Blog code of conduct triggers backlash

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 10 April 2007 12:07

Your IT - Home IT

John C Welch's contribution at Bynkii included "So now Tim O'Reilly has the answer: The Blogger Nice People Patrol. Wait, I'm sorry, the 'Blogger's Code of Conduct'. I have to say that there's a word this brings up. Feces."

The scatalogical theme continued at 901am, where Duncan Riley used the epithet "hippy shit" to describe O'Reilly's efforts.

More constructively, he ended with "Civility is subjective, and controlling what people say and do on blogs can only be a recipe for the decline of the medium and the introduction of totalitarianism online, outcomes none of us want nor desire."

Riley and some other critics of the proposed code seem to assume that it will somehow be imposed upon bloggers. My reading is that it is intended more as something to help bloggers who prefer to maintain a civil tone, by giving them a framework for dealing those who post inappropriate comments. If a blogger wants to apply the proposed (or any other) code to their site, that's purely up to them.

(My personal blog does not allow and never has allowed visitors to post comments. If people want to comment about something I've written there, they can do so in their own blogs.)

Even if a blogger does give others the opportunity to leave comments, I believe the idea that those comments are somehow sacrosanct is without foundation. If someone has the means to post a comment to a blog, they have the means to set up their own blog or another type of web site. Claiming that deleting unwelcome comments is a free speech issue is rather like criticising a building owner for allowing someone to paint a mural on a wall but removing any graffiti that appears.

What I'd hate to see is a situation where it is legally more risky for bloggers to delete any comments because an inference will be drawn that those remaining are in some sense 'approved' by the blogger. I'm reminded of the instruction given to me when working one summer as a camp counselor: I was never to enter the swimming pool to help a camper in difficulty because I wasn't a qualified lifesaver and a failed attempt would carry a much greater risk of being sued than if I did nothing. That was a stupid situation, and insisting on 'all or nothing' when it comes to reviewing blog comments is equally stupid.

The code of conduct is being discussed and developed at Wikia, but I suspect all this will blow over with little to show for the effort.