When I started working for the law firm in early 2003, I felt the need to password protect some of my posts. I didn’t want to censor myself, but I didn’t want to leave myself open to the world either. Sort of like walking around the chick doc’s office in those paper gowns with your butt hanging out, you know? So with Jenn’s help, I had password protection in place.
In 2004, the law firm and I broke up. No, seriously. They told me they really liked me, but they didn’t want me to work there anymore.
PI Lawyer Atlanta has burned through two more legal assistants since then, so it is safe to say it wasn’t me, it was him. Anyways, last summer I made the move to WordPress, and I left the password protection behind.
Some days I really miss it.
Some days I consider completely moving to an anonyblogging site, so I can write freely again.
Some days I don’t want to do that at all, because in a move like that you tend to lose some of your favorite people.
I want that feeling back. I want to be able to write what I want, when I want, without being judged for it. It doesn’t happen often, but that is probably in part to the self-censoring I’ve been doing for 2 years now. It’s getting old.
I’m going to find a way to restrict access to certain posts here. I haven’t decided yet how liberal I will be with my access to others. I’ll let you know when it is in place, and you are more than welcome to register. I might not approve you though. We’ll see.
Those of you that are long-time bloggers know exactly how I feel. Those of you that are newer bloggers may know it already too – and if you don’t, well … you will understand.
This? This is nice. I am talking on my site about how I’m feeling. This is how it all started. I like it when it feels this way. After close to 5 years of blogging, sometimes you have to shake the dust off.
It’s time to take back the blog.
23 replies on “This is Not Your Blog…”
I really, truly know just what you mean. My MiL has been reading my site and then calling me to comment on it. My latest post had her concerned that I was depressed, when really I was just venting. I know she really means well, but I’m starting to wish she’d never found out about the site. I’ve seriously considered switching to a new URL, but (a) I just paid for THIS one, and (b) like you said, I would have to lose some great people along the way, and I hate to do that. Argh!
*nods* I completely understand.
I am glad I have always been anonymous, or relatively so.
I felt I had to move my blog after finding out my teenage daughter and then my mother both read it.
It also felt good to start fresh. Now it seems much more like the real me.
Yeah, take back the blog. 🙂 Have you thought about using a user restriction plugin? I have that going on my end and it’s got some glitches but I bet your connections can help you. 🙂
Your user restriction plugin setup was actually a big part of my inspiration. That and Beccary’s login box, which reminded me of the one I left behind.
I need to check out all of the options out there. And I probably need to upgrade to WP 1.5.
but I thought WP allowed for password protection of entries?
I was thinking about this very thing today actually. I have a password protected area of my site but even that didn’t really seem to be doing the trick so I set up an anonymous blog. I don’t post to it much and I have no idea if anyone has come across it but it’s nice to be able to just write without worrying that someone may read too much into my words.
I have NEVER regretted making my site completely registration based. NEVER. NOT even ONCE. I’m sure I don’t have as many readers as I would have if I never did that – but I don’t think it changed all that much. Except now – there’s no trolls (and if they do pop up, I promptly kick their butt to the curb) and I no longer live in fear. I’m just speaking on personal experience – not recommending a course of action.
WP allows you to password protect individual entries. I love that feature, so if I want to say how much my father sucks I can without fearing anyone in my family being able to read it.
What’s the point of having a completely password protected blog? I just don’t get it.
And WP does allow for password protection, on a per entry basis. You just type in whatever password you want for the entry, publish it and voila. Only those with the password can read the post. It’s one of the reasons I switched to WP in the first place.
I don’t want to do per-entry password protection though; I want to do user-based password protection. I know there are ways to do it (plugins, etc.) but I still need to research the fine details.
