[OSM-talk] My online presence

[SteveC]

All

Bar about two or three of my most ardent friends I am the strongest  
believer and defender of free speech and the free market I know. The  
former, I believe far beyond what exists in the United Kingdom and  
much of Europe. I came to this position after volunteering for  
organisations which campaigned on the interface between public policy  
and computers on issues like copyright, encryption and identity cards  
before OpenStreetMap was born. Thus what I say is tempered by a  
relatively deep understanding of the rights and issues surrounding  
things like fair dealing/use, right to privacy and so on.

There is a blog and twitter account which attempts to mirror my  
thoughts and actions with witty insight. These represent at a guess  
two or three people who for the most part are quite funny if crude. A  
fake persona in the digital age.

The recent departures in to my personal life amongst this commentary  
has moved beyond what I will reasonably deal with, and has begun to  
impact others which I don't feel is appropriate. This is sad.

So I feel the need to reduce my online presence which I regret, in  
that the very point of the web is sharing information and I enjoy  
those services like flickr and dopplr which I will shortly curtail. It  
will certainly not totally stop any more personal comments to withdraw  
from these services any more than the RIAA suing twelve year olds will  
stop music piracy, but I will limit the scope of information  
available. This will give me some comfort. The quickest and simplest  
way to remove myself is to unfollow, unsubscribe and unfriend people  
en masse from these various services and begin again by admitting  
people carefully and with a consideration of privacy. If you're the  
victim of this then don't take it personally, just re-friend me or  
send me a note. This post will give me something to link to for  
explanation.

In any case I salute parody but I must protect others from the fallout.

Yours &c.

Steve