I hate to admit it, but there are days when I take a look around at my so-called presence on the Internet to see how I measure up and, truth be told, I suck. One good Digg does not a famous person make. Usually I won’t be caught dead checking data, graphs, or incoming links. Why ruin a perfectly good day?

Alexa is worthless, and yet now that the arrows are going in the down direction, I wonder that if worthless Alexa contributes to making me feel worthless, than I have a serious problem with blog self worth.

I look forward to reprints of my blog posts in the very same way one might feel after they wash and blow dry their hair. For a brief moment, you feel incredibly worthy of walking out your front door.

I like blog comments and when none arrive, I figure I wrote something boring. And yet, we know I’m not. My site data has been amusingly tracked by Matt Bailey, who with a compassionate sense of “Sheesh, should I warn her about this?” in his eyes, announces that my most popular keywords for this blog all have to do with sex.

The other keywords are for people like Rachael Ray, MsDewey, and Daryn Kagan, because I wrote about them.

A - I can’t possibly be the only person who has.

B - If I write about Kim Krause Berg, will searches for her lead to this blog?

c - If nobody searches for Kim Krause Berg, and keep searching for MsDewey instead, will this just totally mess with my head?

Lesson

Self worth is not a pretty thing. We base ours on any variety of things. I have blog-self-worth. I have mom-self-worth. I have other self worths I can’t tell you about because it would attract the sex goddess keyword (another favorite one, which I nourish and feed, for my own pathetic self worth.)

I got a unique example of self worth over the weekend.

My daughter’s boyfriend of nearly a year broke up with her the night before the Junior prom this past Saturday. Via text messaging, because that’s how kids do things nowadays. Furious and worried about her, I stayed by her side all day as she mustered the most incredible courage to get her hair done, find the right shoes and earrings to go with her dress, and find a group of friends who loved her and were willing to drive her, solo and dateless, to her prom.

In other words, she went anyway. And, she had a great time.

The breakup was finalized, in person, last night. It’s hard, as a parent, to witness these things, but she’s showing everyone that she will survive this. She has many “just friends” who are boys, who have been to the house to offer hugs and a shoulder to lean on. She likes them because “boys don’t come with the drama.” Her girlfriends always find me so we can have “what to do with Ari” chats, and then they drag her to the Mall, or (as in the present moment) going to get their nails done.

I concluded that no matter how ridiculous I feel about this blog, or how guilty I feel when I don’t post and the lines on the graphs all point downward, I still must be doing something right.

She went to the prom, without him.

“It’s my blog,” Bill Slawski says, towards the end of a debate about blog ethics and the possibility of adhering to a Code of Ethics. The interview of Bill Slawski and Loren Baker by Webpronews’ Mike McDonald features two discussions. One is on local search and the other, blog ethics.

Bill dominates the discussion, which I expected because there’s a ton of information in his head. He can pull out facts and figures as effortlessly as my husband does. They have brains that work like databases with Google installed. A quick search, prompted by a discussion and they have the information in seconds. I’m so jealous.

Loren Baker and Bill Slawski have worked together and individually on local projects. They bring to the interview personal observations based on their work, as well as pointing out how differently search engines handle local search. Bill points out a patent in China and how it’s specifically designed to locate businesses there. They point out that Yahoo! and Google get and compile their local search data differently from one another. The differences in their approaches directly affect SERPS.

The discussion on blog ethics begins with Bill’s describing what prompted the outcry for a code of ethics in the first place. They roll around topics like moderating comments, and who is responsible for what appears on their blog property. The consensus is that we can’t tell people how to aspire to certain conduct because it’s too indefinable. Bill compares it to how laws start out, and gives an example of how a basic idea for a rule builds from something to aspire to, towards something based on behavioral data and circumstances. Kinda like it’s not helpful in the long run to fit everybody’s blog into a “one size fits all” type of box.

I get the biggest kick out of the Webronews interviews because of the background silly stuff. Half the fun for me is watching people behind the interview table who forget the camera is on. It’s funny to see how many times Bill moves his soda, and is it me, or did Mike’s subtle southern accent get stronger after he mentioned he’s from Kentucky?

Two good topics. For anyone seriously interested in local marketing, Bill injects some great ideas based on simple, easy techniques he’s already seen in action. Great inspiration there.

Get comfy. You can watch the interview here.

Meme’s that involve tagging remind me of gym class. If you weren’t picked early for a team, it was embarrassing. If you were one of the persons left still standing that nobody wanted, it feels awful. I was chosen by the awesome Dazzlin’ Donna and am proud to be on her team.

