There’s a discussion over at Tomorrow.sg regarding the Idledays Fund.

It’s painful for me to see all the misconceptions and the flaming going on in there, so I felt compelled to write this. Unless otherwise stated, these are my personal views and replies to some of the questions.

Why are you printing the blog to a book?

We are doing this for those who were closest to her - her family and her boyfriend (now in UK).

Would she have allowed this? I believe very strongly that she would. But more of this later.

Can’t they just read it online?

Yes, they can read it online, but the experience is different. Would you rather recieve a physical love letter, or a love email (if the words are the same). Most people would prefer the former. Also, not everyone in the family is net savvy.

Do they actually want it?

Yes. We checked with a close family member.

How about the private (password-protected) posts?

We won’t be printing those.

Why do you want to keep her blog/URL alive?

Her blog touched me, and I’d like to see it remain alive, so that it can touch others as well (Google cache, Internet archives, etc. just doesn’t work in terms of accessibility and user experience.)

I do not wish to see the URL idledays.net turn into something else. That’s just me.

Couldn’t you guys do it privately instead of making a big hoo-ha?

It certainly wasn’t intended to be a big hoo-ha.

We certainly could have done this privately, without risk of all these criticisms, but I personally preferred to do this publicly, because she was more than an editor of Tomorrow.sg - she contributed much to our local blogosphere, and I felt that those of you who were touched by her blog would also like the opportunity to contribute, and not keep this as an exclusive project.

If I’m not a Tomorrow editor, I would have been grateful for this opportunity to contribute. In fact, I would have been angry if I wasn’t given the opportunity to contribute.

Why not spend the money on research or other worthier causes?

We’ve stated quite clearly the intentions of the fund - it’s okay if you don’t feel like you wish to contribute to this, but there are others who want to.

I don’t tell people what they should do with their money. If you want to put your money in a cancer research fund, or a newspaper subscription, or the latest mobile phone, it’s none of my business. All we’re doing is give you another option to use your money.

Doesn’t she want to keep her blog private, away from her family?

Maybe so, when she was alive. Whether she would have wanted the blog to be printed for her family or not, no one can say for sure.

The next best thing we can do, then, is come to a decision based on what we know about her, and what seems best for her loved ones.

Much has already been said by the other editors on this, but I have these to add:

- As far as her family was concerned, she didn’t try to hide the fact that she was blogging. As for who in her family knows how much and what, I don’t know, nor do I think it necessary to check with them on this. For those who ask such hair-splitting questions, I doubt you have sincere intentions.

- She had friends online and offline. But the people who know the most about her way of blogging (including privacy and anonymity issues) are her friends from Tomorrow.sg. We understand why she wanted to remain anonymous. When we met, guess what we often talked about? When we debated online, guess what we often debated about? When we bitched about other people, guess who we bitched about? Blogs, blogging, and bloggers. We may not have known her forever, but put together, we know her blogging intentions pretty well.

Given these reasons and others, we could very well have done nothing. We chose to do something.

And I chose to be a part of this, because I confidently believe this is the right thing to do.

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I keep thinking of what Clay Shirky said, which I quoted in an old post (Blogosphere Wars):

It is a deep curiosity of the human condition that people often find negative attention more satisfying than inattention…

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You may post further questions or comments, but do note that I have a rather whimsical view on censorship, as far as my blog is concerned.