There seems to be a real mean streak on he rise in the Blogosphere. Threats apparently have become an everyday thing.
Kathy Sierra is just one prominent blogger who has been intimidated by threatening and sexually explicit comments on her own and other blogs.
"As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I'm not. I'm at home, with the doors locked, terrified. For the last four weeks, I've been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that's not what pushed me over the edge. What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs..." writes the US blogger.
Now Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media, Inc is calling for a Blogging Code of Conduct. The draft for the first paragraph goes like this:
"We are committed to the "Civility Enforced" standard: we will not post unacceptable content, and we'll delete comments that contain it. We define unacceptable content as anything included or linked to that:
- is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others
- is libelous, knowingly false, ad-hominem, or misrepresents another person,
- infringes upon a copyright or trademark
- violates an obligation of confidentiality
- violates the privacy of others"
While I think the thoughts behind the code are good and well intended, I don't really see how this is going to solve the problem of evil spirited people leaving stupid comments and posting garbage on the web.
It is my experience that a code of conduct generally only works when it is meaningful to all the players in the game. By definition trolls and hate mongers will have a hard time understanding such a code.
