Tim O”Reilly has a post up on building more civility into blogging.
His suggestions are:
1. Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
2. Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
4. Ignore the trolls.
5. Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6. If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say in person.
As someone who supports having a civil blog, I ought to be 100% in support. But I’m not quite…#1 I do support, but possibly not the others. Which is somewhat self-contradictory, I know.
Thoughts?
I’m not sure I could be a blogger and adhere to #7. Perhaps he means that you shouldn’t write something about someone that you’re not willing to say to their face.
“1. Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.”
I think Winds of Change does this about right, which is part of why I like it. But Winds of Change has a reasonable number of comments on a typical thread, and enough like-minded people ready to police decent standards, mostly.
How is Charles Johnson (of Little Green Footballs) supposed to take responsibility for all the comments at his blog? It’s impossible. He does his best, and that’s all that can reasonably be asked of him.
Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch explicitly disclaim responsibility for comments. The bloggers make it clear what tone they want. They set the standard, and it is high. If people don’t follow their lead, they don’t have time to read let alone police every comment.
If you are serious about “owning” the comments on your site, the logical conclusion is that you may have to ban all comments. This is what Melanie Phillips did, and rightly. Her comments were infested by Jew-baiting trolls, and so she got rid of all comments. She was not going to take responsibility for the things the trolls were saying – and if she had continued to allow comments, people eager to damn her as a bigot would have pinned that responsibility on her, fairly or not. Besides which, she had a book to write, which was a better use of her time than daily battles with trolls.
Rather than sticking people with responsibility for the comments they allow, I think it’s more sensible to look at what they encourage. The Anti-idiotarian Rottweiler was not a “nice doggie” the last time I looked there – which was a long time ago, because I put a high priority of courtesy, and that was not the prevailing tone.
Because “encourage courtesy” is kind of vague, and bright lines are good, I think highly of clear directives like Donald Sensing’s rule of no naughty words. Because the Rev’s rules are clear, he has no responsibility for bad language at his blog – even if there are comments there that he has not noticed (and banned the posters of) yet.
But of course, that wouldn’t work for the Ace of Spades. If that’s your style, you’ve got a problem trying to get people to keep it dirty but in a nice spirit. And Ace has had that problem. So is Ace responsible for the kinds of things people say at Ace of Spades central? Well, sort of, and sort of not.
The main thing to say is that Tim O’Reilly wrote a good post, and it would be a good thing if a lot of bloggers read it and thought about it, regardless of whether they wound up agreeing on every point.
We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation in ways that were long missing from mainstream media and marketing-dominated corporate websites. But frankness does not have to mean lack of civility. There’s no reason why we should tolerate conversations online that we wouldn’t tolerate in our living room.
A culture is a set of shared agreements that allows us to live together. Let’s make sure that the culture we create with our blogs is one that we are proud of.
I warmly agree.
Well, an unmoderated free for all has been tried and found wanting. There is just too much jackassery going on.
I would tolerate sarcasm and even raunchy language to a certain extent, but death threats?
Well, the Internet should not be a suicide pact.
I think that the only way of get rid of such jackassery is not to pretend that it isn’t bad (frankly, its pretty bad) or to wish that it would go away, but to take action.
Mr. O’Reillys code of conduct is a good startting point-especially 3,6 & 7.
I suggest reading Miss Manner’s column in the Washington Post. She’s the best source I know for how to say the things you _want_ to say, without sounding like someone you wouldn’t want to be.
somehow I never took death threats made by people who posted anonymously as being serious. But I live in New York where I get death threats over parking spaces at least weekly. That being stated I say this DO NOT DISAGREE WITH ME
At the high-traffic political sites–left and right–people write the most atrocious things in the comments. Why?
* If we were gifted with telepathic powers, would we be appalled at the irrational, passionate, hate-filled thoughts that lurk just beneath the surface of many of the acquaintances and strangers we deal with every day? Blog comments as a reminder from “Thomas Hobbes.”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes#Hobbesian
* Or does anonymous blog-commenting nurture a Girls-Gone-Wild mentality that’s somehow socially infectious? Would the people wishing ill-fortune on strangers and gloating about reports of metastatic cancer turn out to be thouroughly decent individuals when dealt with face-to-face?
My own standard is to write comments under the assumption that my kids will someday read them all.
bq. Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
Would using “Armed Liberal” or “h0mi” as a handle be considered as “anonymous”? As long as my email address is legit and accessible by the blog hosts (ie. via registration or whatever) I don’t see an issue. There’s also something to be said for not using my real name. I’ve seen enough harassment of USENET posters at their places of work.
David Blue (in #2) implicitly points to the strong tension between heuristics “ignore the trolls” and “own the comments”. If I own the comments, I am most likely to (wish to) _delete_ the trolls, not ignore them. Ain’t nothin’ easy. In #3, Mr Blue has it: it’s important for people to think about these things, at least periodically.
Someone (probably borrowing from David Brin) once had this as his .sig: “I am not here to have an argument. I am here as part of a civilization. Sometimes I forget.”
Here’s to forgetting less often.
Yes, interesting and good suggestions. Somewhere between the Highway/Traffic Act and Off Road ATVing.
It’s important for our safety but a little fun can be exhilarating and an important release of primal urges.
Where is my Easter Bonnet?
While some may see the blogosphere and the behavior of its participants as a new phenomenon, it isn’t difficult to find an appropriate predecessor model. That model is found on the streets of any metropolitan area and it is called traffic and the prevalence of road rudeness…or in its extreme…road rage.
