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A front page story in Monday's New York Times covers the weeks-old story of threats against blogger Kathy Sierra, and describes the blogosphere as a nasty, wild and wooly place filled with vitriolic bloggers. At least they didn't characterize Sierra as a "cute kitty" the way CNN did in their one-dimensional coverage of the story.
What the Times story really is about is two-fold:
- a publicity grab by blogger Tim O'Reilly and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who've teamed up to propose a code of civil conduct for bloggers;
- an excuse for the Times to undermine the credibility of bloggers, who, with increasing frequency, beat them to stories.
Jeff Jarvis has a thorough post about the issue, including comments from a range of bloggers.
What bloggers need is common sense, a level head, and the willingness to engage in conversation with others we may disagree with. What we don't need is someone to set the rules and standards for us.
My comment policy on my blog is, and always will be, that if I wouldn't tolerate something in my living room, I will not tolerate it here, in my online home. Comments have to be coherent, civil, and helpful to others or they simply won't be published.
I may be rude, but I'm not abusive, and I have no problem banning the IP addresses of abusive jerks. I also selectively decide whether or not to publish comments that don't include the writer's name.
You don't like my policy? Get your own blog.
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Comments
Simple. Yet effective.
I like it. :)
Posted by: Cam Beck | 04.10.07
BL,
My policy is similar to yours but I don't allow any anonymity. IF you can't tell us who you are, you can't comment on my blog.
I'm curious: How do you know the intent of the Times article? Do you have a source?
Posted by: Lewis Green | 04.10.07
Right On. Having a strong comment policy is a great way to ensure that the content in your blog or site is reliable (and that someone is responsible for it).
If more blogs took care of this issues, I think we'd be seeing much much less online violence.
Ron E.
http://brandcurve.com
Posted by: Ron E. | 04.10.07
Lewis: I said that because I have seen many articles in the Times that portray bloggers as an unruly bunch of unedited jerks.
The Times is certainly not the only mainstream media outlet that takes that stance, but they're one of my hometown papers, so I read them very closely.
Posted by: B.L. Ochman | 04.10.07
Hey BL, I didn't have quite the same take you did on the NY Times story.
I didn't see it as bashing blogs. Why would they do that, when they have several of their own reporters now doing blogs. A reporter friend over there recently told me the paper is encouraging them to do blogs, although some are resisting because they feel it's the paper's way of getting them to write more for the same pay. (That's another issue.)
Actually, I thought is was pretty cool that The Times gave a story on the blogosphere Page One status. It would have been nicer had it been about bloggers coming together to help each other, such as the overwhelming way bloggers came out to support CK when she lost her mom l;ast week. But we'll eventually get those positive stories covered by the MSM.
Posted by: David Reich | 04.10.07
"I have seen many articles in the Times that portray bloggers as an unruly bunch of unedited jerks."
I'm not sure, but I think at least some of that applies to me. ;)
Posted by: Cam Beck | 04.10.07
But David, that's the point. The Times story ignored the many thousands of people who supported Kathy Sierra and Maryam Scoble.In fact, Maryam wrote a post about that and how much better it has made her feel.
The positive outpouring should have been mentioned in a balanced story.
As for writing more for the same money: I'm with the reporters on that one and I'm sure it'll become a union issue if it isn't already.
And Cam: like I said, I'm rude, and unruly, and proud of it. :>)
Posted by: B.L. Ochman | 04.10.07
I'm with the reporters too. It is becoming an issue.
For positive or more balanced coverage, we might need to try some proactive p.r. efforts. It could be individual bloggers contacting their local papers with positive stories, or at The Times, it might take some of us calmly contacting the reporter who did the last story and starting to establish a relationship. It's do-able.
Posted by: David Reich | 04.10.07