Safeguarded by Transparency

This blog is as open and transparent as I can make it. Anyone can read it and draw their own conclusions. If people see anything here that is unfair or inaccurate they are encouraged to contact me whereupon I’ll review the offending post and decide whether or not to remove it. There’s a comment facility for anyone who wishes to disagree or even agree. This is all made clear in the sidebar under ‘Content’.***

Transparency is a prerequisite for a decent and democratic society. It’s a safeguard against corruption, dishonesty and many other undesirable consequences.

I believe in transparency. Nevertheless I have just made a decision which goes against the spirit of this conviction. SRWT has put their record of the 12^th September walkabout meeting up online on their website and they identify the people who attended with the comments made. I've asked them to remove my name and any comments they report me as saying.

Why? It's important to know why because I believe strongly in transparency in public administration and public forums and consultations. Those who lobby decision makers should be clearly identified, as should those who wave things through uncritically.

The reasons for taking this step are several:

a) The most important is that it is a gesture of protest against the secrecy of SRWT with the supposed support of SCC (Sheffield Council) refusing to disclose any details at all about their new major consultation group for Blacka Moor. People who agree to involve themselves in a consultation about public land while remaining anonymous should think again.
b) A minor reason is that the minutes as published give a misleading impression of what I said.
c) And a third reason is that those attending were not asked whether their names and comments should be published before they could check for accuracy - an assumption being made that the members of the Conservation Group might have sensitivities denied to the Users' Group.

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*** When I originally started this blog I didn't make a special point of identifying myself by name. At that point my experience of online behaviour had led me to believe that the common practice was to have an online name such as routinely found on message boards on newspapers comments below the line and in Sheffield Forum for example. I had also seen blogs written by people who did identify themselves that seemed to be an ego-trip and including details of all sorts of trivia in their private lives. I thought that this was all irrelevant and could be a distraction. This blog would be different: not be about me but about the place. I think I've largely kept to that over the years but at one point a few years ago I came to think that my name should be clearly identified and some people might think there was a transparency issue, although that really applies to public bodies. Anyway more people had started to read it and they could have wondered what kind of strange person ( the word 'obsessive' was never far away) was responsible. In any case that does not really have any relevance to the matter of transparency even if one person has tried to suggest it might. On this blog I'm commenting as a private person. When I've attended meetings and consultations I have always accepted that I should be identified and everybody else too.
Why not?