Obsessed with Embellishment

Today I almost outted someone on a sewing web site! I was so, so close…..fortunately I came to my senses.This person made a thinly disguised snarky comment on a project of mine, and after giving it some thought, I realized that a better way to deal with my miffed feelings would be to blog instead. There’s really no benefit to engaging this person publicly; it’s also not fair to the site operators or to the tens of thousands of people who go on the site every day. Why should they be subjected to our playground spat?What’s really sad is that I used to have a testy but reasonably cordial relationship with her – we disagreed on lots of things, but hey, I’m a big kid and I will zealously defend to the death anyone’s 1^st amendment right to free speech.That said, however, I have zero respect for people who keep their profiles private, who never upload a project and yet just like an untrained dog they leave little poop bombs while hiding behind the veil of anonymity. I’m 99.9% certain this person used to post under a different name, and after several years of reading her posts I’ve come to realize she’s just an angry and bitter person. Alas, I can’t change her – I can only change the way she makes me feel.

One of the things that really mystifies me about the internet is how many people don’t seem to understand what they give up, and can’t get back, when they blog about really personal stuff to a vast audience of anonymous strangers.  The internet is not a hippie commune where we’re all in this together, and you know everybody.  You can bet for every nice comment on my blog (or yours), there’s a couple people out there who think I’m (or you are) a total nutcase.  And aside from the Too Much Information issue, and my personal inability to understand why anyone would be interested in reading about home made sanitary protection (human or canine), it just floors me that so few people ever seem to realize that the internet is the most public of public spaces and what you blog about today, or post on a message board, could haunt you for decades.

Here’s an example of why I really try to maintain privacy on the internet when it comes to my personal life and my family:  I just got a new job, a great one, with a fabulous salary, great benefits and perks, and lots of income potential.  I also knew that my prospective employer, like most employers these days, would do a background check on me, and how hard would it be for them to Google my name?  Not hard at all.  And how good is the background checking software that companies use to screen candidates? Very good.   The last thing I wanted was for that employer to find anything, anything at all, that could hurt my chance for a job. A few years ago a woman who worked for Harvard University made the mistake of  bashing the University on her blog and she was fired for it and the taint of that mistake followed her for years – so my mantra is, just because you can say it on the internet, doesn’t mean you should. 

To paraphrase an old carpentry motto: Think twice and post once.

Every once in a while, and this is as predictable as the tides, questions about intellectual property issues such as trademark and copyright crop up on sewing message boards and forums. And just a predictably, people who are not attorneys seem compelled, for some inexplicable reason, to dispense legal advice.

Now granted, anyone can offer their personal opinion on a legal issue. But the whole notion of “I’m not an attorney but I play one on a message board” is not only unethical - it’s illegal.

Dispensing legal advice is practicing law, and to practice law you need a license. And if you are not licensed to practice law, then keep your legal advice to yourself and stop using forums and message boards as a bully pulpit to dispense information you have no right to dispense.

I am not an attorney - although I do have a paralegal degree from a university program acredited by the American Bar Association. I work in a corporate legal job and I have several years of experience in intellectual property, contract and licensing. Ethics are a huge part of the legal profession and a huge consideration in my career and my life.

If I was on the receiving end of sewing message board legal “advice” I’d view it with the utmost skepticism and I certainly wouldn’t rely on it for being anything more than the uninformed, albeit interesting, opinion of a regular joe. And if I had a real concern I’d certainly consult an attorney.