I’ve shared my thoughts @ 901am again today, but got to say I agree with Tony as well, well considered commenting policies aren’t a bad idea, particularly given that I hate being censored in a comment thread, and I’d be more likely to not participate in discussions at blogs where comments are regularly deleted.
I’ve been thinking about the whole code of conduct thing some more, and trying to be positive, if there was a voluntary one, here’s some things it should include
1. Be honest
I hate liars far more than I occasionally dislike people with whom I disagree. I know people don’t agree with everything I write (ok, don’t all put your hands up) but I hope that people will at least respect me for being honest in my thoughts. BTW I also get it wrong on occasion, but being honest also means admitting when you’re wrong.
2. Think outside your own location/ State/ Nation
I hate it when wankers bloggers in California talk about California like it’s the centre of the universe and the whole world is just like them. It’s not. You don’t have to be considerate of others, but being a self obsessed pretentious wanker doesn’t make for a good blogger.
Note: this rule doesn’t include personal posts obviously.
3. Don’t censor yourself
Kind of ties into 1, but it’s about holding back. Unless you’ve got a legal document/ agreement that prevents you from speaking on things, don’t hold back, being bland doesn’t make for interesting blogging and you’d be better of buying RSS to Blog and setting your blog onto auto, the net result is the same.
4. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say to a persons face
This is actually lifted from Tim O’Reilly, and it’s the most sensible thing he proposes. If you want to call a spade a f*cking shovel on your blog, only do so if you’d do it in person. If I met Tim O’Reilly tomorrow, I’d ask him for example whether he was raised by hippies? 🙂
5. Learn to accept criticism
Ok, the hard one, and it’s one I have to personally work on at all times, although having said that I’ve gotten better over the years, but disagreeing with someone doesn’t mean you’re out to get them (Scoble) or there’s some sort of massive conspiracy of people plotting against you (Scoble). I disagreed on occasion with a whole pile of people I have a lot of respect for, and if I ever met in person I’d probably have some great conversations with, Calacanis, Denton, Winer to name a few, and I’d think that they’d understand that you don’t have to agree with everything someone does to get along with them…indeed if everyone agreed with everyone else not only would it be a boring world, we’d all be driving kombies, smoking pot, and chanting Tim O’Reilly’s Blogging Code of Conduct over and over again.
If anyone has any other ideas, let me know, a 4 day long weekend and my minds worn out now. Maybe we can put together an alternative blogging code of conduct 🙂
