The blogger code of conduct?
March 20, 2008
Via Steve Hodson
I saw this last year and didn’t say anything, because, at the time, I was still trying to work out where I *stood* in the blogging community…. The long and short of it is I’m not an A-lister, so I felt that I had to get closer to being ‘that’ before I started advising other people.
It now occurs to me that advising people on blogging is what I do as naturally as breathing, and though I’m tweaking my blogs to clean up the messages I’m offering. I’m ‘branding’ each blog to be a lot clearer if you will.
So, where does the ‘blogging code of conduct‘ fit into this?
Tim O’Reily listed seven rules, with commentary and expansion, but for brevity I’ve listed the seven of them here.
- Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
- Label your tolerance level for abusive comments..
- Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
- Ignore the trolls.
- Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
- If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
- Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say in person.
I’ve read this post through several times in the last 11 months, wondering what I could say on this.
Because, on one level, I agree. I agree wholeheartedly, and I let people know (when I remember to include it in the design) that I reserve the right to remove anything that isn’t related to the conversation, and could be considered abusive, inflamitory, or otherwise goes against the tone of my blog.
My reasoning for this is simple - I am the only person who controls the canvas that is my blog - no one else has access to the comments to remove them, so I am responsible for ensuring that its clean.
On the other hand, I’m all for free expression… I believe that people should be allowed to say what they like, and I don’t think that the ‘language’ people choose should neccicarily dictate whether a comment is deleted.
Some people swear, and rant and are ‘naturally angry’. Thier comments are still both relevant and important to me.
Others though are abusive, and I think that’s where people have probelms with thier ‘line’.
I have problems, specifically, with 5. Most of the commentary that goes on, within my blog, are from people I don’t know in real life. I have many American and Asian freinds, and its hard to have a conversation ‘offline’ though I can see in two very specific situations how much faster this would have changed it. Most of the time though, it wouldn’t work. I believe that if things start in ‘a forum’ they should finish in that forum, whether the ‘finish’ is adult, or moderation.
Flipside that though, you can’t just hop on the moderation button when you ‘don’t like’ where the conversation is going.
Of all of the rules, I like seven the best - in conjunction with 1-4, I think it is the mark of an ethical blogger, and will lead to a more ‘natural’ tone on your blog.
Seven is basically the core of your own integrity. If you would say it in person, its probably ok to censure and decide whether its appropriate to appear online, but I think that the core of that is that if you can be ‘real’ when talking on your blog, it will be easier to relate to.
I’ll probably come back to this more in the next couple of weeks, but I’d love to hear what YOU think. Don’t worry about the ‘policing’ of this - I personally believe that if you’re ethically orientated, and looking after your own blog, you’ll find that you’re policing yourself, and then the point of ‘policing’ becomes moot.
What do you think though? Do you think that there should be a secondary or appended code for link buying? Should there be a manifesto, or do you think its unimportant? Are you like me, and do something very close to this ‘naturally’?
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