A Blogger’s Code of Conduct - Queue Dr. Phil….

Apr 4th, 2007 | By Steven Hodson | Category: The Social Web

“..and how’s that working for you?”

Let’s get serious here for a moment if we can please.

A code of conduct for bloggers … you can’t be serious.

Sure the whole mess surrounding Kathy Sierra recently sucks the big one but to suggest that we retaliate by creating and instituting a blogger code of conduct as put forth by Tim O’Reilly is really nothing more than a waste of time and verbal ego massaging.

You can be guaranteed that some wordy 9 point list of feel good words isn’t going to change anything in the blogging world one iota. I have seen this kind of behavior long before the internet was a glint in Al Gore’s eye. The old bulletin board echo’s (conversation groups) had more than their share of idiots that thought is was okay to do this same sort of thing. In some cases it became a verbal art form called a flamefest; and not just the watered down version of name calling we see today. Back then the true flamers were considered verbal artists who could render you asunder under a barrage of phraseology that would leave you going .. “Huh”, “damn” .. and hoping your pair of asbestos underwear holds out.

It strikes me as humorous that this idea is being floated by the upper class of the tech blogosphere; but really this is the only place it would even have a chance of working. In the mass of blogs outside of this realm of top flyers it doesn’t stand a chance. The reason for this is that for the majority of these top bloggers the chance that they will see each other at some conference or meetup rates pretty high. So there is always that chance of social or peer pressure taking its toll on those with verbal diaherra. For the rest though the chance is next to nil; which for them is the next best thing to being anonymous and we all now how brave people can be when they think no-one knows them or they will never really meet the person they are attacking.

As Paul O’Flaherty said:

Some people are simply unethical, uncaring and insensitive. Some people only care about their own agenda.

Which is made all the easier when no-one knows you are really a dog in a trailer park with a pickup in the driveway. Then there is always the question of how it would be enforced and who would do the enforcing. This was one of the points raised by Jason

Who the heck would enforce said code of conduct? Will some “blog police” randomly visit blogs and report to a central authority? And what about punishment; would people’s “ethical blogger card” be taken away? That sounds like so much fun it makes me want to post fifty times a day just to test it out.

The way I see it when you visit this blog for your daily intake of my ramblings you are in a sense coming into my home. As such I expect that out of respect you will follow the rules of the house; of which insulting or demeaning others is not allowed. Would you allow it this type of behavior of some-one when they come to your home?

Now I might not be able to kick you out like I could if you where sitting at my kitchen table but I can certainly delete any comments that step over the bounds; and do so without being accused of censorship. Bad and hurtful behavior is just that - regardless of whether it happens in your home or on your blog and as such it is up to the individual to deal with and not because of some silly code of conduct.

[tags]blogs, bloggers, blogging, code of conduct[/tags]