Should I go public?

I guess its that desire for a little bit of fame. Perhaps jealousy of other blogs sites that have become quite popular and the curiosity about whether I could achieve the same heady heights of fame. But every now and then, I wonder whether I should set my blog to be visible to blog searches on this website, and even to appearing for corresponding Google searches.

But then there is one thing that holds me back, and that is the knowledge of what a portion of the vocal users of the internet are like. You hear of the nonsense that comes out of flame wars on twitter, the abusive comments that get made in people's blogs, and even on mainstream commercial news sites things can get unpleasant. And it doesn't even have to be the expression of a difference of opinion, there are individuals out there who will say things because they seem to enjoy seeing the reaction.

I know that in terms of the vast majority of people in the world, and even in terms of that smaller set of people who do actively engage in leaving comments on pages, it is a tiny minority who are offensive for the sake of it. Yet the whole adage of:

  "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"

Seems to be rather shallow, especially if you weren't expecting a personal attack.

A couple of webcomics I really enjoy reading, have made comments on a few occassions how they have struggled with some of the content that people have posted as comments. In many cases it wasn't that the commenter was intended to be outright malicious, but perhaps they forgot that the author was providing their artwork and storytelling free of charge, with nothing asked of in return. And some of these artists are really very good, investing a lot of time to create remarkable illustrated stories for the free enjoyment of readers.

Anyway, all this leads up to me realising that no. No, I'm keeping this private as its just to develop my communication and also stay in touch with the people that I know. And its ok if you guys say something mean as I know where you live, heh heh heh.