19 April 2004

USE YOUR REAL NAME AS A BY-LINE - 1

Nico Macdonald has a telling post on "The future of weblogging" at The Register (click here), which argues for an end to anonymity on the serious blogosphere:

"The ‘blogerati’ rightly present weblogging as opening up writing and communication to the masses. However, this populist and laudable attack on the mass communication sector disguises an elitist tendency at the centre of the blogosphere. This tendency is most obvious in the habit of using first names only (or even nicknames) when referring to fellow webloggers. For a movement that aspires to (and has achieved some) intellectual leadership, this is inappropriate.

"Public correspondences, such as that which developed around the Royal Society in London in the late seventeenth and eighteenth century, tended to be presented as between public equals, not private friends."

Why are you hiding, Harry, dsquared, British Spin and SIAW? Why not enter the republic of letters as yourselves?

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