Nice title, eh? Bet you wanna read this now. Don't worry, it's nothing very exciting.
Basically, those of you who have privatized your blogs - why did you choose to do so? What are the benefits? What are the drawbacks? Those of you who haven't - why not? What are the benefits? What are the drawbacks?
I'm considering privatizing but want to know what your experiences are before I go all crazy on my blog like that.
4 comments:
I never check my friend's blog who become private. It doesn't appear in my blog roll that they've updated it, therefore I never think to check. There are too many blogs, and without the reminder they fall by the wayside. It's too big of a pain to sign in. Basically, you might loose lazy readers, such as myself. I figure as long as I'm posting things that I realize ANYONE could see, then why go private? Plus, I think it's a false sense of security. Anything you put on the internet can be found, someway. If you choose to do so, share why--because I obviously could be looking at this very one sided. One thing though--you have the "please prove you're not a robot" on your comments, which also usually discourages me from bothering...in case you didn't know. I realize a lot of people don't, since they don't comment on their own. Good luck deciding :)
I went private when I discovered a pin on pinterest that was a photo of one of my girls and the pin linked back to my blog. None of the pinners were anyone we knew and it unsettled me. I am happy to have anyone I know read my blog, but not creepers at large. The drawbacks are that all readers have to have a gmail account, it appears to be difficult for grandparents to understand how to log in, invites are not going through and there is no way for people to contact me and request to be a reader from the blog. I have struggled with offering to add people because it seems presumptuous to think people find me that interesting in the first place. I have a good friend who discovered a porn site was accessing her blog. Her children are 6 and 3. Made us both sick. She deleted hers altogether. My family eliminated FB for the same reasons. It just doesn't appear safe enough anymore.
I've also considered going private but haven't taken the plunge. One of the biggest reasons I haven't is that I don't know who reads or would like to continue to read my blog. I'm afraid that friends or family that occasionally like to pop on and see how we're doing would not go through the effort of getting onto the email list. Also, we have never had anything creepy happen so I don't currently see the harm in keeping it open. I think my kids have more of a risk of getting kidnapped at the grocery store than by someone in China who has stumbled onto my blog. But who knows, maybe I'll change my mind someday. For now, we're an open book.
I went private after discovering several pins and links to my blog by people I don't know. One of them was this 68 year old man living in Florida. He also was looking at several of my cousins blog. He appeared to be very creepy. I didn't lose any readers after I went private (to my knowledge). I send out an email every time I update my blog and a facebook link. Blogger will send out an email for you for up to like 50 readers and then the post appears in the email. I think this makes it easier for people who aren't as comfortable with techy stuff. I also considered the purpose of my blog, which is to document my family's life. I don't really care about comments or having a blog with tons of readers. I want to be able to print my blog at the end of each year with plenty of personal information about our lives. I also use my blog to share our life with many people who we love and don't get to see often because they live thousands of miles away. It is a way to feel more connected. The bottom line is that I need to do everything I can to protect my kids, this includes keeping a close eye on them in the grocery store and doesn't end with me protecting pictures and information about our family.
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