I was reading something today about how bloggers quite often don’t offer the reader any information about themselves at all. I guess it’s true, although I don’t hide my biases it’s probably hard to judge what sort of person I am. So i’ve added a little bit of biography via the “About Me” button in my right hand link panel. It’s a work in progress but hopefully gives more of the flavour (I won’t ask which one).
This is something that every blog needs. For the record, I had one up on the old version of this blog, (it’s still there – just hasn’t been updated with the current look & feel) and figure that anyone who ends up reading my site (especially anyone who comes from Google) would naturally want to know a bit about who they were reading. It actually annoys me when I end up at someone’s site and find the information interesting, only to discover that they share absolutely nothing about themselves on the site.
Early in my online life, I learned an interesting lesson. I was on a mailing list (circa 1992, I believe) that was politically focused. One of the subscribers engaged me off-list in a discussion about race. We went back and forth for a couple weeks. They never revealed a single detail about themselves. Eventually, I concluded I was talking to a middle-aged black woman. Turned out he was 24 and white.
The lesson was that we need context to really understand and appreciate what we’re reading. Sometimes the words stand on their own – but more often, knowing who said them gives them additional weight, frames certain unspoken assumptions, and makes it easier to put the discussion into context.
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