Blimey, a fairly busy week or so of overly gluttonous introspection in blogland. No surprise I guess but this time round it has been fairly forthright and more vociferous than usual. I’ve linked to a few of the following before, but, pulled together they encapsulate most of what has been said. I think.
It all started with Kathy Sierra’s announcement of her withdrawal from a conference due to threats to her person. Obviously this was followed by shock and outrage and so on and on and then Tim O’Reilly drafted a Code of Conduct for bloggers (he has since posted a follow up with some more considered thoughts).
This was met with no small amount of derision but, as I said in comments in that post, I applaud him for doing it as I’m sure he was aware it was doomed to failure. But sometimes these things need done regardless. Admittedly I do agree that you’d be as well to post a “warning; may contain nuts” message on your blog. It is a nonsense of course, and the backlash was predictable (although very well designed).
Even Auntie Beeb weighed on the matter, a sure sign of the changing face of the blogosphere, although even then it should be noted that (and I wish I could find the quote from who said it first) there isn’t ONE blogosphere but many (you wouldn’t compare Beethoven’s 9th with the latest single from Girls Aloud, but they are both “music”… yikes, that was a bad example…).
The New York Times paid the issue some lip service, and it was from there that I found my way to the best round up of the Kathy Sierra saga so far.
Of course that is not to forget that recently, here in the UK, there has been a court case where some person has been found guilty of harassment (if you do go here, DO NOT google and visit the persons website, you are only then feeding her delusions).
What on earth is going on! I hear you say.
Well, every now and then, like a child growing up, the blogosphere (god, I’m actually getting used to typing that blasted word) needs to go through some pain to fully mature. Don’t you think? No I’m certainly not condoning the actions of the few that sparked a lot of this, but this is not the last time negative actions will bring focus on to blogging. With that in mind we are all responsible for how we conduct ourselves, so I guess I need to count my blessings that you lot are always civilised, and that I’ve never had to invoke my own commenting policy.
It’s a times like these that I wish I were more eloquent and could string the various threads that run through the current stream of “blog news”. Thankfully you don’t need to rely on me to do so, as mike returns to tug all those strands into a wonderfully lucid and thought provoking post. If you do nothing else after reading this, go read that.
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2007036657413.gif
Actually i think it would make a good film, the blogroll murders …
There they are the large overweight bloggers all typing away (cartoon store guy from the simpsons) when suddenly there is a problem, their connection drops and they waddle off to the router to check it when…..
WHAM a spade hits tem on the back of the head and they are dragged off to a room in a house somewhere where they are forced to ‘bait’ other bloggers, and slowly one by one the blogrolls lead ace detective (scorpio) to identify a pattern.
Who is going to be linked next?
Great stuff…..
You are not the first person to point out today’s Dilbert. Thank you.
Generally, I agree with you having a comment policy, but you really can’t declare that trackbacks are subject to the same policy: they’re posts hosted on entirely different sites. The very most you can expect to demand is that the extract that appears on your site [which is, to a certain degree, controlled by both you and the trackbacker] conforms to your policy — but even then, I’d say the onus is more on you than him/her.
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