Blogging from the bushes is better than not at all

Yesterday I wrote here to promote feedback to government by bloggers and commenters, no matter their allegiance to truth - and to praise all such stuff as a tool for government Deciders. But I think there are some bloggers and commenters who would be interested in making themselves more believable. To those folks I have some ideas:

1 - Don't hide your identity. If you speak about facts and truth why should you care who knows your name? If you offer your opinion, that's all it is. Just say "in my opinion" or something like that. Nothing to be ashamed of and everything to be proud of. I personally am very pleased to have Mayor Diebold and Superintendent of Newark Schools Keith Richards know what Bruce Humphrey thinks of their job performances.

2 - If you're talking about facts, tell us how you know these facts. Where did you read or hear this? Provide a link if it's something we can access from the Internet. Provide a name and a context to the people you write about so that what you say can be verified.

3 - Give us an anchor to you as a real person, some inkling of your background/education/profession.

4 - Tell us how to communicate with you, to ask you questions in private as opposed to "messaging" on somebody's (e.g. Advocate's) website, preferably your e-mail address. At least set your Advocate blog profile to allow messages from everyone.

Writing under your own name and with open identity will be infinitely more effective than shooting from behind the bushes. Likely, too, it will encourage more care in what and how you write.

On the other side ...

There are many ways in which government Deciders hide from - and tip-toe around - truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. A few of my favorites are "everyone wants this," and "we have to do this," and "everyone I talk to says ..." And they never say WHO wants, or WHY WE HAVE TO, or how they know EVERYONE WANTS and of course, none of the other government Deciders asks but, worse, no reporter ever does either.

There are many ways by which government Deciders sneak around in the bushes like that. If bloggers and commenters call them on it that's sure to sting. Better, it's sure to add to the quality of government over the long haul. And if bloggers and commenters will only speak out under anonymous names, then that's far better than not speaking at all.