O'Reilly Turns Criticism Into Civil Discourse

After the uproar caused by his proposed
No doubt the roar, even a digital one, of collective dismissal is enough to spur the tremors. Bravo, Mr. O'Reilly.

The blog post centers on "Lessons Learned," and begins with an admission that the sheriff's badge icon, an image intended to connote a voluntary ascription to a set of blogging morals, would actually convey heavy-handed blawg (word inspired by the self-titled "
These concessions, these reexaminations, are tempered soon after with a (civil) calling-out of Web-pioneer Jeff Jarvis for what O'Reilly felt was hypocritical commentary. Jarvis was critical of O'Reilly's "
O'Reilly begs to differ:

A quick look at buzzmachine shows that Jeff does in fact have just such a "badge" on his site. In fact, he has two. It's just that they are text badges rather than graphics. There's one prominent link entitled Rules of Engagement that states "Any email sent to me can be quoted on the blog. No personal attacks, hate speech, bigotry, or seven dirty words in the comments or comments will be killed along with commenters." And there's another one entitled About me /Disclosures that lists all of Jeff's financial entanglements.

That's at the heart of what he wants – a Chivalrous code among bloggers, a Hippocratic oath of sorts to uphold certain principles, a kind of Cyber-Masonic club, an Ichthus above the door.

And that, in a word, is noble.

In addition to the symbolic adherence of, forgive me, the Upright Bloggers Brigade, O'Reilly is calling for more careful moderation of comments from them – a dangerous line walked, to be sure.

Knee-jerk responders bemoan the implications for freedom of expression, imagining blog overlords (a bit grandiose, don't you think?) picking and choosing what's okay to talk about. Of course, it is their house, you may argue, and they can tolerate what they wish.

The other concern is liability. Bloggers are reluctant to edit comments because, according to some legal circles, any instance of editing is tantamount to responsibility for publishing of libelous statements that may appear from third parties.

But for O'Reilly, deleting comments isn't about limits on speech, it's about limits on "unpleasantness," turning the corner from the chivalrous to the downright dandy (in the Continental sense of the word – think of powdered wigs or, if you have the frame of reference, Christopher Walken's