April 9, 2007
code of conduct
Tim O’ Reilley’s new blogging “Code of Conduct” is getting a lot coverage at the moment. Exactly why, I’m not sure. I suppose if it makes some people feel better about their lives, then that’s a good thing. Whatever.
I much prefer Johnnie Moore’s Code of Conduct. With only three points to it, it much shorter. And it’s far closer to something I would write, myself.
1. If you look that entire content of this blog, you’ll get some notion of how I conduct myself. It varies a bit.
2. You’ll also see how visitors conduct themselves. It, too, seems to vary.
3. The past is not necessarily a guide to the future.
Johnnie’s one of my favorite bloggers at the moment. And he’s even more interesting to hang out with in real life.
[UPDATE:] Jeff Jarvis is not impressed with Tim’s efforts to “play hall monitor”.
I’m a golden rule gal myself.
Try to do no evil.
Of course you being even more evil than Microsoft (are you still?) would have to tweak this.
I liked Codepope’s reply on The O’Reilly radar blog:
“But then this entire discussion is basically about the best way to nail jelly to the ceiling to stop it being used in a food fight. It’s going to be a messy failure and even if you do manage to do it, there’ll still be enough jelly around to start a food fight, and now there’s a hammer and nails which can get thrown around.”
Can’t people just moderate comments?
If some comment is crappy, don’t okay it.
No matter what, a blogger can’t do much against someone who is seriously deranged outside of what can be done in reality: Contact the police.
Or don’t I get it?
I read every post from gapingvoid and The O’Reilly Radar. Tim’s posts are always informative; I hear of a lot of neat tech projects by reading them. I was surprised to see this lame “code of conduct” thing show up.
I know of the background situation with Kathy Sierra that is prompting all of this discussion and that much is unfortunate. This code idea seems an overly simplistic self-congratulatory pat on the back, though. It’s odd, coming from such an intelligent web guy. It’s with good intentions I’m sure, but it’s not effective at all and is generating a lot of noise.
At least the badges rock!
dot dot dot
I follow Emily Post’s Etiquette. But, everyone once in a while the white gloves have to come off!
For the record, I had nothing to do with the Code of Conduct (except for the obvious — that I made that-post-I-now-regret), was never part of any discussions or “efforts” as a result of my post, and I don’t think the Code of Conduct makes any sense (or would ever work).
That a blogger should be allowed to have their own comment policy (without fear of censorship cries) seems more than enough, and probably all that *could* or should be done. This is a people problem, and nothing will prevent people from hate, harassment, threats, sexual intimidation, whatever…on either your own or someone else’s blog– and it grows in direct proportion to your visibility. It’s easy enough to hide one’s identity, spoof the identity of another, anonymize your IP address, etc., and I think the ability to be anonymous is too important to discourage.
So, you either can take it and give as good as you get — something Hugh can do ; ) or you get out and take another path, which I’m doing (path unknown, I just know it won’t be me as a (virtually) lone blogger/speaker, etc.)
I just wanted to get the word out that I was not part of this Code of Conduct – or any other attempt to *do* something that may have been prompted by what happened to me.
I still prefer my personal code of conduct, which I’ve used for several years, online and off: Don’t be a Jackass.