All right. Move on. Move on. There’s nothing to see here.
I had hoped to stay out of the anonymous Blawg Review editor brouhaha, but now I have people wondering if I’m the editor. I can say categorically that I am not.
While I understand that there are good reasons that people want to blog anonymously (and my point of view on blogging is to let a thousand flowers bloom), the flip side of anonymous blogging is that it can put people who are suspected of being an anonymous blogger into the different position of trying to prove that they are not the anonymous blogger.
I’m now quite sympathetic with what Evan says in his post here about the difficulties of being caught in the middle. I should be even more sympathetic with Evan because I jokingly suggested at one point that he was the famous Anonymous Blogger and then found that far more people than I expected took me seriously.
For what it’s worth, until the comments from people close to the situation that were added to Matt’s post explained how the whois information pointing to ALM and other “clues” could be misinterpreted, I was utterly convinced by Matt Homann’s “Monkish” explanation of the “solution” to the mystery.
As I’m able to understand the logic, the question whether I am the anonymous editor of Blawg Review arises from the following “clues”:
1. On Between Lawyers, we have used an anonymous “Lawyer X” character. So, you have a pattern of behavior.
2. If you “Google” the name Ed Post that has been associated with the anonymous editor, you’ll find references to a famous St. Louis murder case. This suggests that the editor is in St. Louis or has ties to St. Louis and I’ve been known to refer to St. Louis as Blawg City USA. (This clue, of course, also points to Evan.) Indeed, by coincidence (or as further proof, depending on how you look at these things), I worked as a staff attorney for the St. Louis court that tried the Ed Post case and, it’s possible, but I don’t remember for sure, that I might have even researched an issue or two that came up in that case. So, the thinking goes, if the editor is actually leaving clues, I might be leaving obscure clues that point to me.
3. The Blawg Review Awards post, like my Blawggie awards post, was quite long. Long posts automatically get associated with me, I guess. So, the argument would be that a leopard cannot change his spots.
Hmmm, I’m starting to convince myself – maybe it is me. No – I got an email from the BR editor and I know that I did not send it to myself, so I’m certain that it cannot be me.
As impossible as it may be to prove or disprove a negative, I simply point to the name of my blog and ask how likely is it really that I would be blogging anonymously? Some wags might also note that the fact that there was no award for me or my blog in the Blawg Review awards conclusively proves it wasn’t me behind the awards. In addition, I could hardly both praise Neil Squillante’s BlawgWorld in the Dennis Kennedy character and then criticize it anonymously – that’s not who I am. Similarly, after Law.com canned my partner in LexThink, Matt Homann, from its blog network, it would be very bad form, and completely out of character for me, to anonymously do another blog that joined the Law.com network – I’d have some seriously ‘splaining to do to Matt.
So, no need to speculate about me or ask me about this anymore. Let’s move on. Let me get back to regular blogging. Nothing to see here. As a time-filler until the new Monk season starts on Friday night, though, I do admit that I am enjoying reading about the detective side of the story.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
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