Credit: Avatars – jared

WELCOME TO SNOBVILLE. Some people believe in their own myopic principle that all bloggers must show a human face either on their sites or on their avatars. To them, it’s like you are hiding from the truth when they see that your avatar is one without a human face. That there’s something sinister about you.

If you know the blogging world, it’s open season for everyone. They may be few in numbers, but these so-called snotty bloggers are steadfast in their view that blogs must be like an “open book” and the same goes with avatars. Otherwise, you are not welcome to their own little world of Snobville.

> If they don’t see a face on your avatar they think you’re hiding behind a veil of secrecy and, therefore, not to be trusted. They feel uncomfortable about it.

> If they go read your profile and find a skimpy line or two of inconsequential information about you, then again you’re not to be trusted.

> If you’re all this and riding on a blogging name like Ghost Rider or Easy Rider without a picture to show your beautiful or ugly face, or something more esoteric, they probably don’t want to know that your blog exists.

The list could go on and on, but suffice it to say that these are bloggers who turn up their noses at blogs where personal information is either scanty or none at all, and that includes faceless avatars. Does that mean such a blog is a crappy site?

In an ideal world where “secrecy” is no longer a word in our vocabulary then it would be good etiquette and the right thing to do for everyone to reveal his/her true identity.

But this world is not ideal. We can only pray for a world without war, bigotry and suffering.

Before I digress, let’s go back to the avatar issue. Remember, at one time, social networking sites used to be contaminated by animated avatars with some crossing the line of decency. They were, to say the least, irritating. But eventually the clampdown on these avatars made them history. I hope so.

But I’m not against avatars without a human face. There’s plenty of them around. On the other hand, how can you be sure that an avatar with a human face actually belongs to the same person behind it? So the argument about “true face” avatars don’t hold water at all.

Okay, my own avatar is my personal blogging logo. Why am I not showing my face? Because I prefer it that way and for discretionary reasons. And it will stay that way.

It’s high time we dispel this fear of discomfort about not really knowing the true person behind a blog. Come on, we can roughly judge the personality behind a blog by its content – blog theme, visual presentation, color choice, writing style, tone of voice in the person’s post and other little “giveaways”. Unless, a blogger is a total noob.

Isn’t that good enough? Unless a reader is that dumb and not being able to tell a cow from a horse. Hypocrisy has always been the bane of human nature. Unless there’s a law that says all blogs and websites must show a genuine picture of the owner, let us try not to be labelled as blogging snobs.


Bloggers In The Real World Today…

Here’s some interesting information from an article about bloggers’ search for anonymity written by BBC writer David Reid.

He wrote that the internet has given individual bloggers unprecedented power to reach out to millions but this new kind of freedom does not sit well with some governments. They too have their fears and discomfort.

According to Reid, some countries like Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia censor and even lock up journalists and bloggers.

Syrian student Mesud Hamid, who posted pictures on the net of Kurdish pupils demanding equal rights, was detained by Syrian authorities for more than a year “in a cell measuring one metre by two.”

Blogging on religion can be dangerous at times. An Egyptian blogger named Abdel Kareem Suleiman was sentenced to 4 years jail for expressing his views on his religion in his blog.

An Iranian blogger, Arash Sigarchi, was jailed for 14 years for political blogging. Two ethnic Chinese Singaporeans – a blogger and a web forum user – were sentenced to jail under the Sedition Act on October 7, 2005 for racist blogging.

Bloggers in China will have their information blocked in various ways by the censorship machine.

Use a proxy to protect your anonymity. That’s the advice from Julien Pain of Reporters Without Borders.

“The first thing is don’t write anything under your real name. Even if you are using a pen name, then you have to be careful because the authorities can track you down on the internet,” says Mr Pain.

Now, you’ll see why we should not pass judgment on faceless avatars and sites without pictures of owners and other “sensitive” information, unless the owner is ready to face the music.