I sometimes joke that the Department of Things That Deborah Doesn't Understand is pathetically understaffed, considered its wide scope.  The following is an item from the Department's files.
The blogosphere is abundantly supplied with blogs devoted to good causes and ideas for making the world a better place.  However, a significant number of these blogs fail to provide their readers with any of the following:

  • The full name of the blogger

  • The blogger's organizational or professional affiliation

  • Contact information for the blogger
I can imagine circumstances in which it would be a good idea for a blogger to be untraceable - for example, if he/she is tracking human rights violations in a volatile political climate, then public anonymity is probably the most basic of security precautons.*  But assuming that providing your name and a hint about how to reach you does not actually put you in jeopardy or violate an ethic of confidentiality, why would you want to make it difficult for those who are interested your cause (or in your idea for making the world a better place) to identify and make contact with you?

It's a mystery to me.

*  Of course, I wouldn't be surprised to find that any serious geek could take my IP address and use it to uncover not only my name but my mobile phone number and home address.