Mark Evans

Roping in the Wild West

Tim O’Reilly certainly seems impassioned about creating a Code of Conduct for Bloggers. He’s even gone so far to create one, including a mantra that I suspect we’ll have to repat each morning before posting:

“We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation. But frankness does not have to mean lack of civility. We present this Blogger Code of Conduct in hopes that it helps create a culture that encourages both personal expression and constructive conversation.”

While I appreciate O’Reilly’s efforts, it seems like a Don Quixote-like exercise to try to impose rules of behavior on bloggers - even ones that focus on civility and respect (two characteristics that society, in general, needs more of). Who creates this Code of Conduct? What would the process be to establish the 10 Commandants of Blogging? And who would enforce them? Would we see bloggers chastising each other for not following the Code of Conduct?

Tony Hung makes a great point when he suggests O’Reilly is confusing a Code of Conduct with the need for a comment policy, while dismissing the idea of a Code of Conduct as “ludicrous”. As well, Michael Arrington argues that the “code of conduct and the mass of bloggers lining up behind it scares me a lot more than the hate comments and death threats I’ve received in the past. I won’t support it”

One angle I’d like to throw into this Code of Conduct discussion is my belief that the blogosphere will become more of a target for libel as blogs become increasingly part of the mainstream media. To date, bloggers have been able to get away with posts that may libel individuals and/or companies because the blogosphere is seen as a young, petulant child as opposed to being taken seriously as an emerging medium. But this will change soon, and bloggers will start to be scrutinized more carefully, including by people within the legal community. As a result, bloggers will have to start to think about how they write, and whether opinions and/or comments are get them in legal hot water. This isn’t so much a Code of Conduct than common sense.

Update: The New York Times has a story entitled “A Call for Manners in the Nasty World of Blogs”, which among other things, demonstrates O’Reilly’s PR savviness.

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