That's one way to look at it. But another way to look at a blog is as a personal publishing platform. Some people, me included, use them to write about relevant topics, that aren't "in the moment", but stay relevant for some time, and I would certainly be horrified if my blogging platform (WordPress) were to disappear. I don't regard my blog as ephemeral. I think everything I've written is still important, and I refer to past posts and build on them.

Also, I think it's a bit tasteless to display one's dirty laundry out in public, unless your blog is password protected and open only to your friends. There are certain things that are okay to address in the very public context of a blog, and then again, there are plenty of things that shouldn't be put out there. Those of us who think everything's okay to post may find ourselves bitten in the behind at some point in the future when we incur personal attacks or are denied a job due to that very same "honest" post.

Unless you had something else in mind when you referred to being honest, those sorts of posts are still reserved for offline diaries, or for locked/password-protected blogs.

I dunno, Tim, you could always go crazy and get your own domain, then who cares about typepad?

And, in contrast to Raoul, I think it's tasteless, and sometimes dangerous, to keep too many secrets. Let's have everything out in the open as much as possible. Choose the light!

Unless blocked from crawlers, your blog content should forever be available at the Internet Archive. I use this to view sites that have disappeared, or to view the changes in sites (they archive all changes).

Your name is Tim Taylor?

A question for Tim... do you get paid for this?
---
In this moment in Time, I will be honest and express myself...

I came across a link titled "What If Typepad -- And Blog Content -- Disappears?"... I went to the page... I read it... my Time has been wasted.

"But Tim, that's not Taylor, I heard that your comment may not have been nice, what if I want to read it and it's been deleted?"

My answer that doesn't really answer the question would be...

"I don't care."

- Tim, that's not Taylor -- out.

Raoul,

I understand and respect your point of view on honesty, but I disagree with it. I intend to be fully expressed and deal with whatever comes out of that, it's the only way I can see to compassion.

I'd rather have someone come out and speak in a racist manner for example, rather than have them speak pc and leave the racist stuff for their diary. When they do, however, it's my choice to either judge them or not. If I judge them (or myself for that matter) the honesty is wasted.

If I do not and I try to understand where the comment came from or how it came about it might be useful.

As for a personal domain, I don't know how to do it but would be open to it. What I do like about typepad is all of the functionality.

As for getting paid for it, no I don't.

Tim