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Bloggers Propose Code of Conduct
akintayo writes "The New York Times reports that in response to the recent brouhaha, some technology bloggers have suggested raising the level of civility on tech blogs by implementing a code of conduct. Kathy Sierra, a technology blogger and friend of O'Reilly was subjected to threats and insults from readers and other bloggers. In partial response, O'Reilly and others have proposed a code of conduct which could include restrictions like the outlawing of anonymous accounts."
Jeff Jarvis takes it apart better than I could.
This flies in the face of science.
just for those that don't get it, here's the expanded, collectors edition of my "hmmm":
/. is that it doesn't delete the trolls/flames; it's uncensored, but it works.
who does the managing?
as a subset of that: can we trust them? what about potential abuse? etc.
how does restriction produce greater freedom?
how can you get more free than uncensored?
and now the special features, aka rambles:
one of the things i love about
Of course, it only works because of the millions of users willing to forsake their right to speak for the greater good... how this would work with mom 'n' pop's blog site that some viagra spammer is targetting, I don't know. Actually. I do. It wouldn't
I've had the feeling for a while that net communication would work a lot better if *everything* was anonymous. In the truly anon sense; "user24" is not anonymous. My internet footprint is massive.
I recall when this story broke originally that she started blaming various bloggers for the threats with zero evidence, among them some fairly prominent names,
Note that there's a big difference between a known blogger "insulting" you and an anonymous one writing threats.
A blogger's code of conduct? "We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person." Yeah, might as well shut down the entire Internet.
The great thing about it is you can say what you want. It's a double-edged sword, but trying to turn it into a butter knife will simply result in everything becoming numbingly dull corporate-speak.
The most prominent and usual argument I have seen for non-anonymity is that it raises the level of civility and constructiveness in a forum, because people are personally accountable for their statements.
But what mechanisms actually lie behind this? Surely the concept of accountability for unconstructive or insulting posts relies on the mechanisms of fear and status. If someone doesn't care about status, then it is all fear - you are fearful that posting the insulting comment will result in negative experiences for you personally. Which it most likely would and is part of the intended design from the beginning - the rationale is that if someone goes around posting 'Sieg heil, sieg heil' or 'gay homofagosexuals' in comments section, then their real name _should_ be visible, so that cyber and real life activists can descend upon them and intimidate and frighten them from posting stuff like that again, and also that the government can rule them out of jobs like e.g. social care where their mindset is a danger to the health of children and the vulnerable.
Compare this to the mechanism in China. Why do people criticise China for banning anonymous blogs? Because they somehow infer that posting unpopular or government/society-critical will lead to them being personally harassed, subject to cyber and real life activism, and also that the government can rule them out of jobs.
The difference between the 'evil guys' (China) and the 'good guys' (us) then becomes that they harass people for saying good and true things, while we just harass people for saying deconstructive and antisociety and insulting things towards groups and individuals that they deserve harassment for.
I generally don't like Michelle Malkin, but she's gone through much more of this than Kathy Sierra. You have a lot of this in the political blogging world directed at women who take conservative or libertarian views. In fact, with Malkin, add in everything that was done to Sierra, AND a load of racism from even mainstream liberals like those at Wonkette who've been known to make racial sexual slurs against her.
But hey, that's ok! Bitch brought it on herself, right?
Seriously, this is like only noticing that racism is a problem, when a "nice, pretty black women" gets in trouble with the KKK.
Absolute genius, I couldn't agree more. Why does it all have to go down to "we can't follow the route we're running!", why aren't we just living life? The imaginary problems we've dreamed up for entertainment are only there because they tend to touch raw human emotions and are grasp ones attention much more effectively, I hope we don't always have to live in societal "fear" of our oddly 1984-ish dystopian realm. Don't label me as an Orwelli-zealot just yet, think about it. Good post, Moraelin.
You think someone receiving death threats, and consequently cancelling speaking engagements and their blogging activities, is an "imaginary problem"?
Yes, the problem is sometimes overhyped. But that doesn't mean it's not really there and people aren't really being damaged by it. The world is not drawn in black and white.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.