No word yet on if this is going anywhere, but Tim O'Reilly has posted a call for a Bloggers Code of Conduct following the Kathy Sierra - Chris Locke controversy.
In a nutshell:
1.)Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
2.)Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3.)Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
4.)Ignore the trolls.
5.)Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6.)If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7.)Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person.
Ways to bring this to schools?
A lot of common sense really.
But the problem with common sense as my dad always says; is that it is not that common....
technorati tags:o'reilly, blogger, code, conduct, sierra, locke
Hm. Changes needed.
"1.)Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog."
More bluntly: you are responsible for everything on your website.
People own their own words, yes, but you make the choice whether or not you want them on your website.
"2.)Label your tolerance level for abusive comments."
More bluntly: do not tolerate abusive comments.
I mean, sheesh - didn't we learn anything here?
"3.)Consider eliminating anonymous comments."
Why?
It's not the source of the comment, it's the content of the comment.
I allow both attributed and anonymous comments on my site. I remove both equally if they cross a line.
"4.)Ignore the trolls."
You can't ignore the trolls. I've tried. I have had a great deal of experience with the trolls.
If you ignore them, they act like they own your website.
You have to ban the trolls and remove any trace of their presence. Be persistent - they will go away if they discover they can't post anything to your site.
Stuff they post on other sites, well, you can't control that. But don't link to it, don't link to sites that link to it (make the owners aware of why), block trackbacks from it, and delete comments that refer to it.
Ignoring trolls is too passive. You have to deny them any voice at all in your world.
"5.)Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so."
No.
People who are abusers *want* you to take the conversation offline.
"6.)If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so."
If someone you know is behaving badly, tell them so. (subtle but important change of meaning)
"7.)Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person."
Amd vice versa - don't say anything in person (or in a private email, or a closed discussion list) that you wouldn't say on the open internet where everybody in the world can read it.
But all of that said...
Codes of conduct are useless.
If you behave decently, you will already follow something like this, and the code won't change your behaviour.
If you don't behave decently, then the code of conduct isn't going to stop you, and rather just gives you 'the letter of the law' as a technicality to duck behind if someone calls you on it ("well, it wasn't in the code, so I assumed it was OK...")
Posted by: Stephen Downes | Thursday, April 05, 2007 at 05:23 AM