What Blogging is Ruining Now. Pt.1: Civility.

The reverberations from the blog-based death threats aimed at Kathy Sierra continue. The New York Times ran a piece about Tim O’Reilly’s attempt to create a blog code of conduct. (h/t George who in turn tipped his to Jack/Zen)
Needless to say, Blogistan is not down. I found one good critique on Ars Technica. Surely more will follow.

Meanwhile, a nasty bit of trolling on Buckeye State (and spilling over to other blogs including this one) led to this debate about how to handle it. I thought, along with some other users, that Jerid should out the troll. He disagreed. I understand his position, though I would make a different choice.

Meanwhile, there is someone out there who we apparently know who is either utterly full of bile and vitriol directed toward me an a number of my closest online friends, or fakes that vitriol so effectively that it’s hard to believe it doesn’t actually exist on some level. I have a hard time describing how that makes me feel beyond “not good.” Not good will do for now.

UPDATE: A post identifying the troll is up. Whatever, Tim.

Back to the blog code of conduct. As I said when first posting the Sierra story, my problem with the proposed code of conduct is that what happened to Kathy Sierra should violate anyone’s code of conduct. The proposal goes farther than that, encouraging blog administrators to scrub comments that, among other things “misrepresent” someone else’s position. No one hates being misrepresented more than yours truly, but I’m a big boy and can set posters right myself.

The code of conduct simply goes too far, but that may be the point. One way to improve behavior is to set rules sufficiently stringent that the violations on the margins aren’t so bad. Kind of like speed limits. We all know that the cops won’t pull you over for 67 in a 65; what they are trying to do is keep you under seventy.

So understandable, but still I think wrongheaded. In the blog context rules like the more draconian ones proposed will most likely be applied with bias. And if not, surely when they are applied, the accused will claim bias.

Instead, what we need is a reaffirmation of some very basic rules. Don’t threaten physical harm, don’t lie and (this is mine, not universally accepted) don’t attack people not part of the discussion. The one thing the Buckeye State troll did that really got my goat was accusing me of scrubbing people for disagreeing with me. In fact, the only reasons I’ve contemplated deleting comments are those listed above, and I’ve only ever opened door number three.

Blogs will always be rough and tumble. Sure, there will be Shiny Happy blogs for people who want them, but the online world will always have its rough edges. At the same time, we can't pretend there are no limits whatsoever. We don't need to protect people from getting feelings hurt, but people need to feel safe online. Some very basic rules, and the collective will to enforce them, should be enough.