In the wake of the Kathy Sierra kerfuffle, there have been calls for a blogging code of ethics; the problem isn't with bloggers, or even their blogs.
O'Reilly Draws Up Blogging Code Policy
Civility and courtesy tend to break down behind the anonymity of the Internet. People who would never dream of cursing or threatening another person face to face lose that mental barrier when there is a keyboard and monitor involved.
It can be a rough and tumble Internet, when people post some pretty nasty stuff about others, whether it's on a website that claims to harbor
Tech book publisher Tim O'Reilly has stepped into the discussion with a draft of a
Or the ban on anonymity ("...if one wants to get himself hanged, only then he would in person criticize the regime").
Or the quaint concept of civility ("An American, well-known in blogging circles, tried to raise the civility issue with a European audience a while back and it went down like a lead balloon. ")
The problem with a blogging code of conduct, as pointed out in a few places, is that it wouldn't have mitigated the nastiness Sierra faced. It wasn't bloggers, but commenters, who anonymously created the attacks.
Tony Hung
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