Why do people make their work private?

[Stella]

I was reading answers to a question and liked what some of the poets wrote. I wanted to read more of their work, but couldn't.

Is there a good reason to make your work private? How does a newbie discover you?
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[Cosimo )O(]

I assume you mean people's activity on Answers, rather than their poetic oeuvre outside Answers.

There is a very good reason to make ones activity private - to stop random trolls and other users who may resent you (for whatever reasons imaginary or real) trawling through your activities and reporting them for abuse, thus destroying your account.

It takes a brave user, or a nonchalant user, to have activities open to the view of all on Answers.

How do newbies discover you? They add you to their network - they become your fan and hope you reciprocate.
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However, if you're talking about poets keeping their oeuvre to themselves, that is because ones poetry is intensely personal. It would be like posting your biography online, only more so. It may seem strange in today's twittering world that anyone would refrain from baring their soul in public. But some people are still quite private.

[Bingalee]

After losing several accounts to the work of trollsI made my activities private.I don't even trust my oldest contacts anymore as I suspect one of them for recent attacks on my account.In the space of 10 days I got at least a dozen violations.The only way of following another member's posts is to watch the category in which they are mostly active continuously.

[oklatonola]

I suspect most people keep their work private because they are worried that if they put it online some one will steal their work. They usually don't understand how copyright law works, and are justifiably concerned about some one plagiarizing their work online. Many poets and writers get discovered by entering their work in contests. That's how Isaac Asimov was discovered by the publisher of Analog magazine. All you have to do to register your copyright is stick a copyright symbol on it, or know the HTML code for the copyright symbol if you are putting it online. I don't SEE the copyright symbol when I type or copy and paste the HTML code FOR the copyright symbol in something I am going to post online until AFTER I post it.

As for not posting something on YA, most people don't understand that even though Yahoo Inc. owns anything we post on YA, we STILL RETAIN THE COPYRIGHT, registered or UNregistered, on anything we write and post on YA, NOT Yahoo Inc.

© - an experiment that did NOT work, unitl I copied and pasted BOTH the vsible and NOT visible computer code correctly.

©

[Riki]

it's mostly to prevent trolls and stalkers from following you.

[Ms Fletcher]

There are great answers here.

I've discovered some wonderful poets who left their work open. But I see the point in privatizing especially if someone has an enemy.

A shame, especially in a social networking group.
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