Blogger’s Code of Conduct

I hereby decree the Blogger’s Code of Conduct to be a fail. Those badges… They are hilarious. The idea of putting a “Civility Enforced” sheriff’s star on my blog to let people know I moderate comments just cracks me up to no end. It’s almost as funny as the “free speech zones” instituted by our dear government, but much less alarming.

Scobble doesn’t think this is a good idea, but he seems to still be on the fence about it. Personally I think this whole thing is laughable. Get off the damn fence Scobbble, and go with your gut instinct. We all know this is silly.

This whole thing is just a knee jerk reaction to that whole Kathy Sierra thing. Granted that it was messed up, but come on. Does anyone actually really think that a code of conduct and “blog badges” are going to solve the internet troll infestation problem?

O’Reilly’s code seems to just be an attempt to push his own personal comment policy on the rest of the blogging world, and I’m not buying it. I already have my own policy here which is short, sweet and intuitive:

“no spammin, no hatin, no flamin, no fucking with my layoutz, trollz GTFO”

In fact this is so intuitive, that I don’t even have to spell it out anywhere. Most people naturally abide by this code – and if they don’t they are usually up to no good anyway. If they cross the line and post something blatantly offensive, their comments get deleted. And if they are particularly nasty, I just block their IP so that they don’t come back.

See, I already abide by most of Tim’s guidelines (#1, #2, #4 and #6). Technically i also abide by #5 since I do require you to enter an email address to post. However I do this mostly so that you can get notifications about other comments in that thread – so it’s kinda there for your convenience.

The guideline #3 is tricky. In some situations it is best to talk privately. In others public discussion is probably more beneficial to anyone. Still, just as with all the other points, it is a common sense thing.

Do I really need a silly badge in my sidebar? Maybe if you are a big name among the A list bloggers this might be worth while to implement. It’d be like having a “I support Kathy Sierra” bumper sticker on your blog. In fact it would be very much like those “I support the troops” stickers people use. Unfortunately both stickers make you look like a duchebag. We all support the troops, and we all feel bad for Kathy Sierra. We just don’t need to advertise it to the world with a tacky bumper sticker or a sheriff’s star badge.

Screw the pompous “Code of Conduct”. I think Tony Hung has a much better, and simpler idea. Instead of subscribing to some code, simply have a comment policy and spell it out in a visible place on your blog.

[tags]tim o’reilly, blogger’s code of conduct, code of conduct, kathy sierra, conduct badges, badges, scobble, tony hung, comment policy[/tags]