O’Reilly Radar > Daft Blogger’s Code of Conduct

Posted on April 9, 2007
Filed Under Deep Thought, Fun on the Web, Rants, Techie stuff |

O’Reilly Radar > Draft Blogger’s Code of Conduct

What a piece of work this guy is. We don’t need a code of conduct, simply because it will merely restrict the activities of those who choose to follow it with everyone else carrying on as usual. This is merely a sop to the “Something must be done!” crowd and an attempt to get some press on the back of what happened to Kathy Sierra (and indirectly Cathy Seipp, sorry but its Fox.) which I find to be in extremely bad taste. I have every sympathy for Ms. Sierra but don’t think a ‘Blogger’s Code of Conduct’ is a solution.

People behaving as they did towards Ms. Sierra should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and ostracised from their respective online followings. There should be no protection of anonymity for such people. Stopping people posting anonymous comments, especially on sensitive issues where their livelihood or even lives may be at risk for doing so, is not a solution. Email addresses can be spoofed and names made up. IP addresses can be traced to an ISP who will hold records of who that IP belongs to (or in the case of dynamic addresses, who was using it at the time). I will not publish IP addresses

Citing ‘Freedom of Speech’ in these cases should not be taken seriously. To paraphrase Ms. Sierra: The threat of violence is just as damaging and ultimately oppressive as the violence itself. The instigation of violence against anyone is not acceptable in a supposedly civilised society and shouldn’t be tolerated, this does not require a code of conduct however and should be an accepted part of living in modern society.

It should be up to every individual blogger, the methods they use to deal with abusive and threatening behaviour on their blogs. If their blog dishes it out then they should expect to get it back and be prepared for such eventualities. It may be helpful if bloggers publish their individual policies but having a universal code of conduct goes too far. Its a step towards having the state regulating what people do on the internet, which by many is seen as the last true bastion of free speech and free expression. If such a code of conduct does become a reality (as it seems it might), those who do sign up to it should not be give preferential treatment over those who don’t. There is a risk that people with valid and important things to say, who for their own reasons don’t sign up, will be ostracised, ignored and seen to be less trustworthy than those who do. If blog directories and networks start making signing up to the CoC a prerequisite for being included in their lists then that will be a sad day for all bloggers.

As an addendum, here’s my policy towards abusive and threatening comments (not that I’ve ever had any, yet):

Publish them. I will publish them unedited and uncensored. If the author wants to show themselves up as being incapable of expressing themselves in a civil and intelligent manner that’s their business.
Anonymous comments aren’t allowed on this blog. Everyone has to give an email address. If this turns out to be a fake then I have the IP address of their host. If the comment is sufficiently threatening and/or abusive I’ll contact the ISP and inform them that one of their customers is behaving in a threatening manner (providing logs and such as proof). If it really gets out of hand I’ll contact the police.
If a commenter uses ad hominem attacks in a discussion I’ll point that out to them and tell them that I may well be a *insert derogatory name here* but that doesn’t invalidate my argument. Not only do ad hominem attacks fails to make the attackers point they also show them up to be incapable of making a logical and reasoned case for their side of the argument. They are ultimately self defeating.
I’ll never respond to abuse or threats by being abusive or threatening. Such behaviour usually only serves to inflame the situation.
Trolls will be pointed out as such and the readers allowed to respond or not as they see fit.

That about covers my policy with regards to reader comments.

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