Don't Blog Stupid

I have a long standing rule never to blog angry.  "Don't Blog Angry" is a topic I've written about in this blog and others - and have led discussion at conferences as well.

Don't blog angry seemed to be enough.

Now I see I need to add "Don't Blog Stupid" to my list (now grown to two).

Last Month, Kathy Sierra was horribly mistreated by some people with very puerile senses of humor.  It very much upset the entire blogging community.  In response to this, the blogosphere has begun to draft a Blogging Code of Conduct. 

I'm not quite as annoyed by this as others, I see this as a community (or uber-community) taking the time to lay out some fundamental community values.

There are six major values:

1. We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog.

2. We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person.

3. We connect privately before we respond publicly.

4. When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.

5. We do not allow anonymous comments.

6. We ignore the trolls.

These are great as they are.  But these are writers and bloggers and they can't stop.  So the embellish with statements like:

We are committed to the "Civility Enforced" standard: we will not post unacceptable content, and we'll delete comments that contain it.

We define unacceptable content as anything included or linked to that:
- is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others
- is libelous, knowingly false, ad-hominem, or misrepresents another person,
- infringes upon a copyright or trademark
- violates an obligation of confidentiality
- violates the privacy of others

These bullet points are vague concepts masquerading as concrete statements.  Absolutely everyone in blogging knows that copyright and trademark infringement is an utterly gray area.

This is also highly focused on comments.  Perhaps this whole event should signal the need to lose the blogging "comments" format and push for blogging tools that allow actual meme tracking and multi-site discussion.

I vote for keeping the 6 tenets of blogging above and to lose, quickly, the "supporting" text.   Or, of course, to just lump them all under "Don't Blog Stupid."

 

Technorati tags: bloggers code of conduct, tim o'reilly, kathy sierra, blogging

Blogged at my house in Seattle with Live Writer

Comments

[Bill Anderson]

Jim, I like the pithy statement. But what I like better are the 25 Rules of Considerate Conduct in the book Choosing Civility by P.M. Forni. Check out The Civility Initiative.

Surprising to me I find myself on the "we don't need no stinking badges" side w.r.t. O'Reilly's code.

[Edward]

Jim -

Maybe I surround myself with civil, reasonable people who quietly remove crap from their blogs without making a big fuss about it, I don't know.

Ignoring the trolls is not enough if you're running a personal blog. If someone is hijacking your space, you squash them out. If they want to post something, let them get their own server and pay their own hosting fees.

The appeal of being a petty tyrant in your own space is so great (the things you learn from the editors of The Onion, who are beholden to their advertisers, not their readers).