I throw like a girl, though. Sorry ’bout that.

Five Reasons Why I Blog

1. I started this blog in 2002, to cover SEO news. It’s evolved over time to whatever it is now. Other sites handle just news. I write for one of them.

2. My journalism professor once told me that I would never be a proper journalist because I was too “creative” and had trouble with just plain, disciplined news reporting. He said I would someday need to make a choice between journalism and creative writing.

3. I did.

4. He knew I would choose this way, because I wrote a well researched piece on the history of sex for the college newspaper that was hilarious and followed it up with an attack on laws against women’s birth control rights. My best writing came when I wrote about things I care about.

5. The sex part is still something I care about, but it never seemed to fit into a blog on SEO and Usability. I blog because it feels good to write. I’ve always written. It’s what I do.

Tagging:

Christine Churchill
Michael Motherwell
Peter DaVanzo
Diane Vigil
Lorelle VanFossen

I didn’t follow rules that well when I was growing up. I had my own code. I still don’t follow rules that well, especially when I think they are unfair or stifle my independence.

Some rules and laws are designed with the intent of lumping groups of people together into single mindsets, to funnel them into one agreed upon prescribed end result behavior. There is no wiggle room for exceptions or varying conditions. When I come up against these circumstances, my radical streak takes over.

Certain things aren’t acceptable to me, so I avoid them or find ways to not associate with them. Violence and human cruelty are two conditions I’m not comfortable with it. People who know me also know this about me. If blood and gore is their thing, they know Kim is a wimp and they don’t bother with me, or if they happen to be my two sons, I get picked on. (They love war movies, war games, shows about gross things, eating gross things, and medical shows with lots of blood and missing body parts.)

My readers have had time to get to know me. It doesn’t take long to know what you’ll find here. They learn to trust me. They also know this is a gentle place. Raw and wicked stuff doesn’t happen here. I’d never approve a comment that involves personal attacks on someone. It would be totally unexpected to find crude comments here. Why? I care about the folks who read this blog.

Some of them are my family, my kids, my neighbors, parents of my kids’ friends who are curious about what I do for a living, potential business clients, forums members, friends and you, the soul who dropped by today.

There will be no Code of Conduct policy here, or a badge to show compliance, because I’ve always had a “code” in my head, that works for me.

I want the right to learn my own lessons. I’ll do my best to uphold my own personal code of ethics and integrity and try to get along with my readers.

I need to do this my way.

Of all the blogosphere reactions to the outrage at one female blogger’s public denouncement of website comment harassment, two struck a nerve with me. Both of them put the blame on her for not handling the situation properly.

One refrain is (paraphrasing here) “Get with the program lady. It’s the Internet. Get a thicker skin” and the other is “The best way to deal with predators is to ignore them. She should not have written about this.”

Be Tough. It’s the Internet. It’s Okay to Hate Here.

I don’t often hear a man complain of being threatened online. Is it because they are not harassed? Of course not. It’s not manly to whine. It’s more macho to be cool with it and swallow any emotions that may arise. Depending on the amount of testosterone, it’s customary to turn around and retaliate, go to the nearest bar and drink off the pain or go “do something” like run, play sports or pull an engine out of the car.

Let’s imagine you see a picture of a male Blogger that you love, screaming in horror with underwear on his head, on a non-adult porn website (where you could logically expect to see this stuff.) It doesn’t have the same feel as when the image is of a woman, screaming with underwear on her head. Maybe the man needs a sex toy glued to his forehead instead. That might get an actual reaction. He’ll likely email the person who did it with a nice letter from his lawyer, or call the person a slew of names, and call it a day. Or, he might even think it’s hilarious and show his buddies. (I verified that reaction with my husband.)

Let’s say the man with the sex toy on his forehead is harassed with death threats, along with that picture, and sexually invasive comments on what could be done with that sex toy appear on several popular blogs where comments aren’t moderated. Visitors will read them. The man is due to speak at a conference. He’s got an impeccable reputation in his industry, but now someone is stalking him and putting sex toys on his forehead. (Just watch. This blog will now rank for the keywords “sex toys”).

He’ll likely go to his event because he doesn’t fear death threats or something inside him doesn’t take it seriously. He doesn’t fear rape and has no life experience in being violated.

Women fear both because they are more inclined to have been raped, humiliated, and traumatized for the very fact that they are female. Rape is a weapon of mass destruction in many countries during times of war. Rape happens to men too, but their willingness to discuss it is even more guarded than women.

