Five steps to avoid plumber’s crack.

If you are active on the internet, whether it be through blogging or in a professional sense, you need to cover your ass. Here are five things I’ve learned from nearly a decade of having a web site and blogging.

1. Set up a Google alert. Know what is being said about you; it affects your reputation. Google alerts are merely one way; watch your stats and see what is bringing people to your site. Follow through and see. If it’s good or accurate, you might want to highlight it for your readers, or even join in the conversation. If it’s negative, decide if it has merit, and if you can respond professionally right there at the source. Sometimes, you’ll just need to walk away, which leads us to number two…

2. Choose your battles. If you find yourself or what you’ve blogged about being trashed on a religious or political site, I wouldn’t waste too much time. Those people (having been one myself at one time) have relentless, circular, straw man, minutiae argumentative powers in their DNA. You have to decide what really affects your reputation and credibility as a blogger, artist, writer, or whatever else you are using your blog and web site to promote. Some things aren’t worth the effort, and will only turn your blog into a school yard playground of little or no interest to your reader, with a comments section of embarrassing note, particularly if it ends up dragging out and splicing off into multiple links that lead the casual reader little hope of following you down the rabbit hole. What you ignore says as much about you as what you address. However, having said that…

3. Don’t be afraid to defend yourself. If someone has said something seriously incorrect or damaging about you, you need to address it. Even if only a few people would ever see it, the fact is, it’s out there and accessible by search in the future. Addressing it logically and with the background information not otherwise available is wise damage-control. If you’re trying to make a living through your web site or blog or art or whatever it is you are doing, you  have to take some things seriously. Don’t worry about sounding defensive, though take care to be thorough and methodical in your refutation of the issue. Turning it into a name-calling, trash-talking moment will reflect badly on you, too, and likely be more damaging than if you’d said nothing at all.

4. Be transparent. While I try to protect the names and identities of people who are unnecessarily involved, I do publish all my correspondence/emails, and anything else (it’s in my blog EULA) when I deal with an incident so that readers who wish to read the whole thing can at least make up their own mind. I don’t want to say “I emailed them and told them to stop.” Instead, I publish the email. I include links, screenshots, and anything else. I don’t want the reader to ever think that I’m holding things back in order to make my position stronger.

5. Save screen shots. Think of it as online CSI. Saving a bookmark of a page which states something you intend to refute does you little good when the page is deleted and your link is dead. I prefer to save a copy of the entire web page. From this, I can provide a screenshot if the page is later deleted, the author changes it to make you appear wrong, or someone later says it never happened. I have a nice file of screenshots and saved web pages from sites that have been pulled. Think I was making it up? I’m ready, and have the proof. I generally go about collecting my evidence before I alert anyone to my awareness of the issue, since people pull and delete web pages at an amazing speed.

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Why do this?

I think of it less as a useful blog post and more of a public “on the record” case of defending myself. Sure, sometimes the lady doth protest too much, but sometimes it’s just enough. In the past, I would do this every time someone said something I deemed inaccurate. That led for a crazy, flaming blog which I never wish to revisit. I can’t believe anyone stuck around and read the “normal” posts. Currently, I don’t much care unless it directly affects what I consider important: my reputation as a blogger, writer, and artist.

A recent incident, in which it was suggested I copied another’s art, can be an example. In my opinion, my reputation as an artist was definitely sullied, and what was worse, I had no way to defend myself in the place it was done. I had to take it to my blog in order to at least say “I’m aware of it, and it is not true.” I felt that it directly affected not only my reputation, but my financial livelihood. No one is going to buy from an artist if they think the artist is prone to copying other’s work. While it may not undo the damage done to my reputation, it is, at least, a public record and available through a search.