Blogging code of conduct
After a high profile blogger in the US received death threats some bloggers stopped blogging in sympathy and others, such as Tim O’Reilly (founder of hilarious image catchphrase O RLY?) have proposed a code of conduct for blogging.
Some people think that’s a load of bollocks but having had some time to think about it I disagree. For too long bloggers have been like internet pirates, sailing the high seas of cyber space in international waters and not subject to any kind of laws or rules, plundering treasure and engaging in below deck shennanigans that would make Elton John blush.
It’s about time we put a leash on some of these and made sure they conform to worldwide standards. It’s like anything – if you want to be a heart surgeon then you’ve got to study for years to learn how to take one heart out, lash all the ventricles and what have you to a machine, then slap in the new heart.
Why should blogging be any different? You wouldn’t let a 14 year old jump into a car and take off without a lesson so why on earth would you give them the freedom to blog willy-nilly? So, here are my suggestions for a blogging code of conduct.
The Blogging 10 Commandments
1 - Thou shalt not LOL. LOL, ROFL, LMAO and other such things should be beyond the average blogger for bloggers are a race defined by high IQs and the ability to laugh in other ways such as ‘haha’ or ‘heh’.
2 – Honour thy father and thy mother. That is, if you’re going to steal someone else’s idea and put it up on your blog at least give a link back to the place you stole it from.
3 – Thou must not discriminate. If you’re going to send death threats to a lady blogger then you must threaten to kill a male blogger too lest you be accused of sexism.
4 – Thou must allow comments. Blogs without comments are like women without boobs and vaginas. Still pretty to look at but how can you interact? Let’s not forget that the most common surname on the internet is ‘Anonymous’ and denying that group of people the ability to comment on your blog is little more than racism and blatant discrimination.
5 – Thou must, at all times, remain calm, considered and without emotion. Blogging is a discipline like any of the greatest martial arts such as Kung-Fu, Ju-Jitsu or Wang Chung. Never post your blog while feeling strongly about something. Always wait until you have calmed down because nobody wants to see headlines like “CADBURYS – YOU KILLED EASTER!” when only one Flake instead of two was found inside your kid’s Easter Egg.
6 – Thou must harp on, at every opportunity, about how complex and stimulating blogging is. Got a new business – a blog will help. Are you a politician struggling to reach your community? Then a blog is what you need. Still trying to figure out how to withdraw your troops from Iraq without looking like a total cunt? Yes, a blog can do all that for you!
7 – Thou shalt not covet they neighbours blog. Jealousy is a negative emotion, something bloggers, like ninjas, should avoid. If you find an excellent blog and you totally want it then simply set up a blog exactly like it using the exact same writing style until the blogosphere is filled with blogs doing exactly the same thing, writing the same stories and using the same 43 expressions to call Paris Hilton a spunk filled geebag.
8 – Thou shalt not worship false blogs. Those in the so-called MSM that have tried to attach themselves to blogging are to be distrusted and scorned. Only bloggers, with their world renowned sense of right and wrong and unquenchable search for the truth (backed up always with sound research and impeccable sources), can be given credence. This is known as the Dan Rather ruling.
9 – Bloggers should not use coarse language as it will corrupt our children’s minds. Bloggers should be aware that what they write is available to everyone and nobody wants their children, after using the internet to help them with their homework and other educational matters, to stumble across a blog filled with expletives. Any blogger that inspires a child to call another child a ‘cock sucking, piss drinking, self-fisting, horse rimming cuntbasher’ shall be excommunicated from the blogosphere at once.
10 – Thou shalt respect the pecking order. Bloggers are all equal but some bloggers are more equal than others. Tech bloggers are unquestionably the kings, and possibly queens (although not really because girl techies are like women footballers), of blogging. Then come the political bloggers, group/community bloggers, rant bloggers, fiction bloggers, photo bloggers, gay/lesbian/transgendered bloggers, zoophiliac bloggers and many, many more until at the very bottom you reach sports bloggers.
So, with those 10 commandments blogging will surely become even more awesome than it already is. If that’s even possible!
March 29th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Jesus 20. Momentarily I thought you were going to advocate censorship.
