On The Blog people are the most honest of all because they are not afraid of repercussions from their employer (if they work at village hall) or the board of ed (if they work for the school system) or their neighbors or school acquaintances. Let’s say you hate the teachers but your neighbor is a teacher. Well, you are not likely to post honestly your feelings on the contract negotiations if you have to identify yourself. In fact, you are likely to post whatever you think your neighbor wants to hear, because you want to remain friendly with the neighbors. Let’s say you are a fireman in town or your spouse is a cop. Well, you are not going to write anything negative about the village manager if you have to be identified in the posting, because this could impact your employment or that of your spouse. Supposing you are totally opposed to the parking garage but you live next door to a person with pro-garage signs all over his front lawn. Are you going to keep the peace in your little world or go to war with him by posting under your own name how much you oppose the garage? The online discussion forums in which everyone has to be identified tend to contain a lot of politically correct BS and not a great deal of gut-wrenching honesty.
Now there are some exceptions, some people who are more than willing to state their case and not worry about repercussions. To these people I say thank you, but I also suspect that they are not in any of the situations described in the previous paragraph.
The Blog = honesty = transparency = THE BLOG RULES
Everyone tries to criticize anonymity on The Blog, but the fact is you get utter honesty here and that is what we really need.
Thank you James Foytlin for serving our community so well.