Christine, at first I didn’t understand why you’d want to restrict access–and then it hit me–duh! Not everybody’s nice in this world. I don’t blog, but as an author I have my own loop/group at yahoogroups called JanePorterfansandfriends and that is moderated, and if there’s a problem, the moderator can “handle” it. I realize you’re your own moderator and on bad days, or when folks are less than charming, you’ve go little recourse. No fun. Anyway, I love your blog. It’s one of the few I visit. If you do get password entry…please make sure I can still visit. 🙂 Best, Jane
ah…do i ever know how you feel. i’ve struggled with this for a while – i’ve thought about doing everything, and eventually i think i’ve just ended up becoming very vanilla and plain along the way. at times, though – i don’t mind that i haven’t let a lot of my life be a part of ‘public consumption’ – and i think that after a lot of thought, that is why i’ve never gone the password route, because i’ve just been censoring myself, instead.
it does suck, though.
The ViewLevel http://wordpress.org/support/topic.php?id=22791 plugin works. I have an incredibly boring personal habit I want to change and I don’t want public, so I use this plugin.
Oh boy do I understand what you mean.
I really miss those early days of blogging where I just let it all out, but it’s just too risky, particularly with my new job where increasingly the lines between me in the office and me in the outside world/my blog are becoming blurred.
On one hand, it’s a good thing, because I’m not ashamed of my blog, but on the other hand, I’d love to not have to be semi-professional the whole time.
I know exactly what you mean! I use Geeklog just so I can have different levels of users. I tried WP, but my friends using Macs couldn’t log in to the restricted posts. But yeah, I’ve been blogging for five years now, and I no longer want to share everything with complete strangers.
I,too, must join the chorus of “I Know what you mean.” My live-in boyfriend’s family reads my blog, and this is a cause of great annoyance to me. I remember once I had written about a vibrator, and I’m positive it’s someone in his family who posted anonymously about “you never know who might be reading your blog.” Since then, my level of self-censoring has increased 100-fold. I have considered doing a registration blog as well. The people who still want to read me will do so…I don’t see blogging as something that necessarily needs to be available to the entire free world. At first I started it to make some friends, but that’s been accomplished now, and I’d like to be able to use it like a real journal…a place to say what i really feel without fear of judgement.
I just took my passwords off after having them on for about a year. It is weird when I see the things people search on, but I’ve finally stopped caring.
When I write about things I don’t want everyone to see, I just leave them as a draft.
But it is cool to get some new readers. It got to the point where I felt like I was all alone. Not that I have that many more comments, but it’s still cool.
I know exactly what you are talking about. A year or so ago when I started my blog I thought it would give me a certain amount of freedom to post whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, that never happened. Before long my friends and family were reading my every word and throwing some of back at me. Strangers wondered by and found themselves annoyed with my writing and opinions. Before long I closed the website down and started posting on livejournal like so many other bloggers seeking refuge. I foolishly thought I would find a sympathetic ear in cyberspace or at least a more acceptant reader. Now I know better…
This may be close to what you are looking for: restrict post access based on user level.
You would have to set up users and assign a level to them, but it would serve the purpose of not having per-post passwords.
My blog used to live at LiveJournal. One day, while perusing the blogosphere I found wonderful blogs that looked oh so pretty and cool and . . .I WANTED ONE!
So I got one. And while I haven’t had one single person post a comment that was nasty or mean or whatever, I still think about who could find my blog. So I censor myself. It’s on days that I do that, that I’m not *really* sharing everything I want to share, that I miss LiveJournal.
I know EXACTLY what you mean. I waffle between passwording and not almost every time I post… in fact, it’s a lot of the reason I’m posting so little – everytime something runs through my brain that I think about posting I think about the family and friends that are familiar with the site (and that I want to be there for other reasons) and I just can’t get past it. It’s not that I feel "repressed" I just don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings… or have to deal with those hurt feelings. Right now I’m working on implementing Arvind’s password protection hack; hopefully it’ll help.
I know how you feel exactly. I’ve gone through the process of having to explain and justify certain posts to certain people and so I got sick of it and changed url’s. The person/people in question though did not respect my request to stay away so I considered password-protecting my blog, and I still do some days, but that would take the fun out of it. Take me as I am and don’t bitch or don’t take me at all.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately.
I need to investigate what options I have with Movable Type.