March 29th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Feck it twenty, you never mentioned where recipe totin’,clothes obsessed,music lovin’,sly rantin’ mammies are on the pecking order..probably somewhere underneath Judas in Dantes ‘Inferno’.
March 29th, 2007 at 9:48 am
It doth get trickier and trickier to be anonymous on here though, dothn’t it?
March 29th, 2007 at 9:56 am
LOL, Twenty. I’m going to publish my own ten commandments of blogging now, exactly the same as yours coz yours is so good, but don’t tell anyone, coz I want people to think I’m original. Fuck yeah!
I must point out, though, that I am immensely superior to both tech bloggers and spunk-filled geebags like Paris Hilton.
ROFL! Bye!
March 29th, 2007 at 10:19 am
It really is a sad day when bloggers start taking them selves so seriously that they want to regulate themselves.
Just remember the fucking reason bloggers exist and then shove the COD back up the dark whole it came from. Apart from that Your 10 suggestions are not bad.
Of course MSN don’t allow anonymous comments because they are determined to make everyone had a useless Hotmail account.
So here is the Question How the fuck can I move my blog to something more useful without having to start again. Otherwise I will just delete the thing and go back to working during the day.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:20 am
I agree with all of them. We’re too scared to open our comments though in case we get kidnapped by the Galegoir Mafia and sent to a Gaelscoil to learn Irish.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:21 am
It really is a sad day when bloggers start taking themselves so seriously that they want to regulate themselves.
Just remember the fucking reason bloggers exist and then shove the COC k back up the dark whole it came from. Apart from that Your 10 suggestions are not bad.
Of course MSN don’t allow anonymous comments because they are determined to make everyone have a useless Hotmail account.
So here is the Question How the fuck can I move my blog to something more useful without having to start again. Otherwise I will just delete the thing and go back to working during the day.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Sorry double posting
March 29th, 2007 at 10:26 am
I agree with all of them. We’re too scared to open our comments though in case we get kidnapped by the Galegoir Mafia and sent to a Gaelscoil to learn Irish.
That’s a dangerous enemy you’re dealing with there. Can’t say I blame you keeping the comments closed.
MacDara – I suppose going to wordpress.com and creating an account. I doubt there’s an import facility for your kind of blog though. Unless you can export the entries and import them. I dunno.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:26 am
But we’ve thought about it. A lot.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:04 am
What about the kitten-bloggers? They are definitely all cock sucking, piss drinking, self-fisting, horse rimming cuntbashers. The lot of them
Unfortunately, if you have mates to swap CDs with, a non-minger willing to let you see her naked, and a kitten, then 99% of the Internet is made redundant anyway.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:04 am
I’d have to say though Twenty with regard to the pecking order, the ‘Here-Are-Some-Adorable-Photos-Of-My-Cat’ bloggers come somewhere below a sport blogger’s bowel movement.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Lung.
‘Tis true, Blogs covered in pussy photos freak me out.
Damn. That came out all wrong.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:14 am
What about the occasional photo of cat bloggers (in the context that said occasional photo of cat blogger just rescued one and promises not to obsess about the cat on a constant basis?.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:26 am
The Death Knell sounds…tumbleweed rolling down Blog Street. Yawn. Rub eyes. Get back to work.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Occasional cat pictures I believe are allowable. After all, do you really want to go up against Bernie’s major kung fu?
March 29th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Following on from point 3).. Can we have a code of conduct for death threats as well. Something like
1) be original – everyone has seen the godfather
2) be refined – all the big stars get death threats, find a minnow or a wannabe and threaten them. That way if they make it to the big leagues they will always remember you at their first
3) Diversity is good – have more than one death threat on the go at all times.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:46 am
I have never moderated a comment. Yet. In fact, I am so open-minded, Anonymous is even on my blogroll. I hope he isn’t upset that I used a capital A.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Cheers Twenty I had a look at wordpress a while back , there is no import facility for MSN or an Export facility on MSN.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:49 am
“… He agrees with Tim O’Reilly that the time is ripe for bloggers to have a code of conduct and like fellow bloggers, has turned off the facility on his blog that allows for anonymous posts.
