Welcome to lazy geisha! If you’re new here — this document contains some suggested etiquette to be used during your visits in geishaland! — It is based on The Blogger’s Disclaimer and has been edited to better reflect the views and opinions of nina aoki.

Personal Relationships and Privacy

Do not assume that you know everything there is to know about me simply because you read my blog on a regular basis. Any judgments you make will be based on the information I have provided about myself. Whatever opinion you may form about me as a person, or about my life as a whole, it’s probably best kept to yourself. Following someone’s blog often leads to the reader forming assumptions about the writer - and using your assumptions is a bad way to form good opinions about the person behind the words - me.

Remember — you are the reader — and until something about that relationship changes; you don’t know me  — Please do try to keep that in perspective.

Please do not contact me for more details about events or for personal information more than what I have already provided on the site. Chances are — if the information you seek isn’t readily available, I have found it too personal or inappropriate to share. If you are close to me, I will eventually tell you privately, so intrusive questions are not necessary, just leave it alone. If you are meant to know, you will.

If you have a real life relationship with me, remember that communication is very important. Please view this website as my online journal; no less sacred than a diary hidden under my mattress. And most importantly — please let me know that you read my site, especially if I did not tell you personally!

It’s an extremely rare and unlikely occurrence – but if I do ask you to stop reading here, it’s very likely that something has happened to damage our relationship and such a request has been made because your continuing presence here would make me uncomfortable. It’s important that as a friend, relative, co-worker or whatever you may be to me, that your presence at my blog not impede my ability to express myself. Remember — this is my creative outlet – and I think we’d both prefer to avoid any drama. You should respect this and immediately stop coming here – and that would include asking your friends to come here to see what I’m up to or to see if I’ve written anything about you. Chances are that if we’ve had a falling out – anything you read here will be misconstrued as being about you when it isn’t. If our relationship has failed, that should include you reading my journal.

If I do happen to write something about you and you don’t appreciate it, please approach me about it privately – often times these things happen because of a misunderstanding or lack of communication. Text in general, especially in comments or in blog posts, lacks the human quality often necessary to resolve conflicts – try and remain calm and I’m sure we can resolve whatever differences we may have privately and like adults.

Ex-friends, ex-lovers and estranged family members who have been cut out of my life should refrain from reading my journal. If the relationship has ended, there is no reason you should get daily updates on my life. If you simply can’t help yourself, please do it quietly.

Feedback and Initiating Contact

Compliments and comments will always be graciously accepted and appreciated. I encourage an open and organic dialog around my words and I enjoy having conversations with people and sharing ideas and perspectives on a wide variety of topics. Criticisms and reproaches are fine if you have a problem with something, but please try to remain constructive and not be an asshole. No one is forcing you to give out your opinions, so if you don’t have anything remotely positive to say, it may be best to just keep quiet.

When contacting me for the first time, please have a clue. If I don’t know who you are it’s probably safe to say that I’m not going to tell you where I live, give you my phone number, meet you for coffee or send you a picture of myself. I put a lot of thought and time into this site, so please take the time to read the information I’ve provided before you ask for more.

I do try to reply to every email I receive and I answer every comment left here – but please understand that I also have a life which takes up my time and I may not be able to reply or answer you immediately – but I will do my best. If you get upset and nasty about feeling rejected, you will probably ruin any chances you had of befriending me.

Remember, you are peering in on my life and sharing my thoughts, and although I may become quite special to you, you remain a mystery to me. If I seem cold or unreceptive to your advances, please keep in mind that you are a stranger to me at this point, and I may or may not want to keep it that way!

I have made my IM contact information available on my site – so if you want to send me a message if you see me online that’s perfectly fine – but please be aware that I may be involved with something else and may not have time or be able to drop everything and have a conversation with you. Please don’t take it personal. You may also use my Contact Form found on the Home Page to send me an email if you’d like to get in touch with me.

Please DO NOT be a psycho stalker.

Content

The internet is a place that encourages free and creative expression, and as in any environment where people are given this freedom, conflicts and differing opinions may arise. If what you read or see here offends you, please leave immediately. Contacting me or my Hosting Company with demands that I remove my content or change my ways is absurd because you are reading my blog of your own free will by visiting my site. Simply stop coming here and you won’t have to see whatever it is that’s made you so upset. Much of the content written here is intended for grown ups.  I write about adult topics and about things which affect the lives of women – but if you can’t handle that – then it’s best that you find some other place to read which is more to your liking — the internet is a big place.

Copyright and Courtesy

Bloggers view things like their layout and site design as part of their creative expression. If you happen to see something here that you’d like to use – sending me a brief and polite email inquiring about the widget you’re interested in is appropriate. This is by no means a universal attitude – but it is the one maintained by me. Blogging is a community sport – and most bloggers will respond to courteous requests for help, but keep in mind – asking me to make you a layout or for instructions on how to set up and run a blog is crossing the line. There are plenty of tutorials and community forums such as the wordpress.org forum where you can get the help you’re looking for.

Lifting content or portions of content from my site is a no-no without proper links and attribution. This website operates under the umbrella of a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported license – please refer to that document for additional information. If you intend to source my work it’s always polite to send me an email to let me know where my work is being displayed and how it’s being used. However – it’s always important to remember that Copyright is protected by law and in effect the minute something is created, whether the I display a © notice or not - and my use of a Creative Commons license does not imply or mean that I surrender any of those rights.

Under no circumstances should you ever direct link images or media.

This includes link buttons, audio or video clips, and any other graphics or images seen here. Direct linking is when you type something like…

<img src=”http://www.yahoo.com/linkbutton.gif”>

… to display the yahoo link button, instead of actually saving it and uploading it on to your server. It is essentially bandwidth theft, because it uses data transfer, and I have to pay for it. Always save the image and upload it to your own server unless I specifically state you may do otherwise.

This document is organic and may be appended as necessary. Thank you for reading and welcome to geishaland!

The source text for reference — The Blogger’s Disclaimer — can be found here.