Preparing to delete my blog unless privacy controls are put in place....

-- Durwin,

I think you have to do what is best for you.  Setting boundaries is a personal thing.  One person is comfortable and open in a given scenario and another person is not.  I am learning that boundaries is a complete relative thing.  Don't let your coworkers comment instill fear in you if this is the case.  Sometimes we need the courage to stand for our views in a tactful way.  If our ways of being offend others that is their problem.  This is a free country and we are free to have our opinions and views.  We the people of this country need to start taking initiative and authority of our role in it.  We are not going to move forward by being "pansy asses."  How are we going to evolve and move forward on this planet if we close down in the face of fear and offense.  Don't take the bait.  The shadow does not want us to lay all our blogs out in the open.  The more we shut down and hide in our caves the less likely our brilliant light shines.  Come on people, WAKE UP, SPEAK UP, LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD.  DON'T LET THE BAIT OF OFFENSE SHUT YOU DOWN AND HOLD YOU BACK. 
 

Sincerely,

Stacie

IBWY always-already

Hi Durwin

Interesting dilemma.  Note my first blog post quite some time ago.... Test...  I found I couldn't delete or edit it and its no coincidence that I have not been making any entries.  If you find a way to edit or delete them let me know.  I couldn't.

In terms of the lack of response from the admin people.   Echoes of 3 to 5 years ago, when this was a thriving forum and tons of integral people sharing integral ideas.  Then a bit of internal strive amongst the members and in spite of tons of effort, no resolution.  After begging for the admin people to help out, with no response, most people moved on to Gaia and other venues.   Hope things have changed since then.

Doug T

P.S. I've submitted a couple abstracts to ITC this year and also attending the Integral Spiritual Experience in Dec .  You going to either?

Yeah, the being able to be searched on google does make me a little uncomfortbale.  I don't mind if anyone comes to this site first and then finds me, but I can understand the fear of anyone on the internet being able to read anything I say.  Maybe this could become an option in one's profile preferences to make content searchable or not? 

Personally, I don't really care unless cyber-witch hunting becomes all the rage because I don't know who would be searching my name anyways.  But I would definitely support some extensions of optional privacy for those who feel the need for that.

Hi Durwin, thank you for bringing up an important issue.

It is in my eyes a question of self-responsibility to publish what and how you are okay with. I'm for example due to my business relatively reduced in giving information. So, sometimes I write a reply to someone I want to reply to, and when I realize it is read, I delete the post again.

At the time you have the choice to use a different name (via new account), or just your first name (which makes it difficult to google you), to give only few frame dates of your life (place where you live, portrait picture, etc.) so that it is difficult for your boss to assign your writing to your person, and to temporarily post something until its communicative purpose is reached.

Personally I would appreciate two - wait, three - additional possibilities:

A writing space "under cover" like a second address where you can use for example just initials or a totally different name, the possibility to reply to inquiries and comment on features in an anonymous way, and the possibility to change your name in your existing account. For I can imagine some people don't want to delete their blogs because there's a lot of good writings in it, but - just as you can change your image all the while - would like to change their name: for example removing the family name, or using a completely different name.

Best,

Astrid

I read only the beginning and part of Ambo's post and it was enough to fire me up about the topic.... THis may not completely relate, but when it comes to privacy... People will have none left, and they will be made to believe they do so that they are always giving up their privacy....

anyways heres what i wrote.. Umm Integral.. Pllease help.... They are trying to make our emotions a little less personal... And people please fight this... Because to me I see the exact same thing on Facebook... Everything u ever write on the internet you will have to fear coming back to you... Because that is the extend of the services that you can purchase today.... Imagine that fear... Freedom of speech.. Please... Privacy... Companies can know everythign about you by reading your writing... and they do.... and you don't know it... And none of the adults know it...

And hey, maybe if a company fought this like Integral.. Protecting the human element.... it would shield it from it ever having to tell one of its employees or members..

please remember people your children are raised on laptops, and pretty soon they will control the internet..... EVen my generation at 24 will get bumped off...