“Too optimistic”
“It could be that the time has come to professionalise what bloggers do,” he said. ”
This cunt wants to make money from blogging. Blogs are opinions. If I wanted to pay for opinions I’ll hire a consultant. When you start going down the road of regulation then the whole blog thing will soon be fucked.
I agree that anonymous comments should be disabled cos it allows cowards to post threats, etc with impunity.
It would allow put the commentator on the same level as the Blogger in terms of accountability.
That is fair enough.
@Twenty – First the book deal, and now your proposing the regulation of blogs, next you’ll be charging people subscriptions just to read your blog and then you’ll be just like that Roisin Ingle.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:58 am
But without pigtails, right? RIGHT?
March 29th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I cannot confirm nor deny the stories that about regarding pigtails.
March 29th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
people who complain about getting death threats are snobbish spoilt fussspots – he should be happy just to get a comment. a hole is a hole and all that.
ps yeah sports writers are scum, but they know it too so they’re ok. it’s music writers i hate. swiftly followed by film buffs – wrecks my brain to watch them trying to justify their existence by babbling on about how ‘300′ is a post-Persian allegory on contemporary american culture vis-a-vis the war on terror.
puke.
March 29th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
[...] of conduct. Be aware, it’s not for the faint-hearted. As per Rule 2, here’s the link to Twenty’s Code of Conduct. code of conduct, humour, Internet Share and Enjoy: Share This [...]
March 29th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
@MacDara – Check your hotmail. I just sent you a possible workaround.
March 29th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
It’s all gone a bit…well…you know. What do you think Sid?
March 29th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Re: No. 10. Where do the poetry bloggers go in the ranking? There are quite a few of us!!
March 29th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Well I’m pleased to see I’m breaking at least three quarters of those rules…and here I was thinking I was over the hill…
March 29th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Personal bloggers are the biggest cunts, self-important fuckers filling the internet with inane drivel about the most inconsequential claptrap ever conceived. I’ve been doing some research, and found that we only need eight more people to set up a personal blog for the whole internet to break into tiny pieces, so overflowing with needless shite will it be. Do us all a favour and write your boring self-obsessed whinging in a fucking diary.
March 29th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Well said Kav. Can I crall up your A*se?
March 29th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Well, what with me being a personal blogger, I was kind of being tongue in cheek Dale. And g’way, there’s no room up there.
March 29th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Oh well…just a thought.
March 29th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Ah, I feel bad now. You can climb into my shirt pocket if you like.
March 29th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Is this the start of ‘Blogrooming’ Kav?
March 29th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
All this talk of regulations makes me want to weep!
Does this mean the cunters will become the cunted???
March 29th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Somewhere (’Wired’ maybe?) I read that 60% of blogs are abandoned anyway. No one can possible read them, or care. Similarly the 15 million + videos on Youtube and those piles of muck on Myspace. Who has time or interest when there are still pubs to go to and *real* people to talk with?
March 29th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Nyaaah.
I saw Kathy Sierra’s blog, and to be honest the death threats seemed reasonable enough.
March 29th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
I have feared this day for a while now. Blogging’s for cunts. You used to say that. We all did.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Thanks Primal Sneeze , both you and twenty recomending wordpress so there must be something wrong with it…
No really I looked at it back when twenty first switched and actually set up account but have been lazy. May spend My friday in work checking it out further cheers.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
What kind of blog is this again? I’m not sure I can trust a blog without a blogspot or a wordpress thing. Having your own domain name seems a bit professional. Blogging should be left to amateurs, as should the Olympics, circumnavigating the globe alone in a boat, circumnavigating the globe alone in a hot air ballon, trekking to the poles, and skateboarding in public.
March 30th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
[...] As long as Twenty does it. [...]
April 4th, 2007 at 9:48 am
What a bunch of nerds.
April 12th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Code of Conduct
So far I have refrained from posting on the Code of Conduct “storm in a tea cup” stuff until I had a chance to read and digest the various points of view.
Tim O’Reilly came up with an idea to have a Code of Conduct that blogs could adhere to complet…