It's my blog and I'll cry/ laugh/ criticise/ scream if I want to

Recently some of my friends and fellow bloggers have been getting all kinds of abuse for putting up content that offends the sensibilities of their readers. They have not been particularly abusive - no one is in danger of being exposed to the law or beaten up by screaming women or anything like that. They are just angry that the blog does not represent their point of view.

Unfortunately blogging has allowed us to make our private thoughts public. Things that used to be writtens in diaries, whispered among friends, or at most discussed loudly over teh tarik in coffee shops, is now online for the whole world to see.

I remember Otrie getting very upset because I had made a less-than-congratulatory remark about a lady in my salsa class who annoyed me to death. He felt that I shouldn't say that about her in a public blog. Till, now I wonder, why not? It's my opinion and my blog.

If I was writing in a salsa community blog, I may not have been so open in my criticism though. I may have changed her name, called it a hypothethical situation, or written in the most general terms about the incident. But my blog is about my life, and if you are in my life, I will surely write about you.

I will however, not do the following:-

1) Lift content of someone else's blog, website or book, and pass it of as my own.
2) Say anything that may destroy a person's reputation e.g. call someone a playa when I know he is not :-)

Not every blogger has the same scruples I have. They may have more. They may have less. The point is, they are free to manage their blogs however they want. ANd if you don't like it, stop reading. Its just like changing the channel when Kylie Kwong comes on. I don't have to watch it, I can turn it off.

Blog: Blog is the contraction universally used for weblog, a type of website where entries are made (such as in a journal or diary), displayed in a reverse chronological order.

Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.

(Definition by Wikipedia, bold and italics my own)