Maybe it's to protect, not to hide. Let's assume persons are competent in leading their life, and to estimate the degree of protection they need and decide for for their own well being, in UL and LL.

Of course governments are able to investigate your online presence, but it's unprobable that your average boss, colleagues, clients, or business partners will effort the time, money, and passion to do a research about you once information isn't served on a silver platter.

People seem to protect themselves with a preference of one quadrant as protected area:

Either they are open with giving exterior personal data, like full name, job, location, portrait picture, and are therefore very reduced in what they write about their interior life, or they choose to be open in communicating their current UL reality, and therefore give less exterior information. A representitive of the first author type is in my eyes Robb Smith, as representive of the second author type I would for example take Autonomy. (I hope you don't mind being named as example. In case you are, let me know.)

In my eyes both variants of online behavior are healthy and conscious, and both of them own specific advantages and dangers.

The first type supports useful LL connections, for example making friends and potential business partners by impressing through good behavior, showing exterior success, transporting the values one chooses for oneself in order to be seen like that by oneself and others: being honest, kind, successful, democratic, competent in leading, interesting, etc., while the shadow aspect of this writing style could be a kind of "happy family commercial spot" - the good guy. (A possible unhealthy turn would then be to exclude or ignore people who are experienced as less successful, because the weak self-aspects were getting oppressed in this case.)

The second writing style supports interior growth and realization by getting feedback on authentic UL speech, reaching solutions of interior thought knots by receiving replies from the "outside of the closet", by being mirrored in the reactions of others. The shadow aspect was to behave destructively in the protection of anonymity, in a way one would feel ashamed of behaving like face to face with another person. (A possible unhealthy turn would be the loss of self-protection, as well as the loss of protecting the talk partner through being polite, following the behavioral rules, etc..)

I think one cannot say in business terms - the initial post's issue - that one type is superior to the other one. You can get suspicious about the first type (what has someone to hide who consciously appears like he has nothing to hide, and whose life appears as perfect?), and you can get suspicious about the second type if discovered (what has someone to hide who consciously doesn't write under his own name?), which would again indicate to the aware witness that there might be projection involved in the boss's suspicion.

So, again, let's assume the above preconception: that people are healthy and grown up, so that neither the first type is suspected / projected to own a "terrible shadow", nor the second type to have "something terrible to hide".

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and concerns. I would like to contibute some thoughts that crossed my mind.

• I believe that most of what we share regarding integral theory and practice should be freely shared with the World. Personally I don't think that even here we need to identify ourselves unless we are trying to build a following or customer base. You might have noticed by my picture that I am not trying to do this.
• With that said I want to express my appreciation to persons like Ken Wilber who stand fully vulnerable as the rest of us scramble for cover.
• It would also be nice to have a protected private forum where we could share some more personal information. It does not seem that this would be that hard to do. One danger is that the elite few might hide from humanity here.
• It's interesting to note how little we have been attacked here by persons of earlier levels. I guess we are still small enough to be ignored.
• In reading a chapter by R.D. Lang he discussed how difficult it is to survive once we have gained a level of transcendence. We need to be somewhat street smart to survive in this sometimes hostile World. It is a shame it is this way.

 Hey Durwin,

My apologies for not getting back to you sooner about this.  This particular feature (more privacy controls) has been the #1 priority for community-related feature developments on IntegralLife.com for some time.  Unfortunately our limited resources haven't allowed us to address this to my dismay.

I can't with any certainty say when this will finally be implemented, but what I can say is that we're about to start working with a new web-development team and we have made them aware (aided by your inquiries) that this feature is of high concern to us and our community.  I understand that this may not do much for assuaging your concerns at this time, but know that this is definitely important to us and we do plan on resolving it.

BTW, I love this discussion thread... there are some great perspectives being presented here.

Cheers,
Robert