A lesson in the internet

Hi. So in the post below, published last Wednesday afternoon, I linked to a blog post I had just read that had an interesting perspective on the effect that big-time downtown commercial theater has on smaller theater in Chicago. I linked to it because it was germane to some other things said in the Chicago Tribune just a few days earlier. Within hours of my linking to it, it had been removed from the internet without comment—except for the comments that had already appeared here on Storefront Rebellion about it. Because discussion had begun here, I let it continue.

Late Tuesday night a week later, after 15 comments' worth of intelligent, reasoned, cordial discussion of several theater-related issues had ensued on my own post, the author of that now-disappeared blog post I'd linked to asked me via email to take it down. They have a nascent career of their own in Chicago theater, and fear that their comments would come back to haunt them.

I'm sympathetic, but I also don't want to shut down the thoughtful conversation that's come in their wake. My crappy solution, as seen below, is to edit my post and the referencing comments so as to obfuscate the original blogger's identity.

Let this serve as a blogging lesson to all of us—a blogging lesson I learned around 2002 or so, but clearly not everyone has. The immediacy of going live on the internet makes it tempting, but DO NOT hit "return" on anything online that you wouldn't gladly print on the front page of the New York Times or broadcast in a commercial break in the Super Bowl. If you put something live on the internet, you have to assume people will see it, even if you take it down five minutes later. And it can't ever be fully taken back.

Case in bad-PR point: a dumb decision about a park district production of Ragtime in Wilmette first went public in local net forums last Thursday morning, if I'm not mistaken, and made it into the NYT by Monday afternoon. (It's back on, by the way.)

It's a tough lesson to learn, but before you hit "save" on that blog post, comment, forum entry or ill-conceived email, take a second and make sure you really mean it. Because it will be read and remembered by somebody.

Comments

[Bilal]

The reason I've stayed with LiveJournal for seven years is due largely to the easy filtration options it gives you for each post you produce. I don't often use it, but when I need to rant about my day job, for example, I like knowing that only a select group of trusted individuals can read it.

[dianna]

Kris it was very kind-hearted of you to remove the post, but I think the fear surrounding it points to something ELSE wrong with the system.
Why can't that person who wrote the blog entry be able to say what they feel without FEAR? (I think Tony moderated a discussion about this some months ago over on his blog - in conjunction with him talking about Bailiwick)
I find it hard to believe that one person's online opinion would keep people from seeing "Wicked"... even if Mayor Daley stripped naked, spread his own feces on a wall and shouted "WICKED IS A SCOURGE and has RUINED THIS TOWN" people would still come - people like what they're gonna like no matter what some others will say.
Are people still working at the Bailiwick regardless of Tony's previous discussion? yes, the audience hasn't shrunk, and you all are still reviewing shows there... so..... shouldn't people be able to say what they want? Aren't we still a democracy?
Only when the conversation falls into the realms of illegal should you be in any kind of trouble. I work at a hotel during the day (that clearly has some loose firewalls, since I can troll the blogs all day ::grin::), so if I wrote on my blog "I had a shitty day at work today - there was this guest that I can't stand and they were a pain, and BLAH BLAH BLAH", thats just venting. If I write a blog where I detail how I swipe toilet paper and office supplies from work and my boss reads it - THEN I should get in trouble.
What was on this person's original post was their OPINION, and she/he worked for a conglomerate that works in CONJUNCTION with "Wicked". Do they really think that the Smith family, in town for the weekend from Iowa, who is going to Wicked for the first time and are soooooo excited are even going to hear about that blog post? And even if they did, would they even CARE?

[Ed]

It's not the Smiths the poster was worried about- it's the big conglomerates, and those that work for them and think like them. Sorry to be a party pooper, but- Dianna, if your boss (or their boss, or someone at your hotel's corporate HQ) ever got web-savvy enough to find your blog, and read a post of yours where you actually said what you quoted as your venting example, and they were able to figure out which employee you were, they might discipline or fire you. It's happened for less. People are right to be cautious about what they post- anonymity online is an illusion, and it's not really *that* hard to figure out who the real-life poster is a lot of the time. Remember, we're in an era when as part of the job interview process, human resources will boot up the computer and see what the candidate's myspace and/or facebook page looks like. I agree with you, Dianna, that it's a shame things are like this, but these are the times we live in.
Another theatre related example- I'll not name names to avoid embarrassing people who really want to move on, but there was a member of a theatre company that became Jeff Eligible, and wrote a pretty sizzling condemnation of the committee and its members on a blog after their latest show wasn't recommended. The post (and quotes from it) became news items in Performink among other places, and it became a huge embarrassment to the company in question. Which is not to say, Dianna, that you don't have a right to hate your job and vent about it- but people often forget that their blog is not the same as a diary with a lock on it that they can keep unseen in a sock drawer. Um, with great bandwidth comes great responsibility?

[Paul Rekk]

Yeah, I've definitely sat down for a job interview and had the very first question be, "So tell me about Paul Rekk."

Not that I try to hide anything; I make my artistic schizophrenia pretty easy to access from all sides, but sometimes the people you least expect to care are the ones checking.

Incidentally, I didn't get the job, but I'm pretty sure Sr. Rekk had little to do with it.

[RebeccaZ]

Ed - Yup.

=)

It's a lesson and situation that keeps on giving to this day. I still get emails and blog comments bringing up said situation. When you put something out there, it becomes an action. And that action creates reaction and then there you go.

[dianna]

Ed - I'm not 6 years old - I understand how it is "today", you don't have to explain it for me.
My questions is WHY???
Who cares, in the long run?
The thing that bothers me most is always the big "kerfuffle" that happens surrounding the STIFLING the statement/action. If it hadn't been on the NATIONAL NEWS, would I have known or even CARED about the second grade teacher who posted 1 picture in her myspace of herself in a bikini???
In the long run, we're now talking about the taking down of the post, not the post itself - so if the post had simply stayed up, wouldn't LESS people have been exposed to it's central idea?

[Don Hall]

In a free society, no one should feel fear from saying what he or she believes is right.

Free speech is not, however, free from consequence. The question to ask is this: if someone decides to fire/not hire me because of something I wrote on a published forum (whether online or not) do I really want to work for them? Is it worth the crow I'll eat and the cock I'll have in my mouth to take their judgment along with their dough?

Everyone has to answer that question for themselves and everyone has to live with the consequences for that answer.

[Ed]

Sorry Dianna- the other curse of the written word online is that tone is so subjective. I didn't mean to condescend.

[Tony]

Huh, I didn't remember anything that bad in the original post you referenced.