board online and chose not to participate, only “listened in” on the conversation, you are considered a lurker. The same applies to weblogs. If you find a blog you particularly enjoy and read it regularly, but don’t in anyway initiate dialogue or introduce yourself, you are a bloglurker.

I’ve come to really like the term blogstalker as a more fitting word for the definition. It does sound creepier, but it is creepy to think there are people that find blogs and read them religiously to keep tabs on all the details of a persons life from afar. It is particularly creepy if the reader doesn’t know the author, or creepier still, if you do know the author but don’t acknowledge that you are a reader.

Blogstalkers are readers who are addicted to not just blogs in general, but specific blogs and their corresponding bloggers. These readers might have started reading the blog innocently but they eventually become hooked on the daily events in the life of the blogger and find that they have to “tune in” everyday to get their “daily fix”

Or have gone and read every entry upon discovering the blog.

But the stalkers might need reminded that they only have access to what is chosen by the author to write about. You can not assume that you can glean a full understanding of a persons life or opinions by the minimal details included on their blog. It is extremely flattering to know that there are people who take such intense and serious interest in the personal details of your life.

I welcome feedback and comments on the self proclaimed mundanity I include here. But the bottom line is, this blog is for me. I am entitled to my opinions and to express them freely. I do not harass or humiliate people for the opinions or lifestyles they hold. I hope to inspire reading a good book, try an excellent recipe, knit or go on a fantastic hike in the snow. All this just happens to be interspersed with my opinions and random ranting.

It seems someone is using the computer I used at my former work place to search entries in my blog again. You’ve just gotta love IP address logging. I know I have blogstalkers.