To drop the veil... or not?

A blogger friend recently asked my opinion as to whether or not she should post a picture of herself on her sidebar.  It is worth mentioning that this person blogs semi-anonymously.  By this I mean that her real identity is not a state secret, but it rarely occurs to the reader that she is writing under a pseudonym.

The decision about how much (if any) personal information to put on one's blog is a difficult one.  I'm actually a perfect example (read: cautionary tale) of how not to think this subject through before getting started!

When I posted my first few entries I couldn't imagine anyone besides my immediate family  ever logging on to read, so I held nothing back; pictures, names, Social Security Numbers (OK, I held something back). 

By the time I woke up to the fact that people... a fair amount of them, in fact... were stopping by, it was a little late to start redacting names and putting those blurry circles over everyone's faces in the photo albums. 

In short, I outed myself before it ever occurred to me that there was a closet in which to hide.

But many sensible people have erred on the side of caution and started blogging in the electronic equivalent of a Burqa.  This blogger who asked for my advice is one of those, and has recently been toying with the decision of whether, and how far, to drop her veil.

A good example of someone who is 'out there' for all the world to see, but probably shouldn't be (IMHO) is James Lileks.  I have been a Daily Bleat junky for almost as long as James has been, well, bleating.  But the funny thing is that I somehow managed to read him for months before I ever spotted his picture.  I wasn't avoiding it... I'd simply been reading the bleat on a small laptop and his picture had been out of the reading frame.

As a result, during those first few months I had created a mental picture of this tall, lanky uber-dad who looked like Tom Selleck with a perpetual sarcastic grin around his evening cigar.

I was right about the cigar.

I know, I know... it's not fair to be disappointed about someone's appearance, especially since I'm  certainly no prize.  Heck, who knows where I'd be today if Zahava had managed to get a good look at me before our arranged marriage!

My point is that before I knew what Lileks looked like I was able to let his words paint a picture of who he was.  After I had seen his picture, I found I still loved his writing, but I couldn't help thinking that he was a talented writer who looked a lot like a kid dressed up in has dad's old suit. 

In trying to provide some advice to my blogger friend I decided not to use the Lileks example.  I figured she might take it the wrong way (she's actually quite pretty).  Instead I told her the following:

"Only you can decide if you want to cross that boundary.  I'll give you a 'for instance' to explain which boundary I'm talking about:

I love reading Chez Miscarriage.  I have a very clear picture in my mind's eye of what she looks like.  When I read her words I can actually see her speaking them.  That's what a good writer can do.

I would be disappointed if she ever put a picture of herself on her blog.  Not because she might be unattractive or weird looking... but because there is a 100% certainty that she will look different than the woman I see when I read her words.

A lot of people, men and women, read your blog and have a clear picture in their mind's eye of what you look like (and no two of those 'pictures' are alike).  If you post your picture on your blog, there is a 100% certainty that each of those people will feel let down just a little bit, not because of who you are... but because you're not who they imagined you to be.

It's a big step crossing the boundary from the fiction shelf to the non-fiction shelf."

Obviously it's easy for me to sit here and be all full of good advice since my cover's already been blown. 

So what do the rest of you think?  Should an anonymous blogger with a large readership drop her veil and give the world a peek?