turn on sign in lock and keep some posts in protected. people are always going to find your xanga and make it a bigger issue than it needs to be.

Change user name!

friend's lock helps filter out who can view your page :]
stalker problem? if so, i got your back! tell me who i need to stab.

i've had a few of my real life people read my xanga. it always causes some type of problem. i had one person always "comment" in person. that annoyed me so much. they would talk about whatever it was i wrote at work instead of just commenting on the page and shutting up abut it. i didn't want everyone to know what was going on. i also had another friend that didn't like it any time i mentioned them weather it was just saying we were getting together for food or some monologue about something. so i don't tell people my "name" but its no secret i have one. i blocked the one friend from viewing. and i've chnaged xangas several times. i'm a little worried about the facebook xanga link up though. what if something messes up and all my people on facebook which are real time friends find my xanga where i'm much more myself. not that they don't alreayd know who i am but it's a little more personal.

#2

& Good luck, Miss Dee =D

yeah, tough call. i know what you mean too about keeping xanga sacred like an alaskan reserve. I try to also separate xanga from my other sites, but if someone reads it, It won't necessarily be a big deal as I intend to use my journal entries as a practice of my creative writing. I also add a level of encryption by changing names or consciously withholding this or that aspect of a story to be more poetic or artistic in my writings.

I sometimes add a sign-in lock. and sometimes I remove it. A good rule of thumb though is to gradually private or protect older entries that may create potential conflicts in the future.

i know what you mean. For me, I've really felt my privacy threatened as my readership has grown. I know I have a large readership, but I am comfortable with that... until it might include someone I know, particularly my own family. I could not imagine what it would be like if they found my writings... But I am sure it would be bad.

There are some people we only let in so far for a certain reason... and for many, it doesn't matter. There's a sort of imagined social pact on blog sites like this, and when they become violated, it feels very personal.

I say, mace the person. Not with spray, but with the spikey medieval ball on a stick. But, that's just my unofficial suggestion.

Basically you want a kind of public anonymity. But you aren't willing to stop putting identifiable information about yourself on your blog. There's not any real solution to that. If you post pictures of yourself and the people you know on your blog, and talk candidly about obvious identifiable experiences you've had, someone WILL find you. And chances are that someone will be from your home town.

Still like you said there are some options that can help at least a little.

Chaning your username and signin lock are the easiest and least invasive. I'd say you can do either or both of those without any real disruption to your blog and it would give you a bit more control over who reads your blog.

The problem with signin lock is that it won't really even come close to solving this problem unless you know the people you don't want to read your blog don't have Xanga accounts OR you know their usernames and can ban them. But even in either of those cases it's not fullproof because the person or persons can just GET Xanga accounts no problem. Even if you ban their account they can just sign up for another. There is no IP blocker and even if there was they are trivial to get around. Still it CAN be useful in case situations arise in the future. It sends a strong signal to the person who you BAN that you don't want them reading your blog and surprisingly perhaps most people respect that even a lot of trolls. The most hardcore trolls however who have a personal vendetta will get around it. As will the people who are just too curious for their own good and can't stand not knowing what you are writing in your blog.

But I don't think you have to worry about a lot of collateral damage with this option. Most xangans don't have a lot of anonymous readers who aren't willing to signup for Xanga. I mean sure you'll miss the random search result hits and occasional passerbys from random places on the internet, but it's a lot less disruptive than friend lock or protected posting. Most of these users probably AREN'T regulars. If you cross post your posts to Facebook and get a lot of redirect traffic from that though, it might hurt those users. Hopefully they can be persuaded to signup for Xanga if only to read your blog.

Changing to a new username might not work too since the person might already have a xanga account and might already be subscribed to you. I'm not sure, but I think subscriptions carry over if you change your username with credits. So you'd have to do the old fashioned way of setting up a brand new account with a new name.

But the real BIGGER problem with that is that changing your username might only be a temporary solution. You have a problem that your blogging style is rather distinctive. If the person is serious about finding you, they'll find your new username too. That's true even if you signup for an entirely new account.

Friend lock and/or writing in protected would obviously be nearly full proof since you can just make sure only people you know read your blog, assuming you never make a mistake and friend the wrong person. But there would be a LOT of innocent bystanders. Also a lot of xangans frown on these two behaviors. This is a lot to do with the history of Protected posting being used to spread gossip and rumours about other Xangans and just a general sense of annoyance people have when someone comments on their blog and they can't go read that persons blog and comment back because they have friendlock. I think they are all kind of silly about those things, but it does happen so you might get some flac.

Friend lock and protected lock also reduces the likelihood that you'd be featured or show up in top blogs considerably if that matters to you.

But the main issue is just as you said. There'd be a lot of Xangans who just read your blog every once in a while who would get cut out and are just too lazy to request being added to your protected list or being friended.

censorship sucks in all forms, but self-censorship is the worst. It can drive a person insane. I know from experience. It would definitely work though. But I hope you don't go that route.

So.... what would I do in your position?

