Blogger’s Code
Tim O’Reilly has come up with a draft code of conduct for bloggers. Now I see this as some nice advice - but nothing more.
This makes the following 7 points:
- 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.
Now this, as many of the good suggestions about management of the internet, out there is basically common sense.
Though the sentiment is nice I am unsure what else of use there is here. Yes I do believe that ultimately website owners - being blogs, forums or other forms of websites should be responsible for their content - but the real question is what is the point of a voluntary code?
Even with special badges and disclaimers like:
This is an open, uncensored forum. We are not responsible for the comments of any poster, and when discussions get heated, crude language, insults and other “off color” comments may be encountered. Participate in this site at your own risk.
At the end of the day this is all meaningless as ultimately there is little policing of the internet (at this level) and there is precedent for civil action against site/forum/blog owners even if they are not directly responsible for the comment that instigated the acton.
Don’t see what Tim O’Reilly has written as censorship or even a proposal for forming a ‘cleaner’ internet but I suggest every blogger or site owner to take this advice, as it is good advice.
