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An Alternative to O’Reilly’s Politeness Manifesto: The Un-Code

As Mike A. lines out effectively on CrunchNotes, the stink around the Sierra blog attacks from a week or two ago is now being perpetuated by Tim O’Reilly, who has surfaced a fluff-ridden “Blogger’s Code of Conduct.”

Out of all of the huggable, do-gooder posturing in the Code, there’s only one line that really makes any sense: “We won’t say anything online that we wouldn’t say in person.” That is to say, don’t be an jerk in your posts or in your comments. Or, if you are, expect to be banned/ostracized/etc. the same way you would be in the RW.

Other notions about banning anonymous comments, chasing commenters to get them to apologize to each other (puh-leez), aim to do nothing more than turn the blogosphere into the same padded, supervised, politically correct, injury free, la-la-la happy land that has replaced school playgrounds. For crying out loud, let’s put on our adult-hats, take the good with the bad, and move on with a newfound sense of awareness that (a) there are jerks on the internet and you probably don’t want to be one, and (b) the web community is very effective at calling out jerks without the need for codes of conduct.

Of course, I certainly don’t condone what happened to Sierra or any reprehensible behaviour like what took place in that context. Nor, however, do I think the appropriate response is the nanny-fication of the blogosphere or the introduction of a vigalante politeness corps. Instead, I propose a revised manifesto, based on O’Reilly’s pt. 4, like this:

THE BLOGGERS CODE OF CONDUCT: A Simple Test

1. “Do online as you would in person.”
Before every post or comment you make, ask yourself whether you would be comfortable shouting it out loud from a well-lit lectern in an auditorium full of 300 people that included, friends, family, and a whole lot of strangers. If the answer is “No,” revise and retest before posting.

I think that really sums it up. It leaves plenty of room for freedom of speech, and leaves “regulation” in the hands of individual bloggers and readers. That is to say, if you’re comfortable shouting out offensive stuff in a roomful of people, expect to be heckled, and then the auditorium to empty quickly.

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