I can’t really agree with Rick’s statements on the importance of knowing who a blogger is.  Rick writes:

I simply disregard blogs that give me no way to identify the blogger. Life is too short to be wasting it trying to decide whether someone’s message is worthy regardless of their failure to have enough self-respect and courage to identify themselves as the speaker of the message.

Far from me the idea to defend what Saunders is doing, but I have to say I don’t agree with the above statement at all.

Why is it so important to know the real identity of weblogger?

We work in a domain where it’s pretty easy (almost scientific) to determine the validity of articles and posts.  I don’t care if the article was written by a twelve-year old, a software guru with thirty years of experience or some marketing shill serving a hidden agenda.  I can decide for myself if this person is posting something that I find
interesting.

Granted, knowing the employer of such a person might possibly be relevant but I don’t even need that to decide if I want to subscribe to that person’s weblog.

Rick’s recent posting is equally misguided.  Obviously, you can’t hold a weblogger to the same standard you would expect from a nation leader or a journalist.  Let’s try and keep things in perspective.

The bottom line is:  if you don’t know the author of an article or of a blog entry, it is your duty to apply maximal skepticism and use your judgment before forming an opinion.