Yesterday, I posted an update to the Kathy Sierra controversy – specifically, The New York Times reported Jimmy Wales and Tim O’Reilly are working together on a voluntary code of conduct/ethics for the blogosphere. (See their draft.)
Since the Times article came out yesterday (A1, above the fold, by the way), the blogosphere – perhaps not surprisingly – has responded with posts on both sides of the fence. So, here are some highlights from prominent journalism/digital media bloggers that I thought were interesting:
No Twinkie Badges Here (BuzzMachine): Jeff Jarvis wrote, “This effort misses the point of the internet, blogs, and even of civilized behavior. They treat the blogosphere as if it were a school library where someone — they’ll do us the favor — can maintain order and control. They treat it as a medium for media.” Later in the post, Jarvis continued, “These pledges are all the more dangerous because big-media people think they are ethical and we’re not because they have pledges and we don’t. Let’s not fall in that trap. You have to make ethical judgments every day with every thing you do and no pledge is going to help you do that. Your mother either did that job — or didn’t.”
The Value of Anonymous Commenters (Chaz Proulx, NH Insider): Chaz Proulx wrote, “The fact is that very often the best comments I read are from anonymous sources. That’s how the press gets the best information. Investigative journalists would be weaponless without the source that talks on “the condition of anonymity.” That’s what brought down Richard Nixon—deep throat remained anonymous for thirty years, but he changed history.”
The Baby and the Bathwater (Yelvington.com): Steve Yelvington wrote today, “This territory is at once dangerous and silly. Dangerous because claiming to adhere to a published code could place a blogger at legal risk that otherwise might not exist. Silly because it's not going to solve any problems. No matter how many codes of conduct or ethical guidelines or terms-of-service documents we amass, some people are just going to be jackasses. The sort of person who threatened Kathy Sierra isn't going to be deterred by a code of conduct."
BehaveYourself.com (Chicago Tribune Editorial): "This, of course, is not going to work. What it is likely to do is drive traffic away from Web sites that try to be responsible and toward Web sites that don't. One aspect no one wants to recognize about the Internet is its capacity to bottom-feed at an instant's notice."