Blogging and the Market ...
When Kevin Drum at Political Animal linked to Tribble's warning of the risks of blogging to academic careers, Spencer spoke up in comments and, later, told his story at greater length at Corrente. Spencer recalls being called into his chairman's office, when he was still untenured and doing Thinking It Through. Someone had complained by letter to the University president that the young professor's criticism of Richard Perle on his blog was anti-Semitic. For the record, I think that complaint was entirely unjustified. Here is the post in question. As reaction passed down Spencer's chain of command, his dean told his chairman to make Tom stop blogging. The chairman refused to do so, but the administration insisted that Tom remove his institutional affiliation from Thinking It Through. Several months later, he was tenured and promoted. Nothing more has ever been said about it.
Still, the incident made quite an impression on a young guy who was about to come up for tenure. He attributes the fact that he's not had responses to subsequent job application letters to the fact that he blogged in his own name. That seems possible, but unlikely. Those who complain of the difficulty of the history job market at the entry level haven't seen difficult until they face the challenge of making an advantageous move after you've been tenured somewhere. But pseudonymous blogging may provide some sense of security against shooting yourself in the foot. See: Kevin Drum at Political Animal and Ogged at Unfogged.