The Blogosphere Grows Up a Little

Everyone has growing pains as they progress from toddler through to adulthood. The blogosphere is a living, dynamic thing and it's no different. It was inevitable, of course. That's not to say it's not painful for some, and emotional for many.

I debated on even mentioning it, but when it was picked up by the New York Times and the BBC (here and here), I had to investigate further.

To understand it, you have to acknowledge that as in any industry or field, there are certain high-profile folks. In the blogosphere, we have our own "stars" or "celebrities." People like Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, Kathy Sierra, just to name a few. These folks are incredibly high profile, speak at many events, are public figures that express their views on widely read and well respected blogs. The rest of us are just regular bloggers and the rest of us make up the majority of the blogosphere. In fact, for many of us, these blog stars exist on the periphery of our blogging existence, if at all. So, why are their problems important?

It's similar to how when high-profile chefs focus in on certain foods. Maybe Emeril makes a jambalaya extra special and showcases it in his restaurant, cookbooks and TV show. Eventually, that same style of jambalaya, in a cheaper, less artistic, and less tasty version will filter down to the regular and inexpensive restaurants of the world, such as the Cajun place in the mall food court. It's slow, but the high-profile folks have an effect on the rest of us.

Let's get to the situation at hand. Kathy Sierra, of Creating Passionate Users, received several threatening emails and comments on her blog. At the same time this situation was escalating, another site called Mean Kids was launched. Personally, I don't get the vision behind Mean Kids, as it does seem rather juvenile to me. But I don't know the thought process that went behind it. Maybe it was intended as a sardonic and witty comment on our society. Maybe they were just being mean. Having not seen the site, I am not qualified to judge. However, it is public knowledge that one of the Mean Kids, posting anonymously, actually turned mean, and crossed a line from humor to threatening. Someone on that site posted death threats and rude comments about Kathy Sierra and others. The site came down. Another site that was similar in content went up instead, perhaps with the intent to exercise more control. The experiment quickly got out of hand again. In the end, Kathy Sierra was faced with threats of all levels from multiple sources. It scared her, and she has withdrawn from the E-Tech event and from blogging. In the process of revealing this information, a lot of names got dragged in and out of the mud and prominent bloggers all commented.

As the blogosphere, or at least the high-profile part, reeled from all this, Tim O'Reilly (yep, the guy who puts animals on his tech books) decided to step in. I concur with many bloggers out there that his actions as "hall monitor" are slightly misguided, no matter how well intentioned. O'Reilly has issued a draft Blogger Code of Conduct and suggests blogs have badges - those who subscribe to the Code of Conduct and those who have an "Anything Goes" badge. Basically, Anything Goes means that any sort of comment can be posted on the blog.

It raises valid questions. Are bloggers responsible for the comments posted to their blogs? Can we censor the comments, and is it censorship? What information do we actually own, when it comes to our blogs, and how accurate are we expected to be? Should we allow anonymous commenting? Are we responsible for the people who choose to remain anonymous?

I don't have answers, but I do have an emotional reaction to the whole thing. I think it was bound to happen to someone at some time. Human nature dictates that when there are a lot of people engaging in an activity, at least one person will act like an idiot. (I can't scientifically back up my idiot theory of course.) In this case, the idiot scared a lot of people in the blogosphere. The reactions have run the emotional gamut. After all, it's not like bloggers are a quiet, repressed bunch. We blog because we like to share.

It's my blog and I'll post what I want. I don't need a badge to advocate basic rules of being polite. I am polite and I expect it from my readers on each blog I run. I encourage people to disagree. It's great and it creates a dialogue. That's what Web 2.0 is all about - sharing, learning, collaboration, growing your own viewpoint by being exposed to others. If someone disagrees with me, I'm not going to delete the comment. However, if someone posts something that truly offends me, be it language or violence, well, I'm going to delete it. It won't see the light of day. I moderate the comments and I always will. It's my blog. I don't want to be offended and my other readers don't want to either. I don't need a Code of Conduct to tell me that.

I also don't allow anonymous posts, but truly, I do that because it cuts back on spam.  For a while, the spam was so bad I turned commenting off. That's been changed, but there are certain restrictions I keep in place, such as no anonymous comments and the CAPTCHA to curtail it. By the way, the only offensive comments I've ever deleted from any of my blogs were posted by blatant spammers. When it comes down to it, you can read a blog, and read the comments, and decide if that blog is right for you. If it's not, you don't have to read it. That, folks, is common sense, and doesn't require a Blogging Badge.

I'm not the only one rather conflicted and coming out against the Code of Conduct. I really don't think it will fly. People like Cory Doctorow and even Robert Scoble are uncomfortable with the whole thing. In fact, the best dissection of the proposed Code was written by Tristan Louis. There is also an odd kind of pressure those folks are feeling, like disagreeing with Tim O'Reilly could hurt their career. I suppose the high profile folks will work it all out. I encourage everyone to contribute to the conversation though. If you're a blogger, express your opinion, either way, about the Code of Conduct. It's not like writing your congressman. In theory, the call of the blogging masses in this dialogue will set standards for the future. And just like restaurants, the ideas at the top will trickle down to the rest of us.

In the meantime, down here in the middle-class blogosphere, we'll just stick with basic tenets of human kindness and common sense, and occasionally deleting the spammers and idiots.

Technorati Tags: Code of Conduct, Blogosphere, Web 2.0, Growing Up, Growing Pains