Blogger Codes of Conduct
I very much like Tim O’Reilly’s post about a bloggers code of conduct.
It’s certainly possible to quibble with the specifics of Tim’s post, although personally I think he’s right on the mark. But more important, his post is among many legitimizing taking responsibility for the comments we allow on our blogs (Tim’s point #1). It’s a call not for a single code of conduct to govern all sites, but for codes of conduct.
We’ve always been responsible for comments: There’s always been a line we wouldn’t allow commenters to cross, or if there’s been no line, we’ve been responsible for that as well. But we need to be OK with setting out explicit guidelines. Conversations always work within norms, although they rarely need to be explicitly expressed: You know not to do a lot of insult humor at a board meeting and you know not to argue with the mourners at a funeral no matter how overstated the eulogy. Likewise, if you’ve been reading a blog for a while, you probably have a sense of what’s ok and what isn’t. But people leave comments on blogs they’ve read once. They come in with their own sense of what’s allowed. Fine. Good. But we should make explicit to them what our norms are.
Tim joins many in pointing to the BlogHer Community Guidelines. Count me in. I’m adding them to my comment form this morning. I’ll probably work on some minor personalizations over the next few days. (Passover approaches, and I’m under the weather, so it may take me a little longer.)
PS: There’s been a discussion along the same lines over at StopCyberBullying [Tags: cyberbullying blogging tim_oreilly blogher]