panic anxiety

The brouhaha in the wake of misogynistic attacks on technology blogger Kathy Sierra hit after our first issue “was put to bed,” as they say in the business. But it’s still very much in the news, particularly the mainstream press. Sierra canceled a speaking appearance after receiving graphic death threats; police still are investigating. Vicious comments aren’t new, of course, and bloggers often decide to moderate or temporarily turn off comments once a few too many libelous, mean-spirited, vindictive or plain ol’ creepy people try to weigh in on a post, usually using aliases or the catch-all “Anonymous.” Some try to spoof other users and more than a few have created sites using someone else’s online identity.

Now some in the blogging community and tech industry are urging authors to adopting a voluntary code of conduct – one that sets limits on how much threatening or libelous information should be tolerated in the name of free speech. Proponents like publisher Tim O’Reilly and Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales say it’ll help tone down the ugliness that’s been oozing into the blogosphere. Opponents claim it makes them gag.

Is the time nigh for a self-enforced code of conduct? And, if it is, how on earth do you get millions of people with varied values and means of expression to play by a community’s specific ethics? Will enforcement be effective? Will it be uniform, given most codes created to date include a case-by-case clause?

In case you’re tuning in on this a little late, here’s the much-discussed Bloggers Code of Conduct (one of many that already exist or are being debated).

And here’ are some comments on the draft at O’Reilly’s blog. As you can see, efforts to bring more civility to blogging are not being unanimously cheered — nor jeered.

Another interesting take was the New York Times piece, which provides some background on the situation. A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 at 11:36 am and is filed under Blog Entry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.