Every once in a while, I Google recent and high page-ranking references to me. I was surprised when I did this recently to find my name mentioned in two blogs: -- A purported quotation from me from a dinner table conversation a few years ago. -- A side comment that I purportedly made to the blogger who claims to be sitting next to me at another conference. This has gotten me to thinking. 1. Is it ethical to publish private conversations without the speaker's approval? 2. Or has the nature of networked community become such that just as the public has become personal, the personal has become public? Secret police types would concurr: If you have nothing to hide, why worry? But I have had enough experiences in America, China, Russia and Bulgaria to know I don't want to live that way. And neither do my friends who have lived in these countries. Surely there is a matter of private discourse among friends and colleagues. Or has blogging by scholars merged with gossip columns? My own feeling is that my papers, lectures and perhaps even public conference utterances are publishable. My side comments over dinner and in informal groups are not -- unless I explicitly agree. Or am I just an old fuddy-duddy who doesn't understand the new world of blogs -- even those by scholars? Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network _____________________________________________________________________