CBC Maritime Noon

I just got a very unusual E-mail. Since it doesn't contain anything personal (aside from the name of the person who contacted me, which I removed), and since I thought my readers might be interested, I decided to publish it here:

From: *************@CBC.CA
Subject: blog, CBC
Date: November 21, 2008 10:10:42 AM AST

Hi John,

I work for CBC Radio Maritime Noon. I've been following your blog on and off for the past several months. Would you mind letting me know whether your troll is actually arrested or charged? That's very intereting [sic] stuff, though, I can imagine, very hard for you.

best,
*************
CBC Radio
Maritime Noon
Sydney

I knew the CBC had been looking at my blog; I spotted them on my StatCounter tracking:


I figured they'd be contacting me eventually. They didn't just visit once; they kept coming back.

Anyway, I replied:

Date: November 22, 2008 7:38:51 AM AST
To: *************@CBC.CA

I don't see why not; I'll be announcing that on the blog, anyway . . .

Why do you want to know? Not that I mind; I'm just curious. :)

I can already guess the answer to my question; I imagine they'll want to interview me about this. The thing is, though, I'm not sure how I feel about this. My blog only reaches a certain "demographic." Outside that group, I sometimes don't talk about some aspects of myself that I'd rather keep semi-private. There are, for example, a handful of people I know in meatspace that don't know I'm polyamorous because I'm not sure how they'd react to it.

The problem with radio is it reaches everybody, including those who don't read my blog (or any blog). On the other hand, I've always known that anything I publish on my blog might eventually find its way back to people in meatspace via word-of-mouth so I've always known this could happen. Such is the risk of personal blogging, I suppose.

Well, I won't have to worry about it until I actually lay charges against the troll; I guess I'll make my final decision then. As things stand now, though, I don't anticipate having any qualms about talking to the CBC about this; if nothing else, it'll serve as a warning to cyberstalkers everywhere: you're not as anonymous as you think. ;)