A Personal Note

As blogging has become more popular, there's been a debate about how far bloggers are expected to give up of their personal lives in order to share their thoughts with others. In general, it seems like people have reached a consensus whereby it's OK to mess with people online, but that you shouldn't mess with people "IRL" (in real life); i.e. if you disagree with them, you still shouldn't try to get them fired from their job/protest in front of their home/etc.

Sometimes people will disagree with things that are posted here, and I have no problem with them E-mailing me to let me know what they think. (Regarding E-mails, I really do try to answer all I get, but sometimes, especially during my workweek, I get behind on the 5 or blog-related E-mails I get most days. Sorry if I haven't responded to you.) My E-mail address is easy to find; just click on "View my complete profile" under "About Me" in the upper right corner of the blog, and you'll find my E-mail address in the "Contact" section.

On Sunday, however, someone went beyond the line. Without bothering to E-mail me about the problem, they called my house - twice - to complain about comments in a post from last year. I really don't need people calling my home and harassing my daughter and wife about something I (or in this case anonymous commenters) wrote. If you don't like something, please E-mail, and I'll do my best to fix the problem if I think I should or can. Anything beyond that goes beyond what is socially acceptable.

Plus, remember I do have caller ID, and can always post a caller's name and phone number here on my popular website if they do keep harassing me and my family at home. I won't in this case (and I did fix the problem that was complained about), but something like that is within my capability.