Members

A little while ago I asked around to see if anyone would be OK if they had to register as a member to view certain content on my blog. The feedback was positive enough.

So, I’m planning on implementing it.

Bit of Background

I have been toying with the idea of hiding some very limited content behind a username and password type membership scheme on my blog. I don’t want it to feel like it is supposed to be some exclusive bullshit where you have to be a member to get the most out of my blog. It isn’t meant in that spirit.

I mean, I’m not a NewsCorp owned publication.

But, the reason I started this blog wasn’t for the readers or the attention. It was as an outlet for me to write about and process life events. A way for me to remove things out of my head and to allow me to process them, to look at them and to deal with my life in a healthier way. The fact is, a lot of you seem to like reading what I write, and I must admit being a slightly egotistical person, I like it when people do read my shit!

Now, because people do seem to like reading it, I don’t want to write stuff and have it sit on my laptop for nobody to ever see. But, there are some things that I want to write about (for my own mental health), that I’m not quite ready to have thrown all over the open internet for anyone to see.

I do understand that there’s nothing really stopping anyone with access from printing to PDF or saving the page and sharing it with others. I’m not sure that will bother me too much anyway. I’m also not going to programmatically try and stop anyone from doing either of those things either (because fuck websites that do that shit).

But I would like to assert some control over a very select few posts I’m planning on doing in the future so they’re not all over the public internet. Simple as that.

What Is Happening

In the coming weeks, I’m going to find and choose a membership system for WordPress. I aim for this to be a membership system that is only for my blog and isn’t some shared cloud blah blah blah hosted by some other provider. If I’m asking for even basic personal details, I want them for this purpose only.

The only details I’d collect are your name (a first name and initial is fine, just so I know who you actually are), an e-mail address (in case you need to reset your password, feel free to use a burner), and probably a username.

I’m not going to spam your e-mail. Maybe I’ll do a newsletter in the future, but if I was going to, I’d ask for permission to use your e-mail way before ever sending that. But I’m lazy so it is unlikely I’ll ever bother with this.

Anyway, I have a Privacy Policy if anyone really cares to read it.

But once it is up and running, you can sign up and I’ll vet anyone that does. Once approved, any hidden special posts will become available to you to see. I’m not planning on putting much up as members only as I only want to use it if I really want to keep the content for close contacts only. Majority of my writing will still be made public.

TL;DR

I’m going to be adding a membership option in the next few weeks. It is optional, and unless I really feel it needed to keep particular posts as members only, I will continue posting publicly so everyone can see.

That said, I’d appreciate (but don’t expect you to) if you would become a member so you can see those posts. I’ll let everyone know when I’ve set up the membership system.