As has been widely reported, Tim O'Reilly has come up with a draft code of conduct for bloggers, which includes points such as :

• 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 don't have any particular disagreement with any of the points made. But rather the exercise itself seems absurd.

Does a blog represent a significantly different entity from other websites that it requires some special code of conduct? To my mind, no. The idea that because something is labelled a blog, then you might suddenly decide to apply a code of conduct to it seems bizarre to me.

I don't know the web will develop. But I know that things change. When I first got online, IRC and Usenet were cool places to hang out. They seemed to become less popular and everyone was using web forums. Before I knew it everyone had their own blog and now maybe things are shifting again with some people spending more time twittering than blogging. The way we use the web, express ourselves and interact with others seems to be something that's always changing.

So it seems to me that a code of conduct for blogging is pretty irrelevant, unenforceable and almost certainly a waste of time. By all means have some best practice recommendations that maybe a new blogger can get in a welcome email (in the same way that netiquette has always existed), but a code of conduct that presumably people should sign up to, and adhere to else risk losing their "bloggers' badge" and be cast into the underworld of rogue bloggers with their profanity and anonymous comments sounds like a real non starter.

Labels: blogs, code of conduct