If you remember Ask.com, you probably remember Jeeves. Now he’s back on the UK site. It turns out that people liked the old chap, and in this age of social media, it’s probably prudent to have a corporate avatar (it looks a lot better on Facebook, anyway). There’s more about the resurrection at Search Engine Land.

Finding a 2007 blog post about a condom and a cheeseburger made a friend ask if student blogs should be moved off-domain. My flippant answer was “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

His retort was simple and quick: “Tell that to the catholic church.”

It stung. He had me, I was sure. It’s hard for many Americans not to think of sex abuse when Catholic Church comes to mind, but there are probably two lessons from that:

1. Suppression of unfavorable news is no longer possible. If you’d rather not see people air your laundry in public, it’s best not to dirty it in the first place. And if you do, it’s best to go public first and ask forgiveness. Fortunately, this openness goes two-ways; most people will forgive stupidity when they know that evidence of their own stupidity is just a few clicks away elsewhere online.
2. The other lesson may be more ironic: data from Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate reveals that the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Catholic has been relatively constant since the 1970s, despite the scandal, and the percentage of those Catholics attending Mass has been growing since 2000.

On the face of it, hosting student blogs at a different domain from plymouth.edu offers some insulation against embarrassment, but that insulation is limited. Just as the public demands that campuses censure students for their off-campus indiscretions, they will hold the institution accountable for off-domain blather. And in the bargain, the institution also forecloses any opportunity to enjoy the recognition and link love that good writing generates.

When Phoebe Ayers isn’t hanging out at ROFLcon she’s probably doing something related to Wikipedia, so I’m looking forward to reading How Wikipedia Works: And How You Can Be a Part of It.

Extra points: Phoebe and her co-authors somehow convinced their publisher to release the entire work under the GFDL, the same license Wikipedia uses. You could read the entire thing online for free, but that’s the easy part. What will you do to return the value? (Remember, Andrew Keen is watching.)

Social Media in Plain English and RSS In Plain English, among others from Common Craft among the best explanations you’ll find.

Then there’s Jessica Hagy’s explanation: