Can I blog anonymously?

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  johniwhite · Member · Feb 12, 2018 at 11:11 am

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  Hi All,
  I already have a WordPress.com account with:

  – a wordpress.com blog
  – and 2 linked Self-hosted wordpress sites

  Now I’ve set up NEW WordPress.com blog and I’d like to hide my identity, email address, and avatar—just on that blog. Is it possible?

  Thanks ;)
  John

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  timethief · Member · Feb 12, 2018 at 7:41 pm

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  re: Transferring a Blog to Another Username Account
  If you have a single username account and have registered two (or more) blogs that you do not want to be associated with each other any longer,

  Log out of wordpress.com and clear your browser cache https://en.support.wordpress.com/browser-issues/#clearing-your-browser-cache and cookies https://en.support.wordpress.com/browser-issues/#clearing-wordpress-com-cookies, then without logging in register another username account using a different email address;

  Read https://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/#adding-users-to-your-site and invite the new username account to become a new Administrator http://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/#administrator of the blog you want to transfer;

  transfer one (or more) of the blogs to the new username account. https://en.support.wordpress.com/transferring-a-site-to-another-wordpress-com-account/

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  justjennifer · Member · Feb 12, 2018 at 8:11 pm

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  Hi there, as tt mentioned, you would need to disassociate that one site from your current account by creating a second account with a different email address and transfer the site to that second account.

  Just to make sure we are on the same page, what do you mean by Anonymous blogging? Do you mean having a single site not associated with your other sites under the same account? Do you mean you wish to blog anonymously using a VPN and/or Tor? https://en.support.wordpress.com/bypassing-internet-restrictions/

  Whenever you register a new site on WordPressdotcom you provide identifiable information to WordPressdotcom as well as every time you log in. https://en.support.wordpress.com/report-blogs/legal-guidelines/

  I hope that covers it, but let us know if you have any other question.

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  johniwhite · Member · Feb 13, 2018 at 11:04 am

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  Thanks Timethief and Justjennifer,
  That all sounds straight-forward. I’ve actually transferred a WP blog to another account/user before.

  But as regards identifiable information, is that identifiable to WordPress—or to anyone on line who arrives at the blog?

  I don’t mind WordPress knowing who I really am, but readers/visitors is a no no.

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  justjennifer · Member · Feb 13, 2018 at 11:57 am

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  Hello again, Do have a look at the legal guidelines I linked to earlier as it gives the best overview of what information is collected, along with the updated Privacy Policy, in case you haven’t seen it yet. The information is not made publicly available on your site unless you put it there.

  Regardless, when you leave a comment on someone else’s site, the email address associated with your account and your IP address are shown to a site owner. There’s no way around that. You can see this in action in your own site’s comment moderation dashboard.

  When you sign up with a new account, you can choose to hide your Gravatar from displaying publicly, but you need to sign in to Gravatar to hide it. Here’s more on that http://en.gravatar.com/support/profile-privacy/

  I’d also recommend staying with your wordpress.com subdomain rather than registering a domain name, unless you also add domain privacy to your domain registration. ICANN regulations require full and accurate information about the domain owner. Adding domain privacy keeps that information away from public view in a WHOIS as a proxy company’s details are shown to the public rather than yours.

  Just to make sure I’ve covered everything here, I’ve gone ahead and tagged this for Staff input as well.

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  gemmacevans · Member · Feb 13, 2018 at 12:37 pm

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  Hi johniwhite,

  It looks like @justjennifer and @timethief have provided you with some great information.

  Private registration will be important if you wish to register a custom domain for that site because without it, your contact details will be visible to the public on WHOIS searches.

  If you have questions about anything mentioned in this thread, just let me know.

  Thanks!

  @justjennifer and @timethief — thanks for your help!

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  johniwhite · Member · Feb 14, 2018 at 11:04 am

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  Thanks for all of the input everyone.

  I scanned over the legal guidelines. As long as i don’t slander any person or organisation I should be OK.

  I have things I want to get off my chest about a particular industry and don’t want potential employers seeing them.

  Thanks ;)

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  justjennifer · Member · Feb 14, 2018 at 11:26 am

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  You’re welcome. Just let us know if we can help with anything else.

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  gemmacevans · Member · Feb 14, 2018 at 2:19 pm

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  No problem — you are welcome to reply here if you have any other questions.