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A Hardheaded Look At The Blogger Code Of Conduct

One of my favorite bloggers, John Scalzi, takes a hardheaded look at the proposed blogger code of conduct, and has a common-sense response: He hates the code, but says bloggers need to take responsibility for their blogs, and understand that it's not a violation of free speech to delete offensive comments and ban the authors from coming back. He's right -- free speech can only survive in a civilized environment, when people start throwing around personal attacks and violent threats, then discussion is at a close.

Scalzi, who has one of the most civilized blog communities on the Internet, writes:

1. This is my site and I couldn't care less how anyone else thinks it should be run; anyone else who thinks they should have a say in how the site is run (i.e., "the community will police itself") is going to learn all the different ways I know how to say "kiss my ass."

2. Outside my site I couldn't possibly care less how people run their own sites. It's their site, let them do what they want.

3. Who elected Tim O'Reilly and Jimmy Wales the hall monitors of the Internet?

This Blogger Code of Conduct is predicated on two fundamental and fundamentally incorrect beliefs: One, that there's a "blogosphere" community in any coherent, structured and enforceable way; Two, that the people who write blogs are sufficiently similar, in personality and output of content, that an attempt to standardize any aspect of the conversation will be successful. There's also a third belief, reached from the first two, which is that this community of bloggers needs direction from its notable members/leaders, i.e., O'Reilly and Wales. This is equally incorrect.

I agree with most of what he has to say, but I disagree with his criticism of O'Reilly and Wales. I don't see them as being the self-appointed kings of the blogosphere. Rather, they're two guys who have street cred among bloggers who have laudably decided to use their leadership position to try to influence people to clean up the Internet.

And they're right. Large swathes of discussion areas on the 'net are just plain sewers where no decent people want to tread. I'm not talking about bad language here. I'm from Long Island, where the f-bomb is just punctuation. I'm not talking about porn; I figure if adults want to look at pictures of other adults in their birthday suits, that's their business.

The problem is that, for much of the population of the Internet, angry attacks are the normal mode of dialogue, and calling someone an moron is just a way to say hello. And that's wrong. It's bad behavior, and it drives decent people away.

Do you agree with the blogger code of conduct? Has the Internet gotten too hostile? What's the best way to keep things civil?

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