Skip to main content

Blogging Code of Conduct... stuff

Everyone seems to be talking about it today.

I made this comment on Ann Althouse's blog where commentators (Oh gross... the spell check wouldn't take "commentors",) seem to be coming down strongly on the side of "Code? I don't need no stinkin' code!"
"There does seem to be blogging community standards, just not on language or insult. Sock puppetry is soundly denounced. Changing posts without making a note of it is soundly denounced.

Interesting that those two things are trivially easy to do on blogs."

Come to think of it... that should have been, "There *do* seem to be blogging..." Humph. Grammar? I don't need no stinking grammar!

Anywho... the fact that sock-puppets and changing posts is easy to do may be *why* there is a general agreement that it's unacceptable.

I'm reminded of reading Westerns where a person's reputation and word, the prohibition on lying or allowing someone to call you a liar unchallenged, are assumed. It was vitally necessary in a situation where people might make a contract verbally with a handshake for good measure.

And I just thought of another similarity... anonymity. Read a Western and what is described is a place where people could and did reinvent themselves, refuse to identify themselves, yet would not lie.

To the extent that genre Western fiction represents something that was real as a concept (I'm sure people *did* lie) it's interesting to see the parallels with this new Wild Wild West. Not very refined are we, with a whole lot of shooting from the hip going on, but to say there isn't standards isn't true.

What's more, the standards that exist are genuine and organic because they have developed as the result of people rubbing against each other.

(And do I really have to say that criminal behavior, death threats or stalking, are wrong? But that's not a voluntary code of conduct, it's against the law.)

Comments

Synova said…
to say there *aren't* standards isn't true...

Uff da.

Low blood sugar, you think?
4:33 PM
Ymarsakar said…
I don't notice spelling or grammar unless I have trouble understanding the meaning.
6:58 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Suzanne Brockman lost me.

I just finished reading the latest paperback from Suzanne Brockmann. _Dark of Night_. I'm disappointed and that's a sad thing because I've absolutely loved her series of romances about SEAL team 16 and the Troubleshooters. Aparently I'm not alone. My complaint isn't the same as most of the others... I'm great with Sophia and Dave. I even am okay with Tracey being people smart. She and Decker did seem to come out of left field. I thought Decker was great even if I thought his overwhelming conflict was pretty lame. What I didn't care for was the politics. I read for escapism, for studly dangerous men acting like men, for sex, and adventure with guns, where our military are the good guys and the SEALs are supermen and military contractor's are heroes, too. (I wonder if Ms. Brockmann realizes that the Troubleshooters ARE Blackwater?) I do not read sexy action adventure to be presented with a *cause*. It's small things but they don...
14 comments
Read more

Tyranny.gov vs Tyranny.com

Compulsion is Compulsion, no matter who does it.  This is Brilliant Theft is Theft, no matter who does it. Freedom of Association has no room in it for *private* action   that takes that away Freedom of Association. If I have a business and have voluntary associations such that I choose to serve some people and to not serve others, that might make me a jerk and it might lose me business, it might make me smart and it might gain me business, but it's got to be my choice.  If I would normally serve the current disliked minority in my shop except for the fact that if I'm SEEN to serve them by the wrong people I'll have a private campaign against me as those people do everything possible to ruin me by preventing me from doing business physically or by attacking my customers or suppliers, then I am NOT free to make those choices. Does it really make a difference to losing my CHOICE to voluntarily associate if there's a law that says I may not serve "those people" o...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Shooter

I just watched the DVD. When I saw trailers for this I wanted to see it. It's the sort of movie that I usually enjoy. It wasn't bad. In fact it was pretty good in some ways and the annoying bits weren't too hard to ignore. The end was sort of bad. Not the choices that I'd make. It took conspiracy a bit too far, away from conspiracy to "this is the way the world works." It *should* have been enough to expose the Senator and his fellows. Where was the press in this? The idea wasn't too bad. The speech his spotter's widow gave about her dead husband's choices was good. (Though why she'd go back to using her maiden name I can't imagine.) Among all those willing to look the other way were several people who were... righteous. But overall it wasn't a "conspiracy" movie. There wasn't a "conspiracy" there was only finding out the "truth" of reality. In this world president Bush re...
14 comments
Read more