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A Blogging Code of Conduct Won’t Work

You know, I have a huge problem with a Blogging Code of Conduct, such as the one proposed over on Tim O’Reilly’s Radar in the wake of the Kathy Sierra situation (which of course is now a lot calmer, but with no coverage of the resolution). And you know what my problem this?

This is not a problem restricted to blogging. The attacks on Sierra were from people posting pictures and comments on a discussion website, not bloggers or commenters on the blog. If you’ve ever moderated a large forum (such as All About Symbian’s) then you know flame wars, attacking words and threats are part of the daily rough and tumble; hang out in IRC for a while and you’ll get your very own Web 0.2 stalker; try joining in the chats in MySpace (or even Suicide Girls) and discover the part of the net marked Here Be Dragons.

The internet is still the wild west. It still allows people to be who they genuinly are. Humans are competitive, they’ll try to be the best, they’ll strive to either make themselves bigger, or others smaller when they are given truly free regin. Yes it’s wonderful that many of us can rise above that, but many people say nasty things - a lot of the time it is by accident, sometimes it is by desgin.

I don’t think we’ll ever find an answer that truly works. Libel and Defamation cases still abound in Courts aroud the world for that very reason.

I’m all for a small group of FOO bloggers to support this (and the highly gung-ho Sherrifs Badge logo), but it’s not the answer. It’s not even the beginning of the answer. It’s something completely unqworkable, stating the obvious, and makes people feel good about doing something, when in reality it won’t make a bit of difference. If you’re that concerned, follow Tony Hung’s advice and post the policy for your own comments space. But let’s not be all hippy and have a small group of people post a bloggers code and use that as a stick to beat up everyone. Isn’t that what they’re rallying against in the first place?

Addendum: Michael Arrington sums it up very nicely.

April 9, 2007; Personal Posts;

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