Well I'd try to look outside the technological solutions and make sure the people who you don't want reading your blog know in no uncertain terms that you really DON'T want them reading your blog and you consider it an invasion of privacy. Ask them to respect your wishes in that. And you can even post a notice on your blog. That alone might be enough to guilt them into not reading or to just make respectful people understand your feelings. If they aren't respectful, then maybe if you have some social leverage you can use against this person to convince them not to read it, you might want to bring that to bear. Yeah threats can be remarkably effective. Of course the problems with that is, you don't have the reassurance of KNOWING they aren't reading and some stubborn kinds of people might read just out of indignation at being told not to. But at least they'd never ADMIT to reading it or bring up anything inside if the risk of doing so is big enough.

After that I'd definitely implement Signin Lock immediately as well just in case. That way you can start keeping track of who logs in and reads your stuff when. I wouldn't start monitoring anything right away though, that's a lot of work and you probably have a lot of readers. Plus much of the information isn't meaningful. Subscribers don't even show up on your footprints when they read through the subscription browser. Rather, I'd just implement the singin lock just in case you HAVE to monitor and ban people in the future. It's possible the people you don't want to read your blog were just reading anonymously and will just be scared off not really wanting to signup for something just to read your blog. Then you don't have to do anything else. Also it makes it harder for someone to find your blog in a random google search which is always good for preventing other nosy people in your town from following you. It's a very strong signal to Non-Xangans to butt out.

For extra measure I might change my username too using credits. Again just to be on the safe side. You can always use something fairly similar to your existing username the first time. It's just to throw them off a bit and see how serious they are about reading your blog. Again it's about signals. You are telling them that you don't want to be found and don't want to be read. Most reasonable people will understand and decide it's not worth their trouble and give up.

However, if you find you have a real stalker on your hands, after that it becomes a personal choice. You can always complain directly to Xanga but there's no guarantee they'll do anything. So it's some manner of censorship, protected or friend lock.

Me? I'd start a new blog under a completely new username with singin lock that is blank of content that might identify me. I might repost my old entries in protected if I wanted to keep some continuity but new users would see nothing from my old site. And then I'd just make sure my real name and hometown aren't included in any posts that I don't post under protected. Likewise with pictures or other obvious information that can be used to identify me. I know it sucks, but that's the only real way to be anonymous. You don't have to censor WHAT you write about, just what details you include in your writing. You can certainly use parallels such as nicknames for friends and places that keep propping up that nobody is likely to know. You probably already do that to some extent. There are ways to blur photos you include so that they are less identifiable too. At least blocking out identifiable street signs and the likes.

That's probably too much work for your kind of blog though. And still might not work because like I said your writing style itself is distinctive enough that someone might identify you JUST from that. It's easy for a pure text blogger like me though. But for you I'm guessing you'd probably have to go the friend lock route and finally the protected route after that if even friendlock is insufficient. Only if those both fail (though I have no idea how), you'd bother with censorship. Since your blog is more personal than general purpose that's probably the right progression for you.

Anyways, sorry for rambling on so much. But I hope this helps.

There's stuff I'm always weary about posting since I have coworkers reading my shit. But remember that this is a public journal and theoretically anyone in the world with a computer can read it.

Somethings are just better left unsaid...

Whoa just a minute.  Let's think about this for a second.  We are who we are and should never be ashamed of that.  Yes, we are all guilty of having alternate personalities between certain groups of friends but to think these separate worlds will never collide is a pipe dream (believe me, I had this same problem).  What I'm trying to get at is do you really want your life separated into small compartments in hope that an offhand incident won't occur?  The options you list either put you behind electronic walls (which will eventually be breached), self censorship (a censored personal journal is not a journal), or rip out something that is a part of you (I couldn't imagine having anything besides Botolf as a screen name).  No, I think you should just let it all play out.  Tomorrow is another day, Midget will be fine as will you.  We all say things that upset people and others react to this but it is human nature.  How boring of a world it would be if we all thought and felt the same about everything!  I could go on but I promised you awhile back something about long winded advice so instead.........I vote leave it be BUT DON'T censor your writing.  Everything else will balance out.

moderate what you say then? There's still alot I cant post on here... and that typically goes to protected.

From one person who has gotten in trouble because of what they put on their blog to another, the easiest way here is to change your username and then go protected. No matter how low key you may think you are and how careful you are about not revealing anything, someone is eventually going to put together the pieces to form the full picture.

ahh turn on the lock for now. i know what you mean. i have friends who know i blog too. but they just dont question me and basically leave me alone with it. whatever your decision, just stay put here. i'll be sad if you're not around. :/

I can understand your desire to maintain a free public blog, I have the same sentiments which is why I don't enable any types of locks either. I don't think you should do anything, but if you really don't want that person reading your entries, then changing your name would be the easiest way. Although I'm sure they could find you if they really wanted to. As for me, I just censored some of my writing.

I don't want my real friends to know about my xanga, either. That's why I got it. Only I don't write, really...I need advice from unbiased people. Anyway, that's unimportant. I don't have any advice at all, I just wanted you to know your decision will be supported no matter what you choose to do.