TWO influential Netizens, tech publisher Tim O’Reilly and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, have called on bloggers to work together in coming up with a Blogger’s Code of Conduct.
Check out Abe Olandres’ blog entry on this initiative.
And here’s an excerpt from a Guardian Unlimited story:
While I was offline all long weekend, the blog code of conduct debate snowballed somewhat. Web veteran Tim O’Reilly waded in to the debate hand-in-hand with Wikipedia Daddy Jimmy Wales, and between the two of them came up with a seven point list of standards.
Needless to say, opinion seems to be ferociously divided on this. I personally see these as standards, rather than rules, and these are all opt-in. So if you don’t like it, don’t use it. It’s about a loose a proposal as possible.
How about you, what do you think of the proposed Blogger’s Code of Conduct?
April 12th, 2007 at 6:44 am
Be responsible. That’s essentially what Tim OReilly is saying in this proposed code of conduct for bloggers. I remember stumbling upon a similar proposal from cyberjournalist.net before. you can check this out: http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php
There are indeed unwritten rules in blogging. But as O’Reilly says it is time to write them down to “formalize blogging behavior.” One thing that strikes me is his suggestion that we should not blog things that we wouldn’t say in person. That again falls on being a responsible blogger. It is clear that the same code we journalists practice is now being applied to blogging.