Violation is Invasive, Whether Physical or By Computer Keyboards

The reaction by women to what happened to Kathy Sierra is different than what the men are expressing. Some men have written that women are “objects” and this behavior is due to that. They say women have to live with this. Kathy was told to get over herself and develop a “thick skin”. She was called a “character assassin”. In Cre8asiteforums, it was suggested she should never have written about her experience at all because this is exactly what predators want you to do. They want to know they caused suffering.

When a woman is raped, they are also told to:

1. Develop a thick skin and live with it
2. Not tell anyone
3. It was their fault
4. Not to report it
5. They are assumed guilty and the rapist is assumed innocent unless she can prove the assault. She has to prove her claim and have the facts to back it up.

Some women will go to court, but they face public embarrassment, harassment and a legal side that insists it was her fault and their client didn’t do it. There remain those who believe a woman who is raped did something to deserve it, such as wearing tight jeans or showing her face in public by removing her veil.

Does it follow through that now that we own blogs, websites, and forums, plus get email, that we somehow deserve to be abused and threatened? Does being on the Internet automatically mean hatred is acceptable and if you want to play, turn your back on the shocking parts? Should you not discuss, in your own blog, an experience that has frightened you because you risk ridicule? Should Kathy have gathered proof before going public and mentioning names?

I’ve thought about why she named individuals in her statement. I think she might have refrained had the site owners moderated comments and image submissions. Two of the sites have since been taken down. Would they have remained up, to hurt someone else, if she had not spoken up?

Behavior

The woman who created this storm by speaking out is herself an observer of human behavior. She’s reached countless web designers with her humor and way of explaining user centered, people oriented design. Her career is about people, how they react and how they think. Now, she is afraid to speak in public due to the behavior of one or more individuals. Was she a target because she is a female, as some have written, or because human behavior is her passion and the best way to get to someone is via what they love?

Earphones

Must women expect to be treated with disrespect? Have they not won a single ounce of integrity and the right to exist alongside men in peace and fairness?

I used to live in a city and I walked to work every day because I wanted the exercise and parking was a pain in the neck. An office worker, I had to wear dresses to work and look professional, so I wore dresses with sneakers and brought nice shoes for when I arrived.

Without fail, I’d arrive at work shaking in fury and sometimes fear. I was taunted at every step by construction workers and men on the sidewalks. The whistles were bad enough but the remarks they made were so sickening that I would get nauseous. At any minute I feared one of them would follow me to work or worse, stalk me and learn where I lived. As a rape victim already, I already bear scars. Every day I hated them and every day I willed myself to not hate all men, because of the actions of the men that hurt me.

My roommate was a man. One of my most cherished friends; he got sick of hearing me come home in tears and fury, worn out from the daily verbal assaults. He bought me a Walkman radio with earphones for my birthday and after that; I never had to hear the lewd remarks again.

Are some people asking that we ignore what’s happening on the Internet by promoting ways to not listen or read about what’s happening there?

Do you really want the people you care about to be subjected to harm? If we don’t speak up about appalling events, what if someone succeeds and carries out a death threat or kidnaps a child (I once received a threat via email by someone threatening to kidnap my children because I was a single mother and they felt they should give them a home with two parents. I was a target because of my blog.)

On the Internet, being anonymous brings out every conceivable kind of whacko.

Defend Creepy People. See No Evil.

I don’t see how developing tolerance to hate can be justified. I don’t see how not speaking up when one’s life or livelihood is in jeopardy is helpful. A “thick skin” benefits what and whom? It’s too easy to express hatred and anger and far more difficult to show restraint, wisdom, fairness and respect. It takes practice.

Why not start with the Internet?

Discussions and related links:

Debate (sometimes heated) - It Starts With Saying Women Are Good Linkbait

If I Knew Who You Are, Would You Write Differently? Authentication in blogs and forums

First reactions - Distressing News

Should Women Be Afraid to Blog?

Discussion - Kathy Sierra’s Unfortunate Situation

Death Threats Against A Blogger

re Kathy Sierra’s allegations

However, given that half the human race consists of women, it should not come as a newsflash that some of them — in about equal proportion to men — are stupid, venal, dishonest, or just generally annoying. Expressing such an opinion may be distasteful to some and vehemently argued by others, but last time I checked, having a negative opinion of a public figure was neither a federal offense nor an expression of misogyny.

Decided to turn comments turned back on (as much as I hate the spam). I hugged my tree. (Got pictures too, but you don’t need to see me hugging a tree, do you?)