Comments on: Blogger’s Code of Conduct – Do We Need Stinking Badges?

By: Proud to be Anonymous

Proud to be Anonymous — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 00:24:47 +0000

The O’Reilly Saga continues in his comments section. O’Reilly says he knows the person who attacked Kathy Sierra. He gets the victim and the perpetrator together on CNN – then somebody pumps up the NY Times publicity machinery for both the victim and the perpetrator. It doesn’t take a genius to see who may be benefiting from this little fracas.

Then O’Reilly starts blaming a random responder as being one of the attackers.
And when bloggers respond, most of the track backs lead to O’Reilly’s Radar Website – and (duh – as an Internet expert!) he is unaware that there are persistent error messages generated in his responders’ posts, so that it becomes a hit and miss game whether the post actually gets published or not.

Perhaps Tim’s involvement relates to this little gem.

Sierra’s current gig, along with her partner Bert Bates, is developing and producing the bizarre new Head First series of books for O'Reilly.

By: G.A.Phillips

G.A.Phillips — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 04:59:27 +0000

I had thought it a creatively and humorously way to get your point across be it the subject at hand or to a point that someone was trying to make about it and or the way they make it and to call each other upon such things as we see would make a difference in swaying said persons opinion be it you to I or I to you in what ever way that we would deem necessary, say for example: satirical comedy, or practiced stupidity, or absurd redundancies, or just the strait truth witch is some times the best of all,and yes some times it can get a little over top but some times you need to reach a little over the top to gain some ones attention, yes and some times the heat of battle or the urgency of purpose leads us to say things that are regretful, we in the end are all human and made up of mistakes and of feelings, mostly, and of humbleness and forgiveness, hardly. So as always forgive me if in any why I have harmed any of you for it was not my intention, be it the truth I have told you or my fools way of telling it.

By: Bithead

Bithead — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 21:02:04 +0000

What this amounts to, is who we are are going to let control the conversation. When I see somebody who's trying to invoke the code of conduct, particularly one that they aren't likely not to abide themselves, I figure it amounts to somebody trying to control the conversation. At least they're trying to control one side of it. Look; I don't think it's an accident that this subject should come up on the bleeding edge of a presidential election cycle, which has all the earmarks of looking very nasty indeed, particularly among Dems who are downright desperate to regain power to the levels they had twenty years ago. It appears from here as if the majority of the people who are whining, calling for such a code are the self-same liberal democrats, who have a tendency to put all of their trust in government to solve all their problems.... including ones that don't exist. When I see this, I recognize this code sooner or later is going to become law... if we let this proceed any further. Damned if I will allow someone else…. government or otherwise… to control the conversation on my site. It’s simply not going to happen. And at the moment I still have the constitution on my side of this argument.

By: Matt Johnston

Matt Johnston — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:07:24 +0000

Civility in the Blogosphere is like civility in the living sphere, it is a matter of personal honor and personal choice. It can neither be enforced by a code of conduct nor imposed upon those who choose to ignore it.

My mother said, "If you can't be civil, be silent."

By: yetanotherjohn

yetanotherjohn — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:07:32 +0000

The commenters are responsible for their own speech. If the blogger wrote something that set off the commenter, it is worth while to review if you were wrong or misunderstood (as in non-blogging life, recognizing that both possibilities are at least as likely as the commenter being truly evil willed is a healthy thing).

I think a blogger should have the right to delete any comment for any reason. If he is just deleting those who disagree, let the word pour forth. If he deletes them for the same reason you would ask a guy to pipe down in public, great. If the blogger wants their comments to be a free fire zone, that's okay also. It's easy enough on most blogs to scoop the cream (hopefully the blog posts) from the other stuff that can float (usually the comments). Making the blogger responsible for the comments greatly adds to the work for the blogger and doesn't add much to the blog.

The only guideline I could clearly endorse is #7, but then that should be part of everyone's life, not just in regards to being on line.

By: McCain

McCain — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 18:17:05 +0000

I'm with the anarchists. Visitors have free will to choose an environment in which they wish to invest their time.