Granted, personal attacks and snark on the internet are not likely to lead to fatalities, but if computers had wheels, it certainly would.
The problem on the highway or the internet isn’t going to be resolved through a badge system. Did anyone attend Easter mass yesterday and witness the value of symbols…no not the crucifix behind the altar or the statue at the entrance; I’m talking about the pretty new Easter outfits…complete with bonnets and bow ties. These are the outfits worn by the same people who also attend Christmas mass every year without fail…and then get into their shiny clean vehicle and race out of the parking lot without ever yielding to the old woman walking to her car that is parked in the back row because she forgot that it was Easter Sunday and foolishly arrived at the same time she does each and every Sunday.
Read more on the relationship between blog civility and Easter Bonnets…here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
[Tony, you were banned. Email me to discuss, but I’ll delete all future comments from you.
A.L. (the oppressor)]
Sigh. Tony, you were banned. That means go away, and stay away. Other people hold views not too far from yours and are welcome here. You’re not.
Now I have to go delete all your comments.
Feel free to email me to discuss.
A.L.
AL. said
“Sigh. Tony, you were banned. That means go away, and stay away. Other people hold views not too far from yours and are welcome here. You’re not.
Now I have to go delete all your comments.
Feel free to email me to discuss.”
Did you make a booboo and delete me instead?
[edited by A.L. to delete Tony Foresta criticism]
One reason why discourse is so uncivil is that our political environment focuses obsessively on public personalities, so the war of ideas immediately descends to the personal, the petty, and the hyper-emotional. But then, if you have no ideas, what else are you going to say?
I agree with Steve Smith that this is an unnecessary limitation. Written commentary, on blogs or elsewhere, is at its best supposed to be impersonal; criticizing someone in print (or in a stand-up comedy act) is not the same thing as being rude to their face. A writer might trash Senator Slob in print, but exchange pleasantries with him in person. It doesn’t make him a hypocrite; personal conversation is just something different.
No, sorry should have explained – if I deleted his comments but not your in response it a) makes little sense; b) leave him attacked without the ability to respond.
I should have emailed you, apologies.
A.L.
A.L.
While I am confused a bit by your response, I nonetheless accept the difficulties in addressing it.
No slight inferred.
A.L. –
You deleted his comment while I was composing mine; since he can’t respond (and I had such high hopes) feel free to delete mine as well.
In response, #1 is impossible unless you have very few commenters. #2 is a good idea, as is #3. If you interpret “ignoring trolls” as prohibiting them from commenting then #4 is a good idea. #5 and #6 are good ideas. #7 would prevent pseudonymous blogging. Isn’t part of the fun of blogs the truth that on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog?
Summing up, a mixed bag. I agree with Grim that Miss Manners covers most of what is necessary. There are plenty of sources of guidance about netiquette on the net. I won’t point to them so as not to activate the spam-filter. But I will state that if you read an amusing article with a title similar to “Miss Emily Postnews explains netiquette” then you should not follow any of her guidelines.
Taking responsibility for comments other people make has a downside. It strongly discourages unmoderated comments. It’s not like people can’t start their own blogs and spout filth.
I think in theory, 5 out of those 7 guidelines are a good framework for bloggers to follow, but in practice, it can be difficult to adhere to them. We are, after all, human.
Ultimately, most of us would like to be nice to each other and not be dicks, but sometimes we are not always in control of ourselves or our emotions. Thus the challenge.
Its about freedom, in case you didn’t guess. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, just plain freedom. I am sure you thought the US founding fathers settled this one, once and for all but they never heard of the internet. Its a pervasive problem in our times, law, conduct, manners, rights our understanding of these things, the philosophy of life, lags far behind technology. Technology creates situations in a world that our great philosophers and law givers never dreamed of and the result is sometimes chaos.
Can a man father a child after he is dead? Can that child then inherit? Not so long ago the first questions was a sure no, the second one didn’t need to be asked, or answered. Today its different, the answer to the first is yes, and we need answers to things like the second.
Which brings us to the Internet, and ‘blogs’. A code of conduct, or several, have been proposed about blogs. Let me say right off I haven’t read any of them, I don’t need to get into the gory details to understand the issues, and know that there aren’t any easy answers.
A couple hundred years ago if I had something to say to the world (well mostly my neighbors in those days) I could get out the proverbial soap box step up and shout. The risk was mine, and it was clear. People could not even notice, they could laugh, they could heckle, they might even throw a few rotten tomatoes if they really didn’t like what I had to say. It was might right to say it, and their right to respond. Now of course being civilized people we couldn’t let that go on.
I can still get out the old soapbox, but now I need a permit. The guy that heckles too much or throws rotten tomatoes might wind up charged with things like, public nuisance or disorderly conduct, or maybe even assault if the tomatoes actually hit. In short we have added a bunch of laws to limit the exercise of you freedom of speech and insist that it be done in a ‘civilized’ manner (whatever that is).
A blog is very much like the soapbox of old, its a place where you say what you think. Most blogs have space for comments and people can respond. Being civilized people the the vast majority of the comments are rather like the guy the in back row at church that occasionally shouts amen, or ‘right on brother’. They say little, simply support the bloggers position on the topic of the day. But the internet is more like the wild west than times square so you will get the boos, the hecklers, even the occasional attempt at virtual tomato throwing. In fact since the internet is not real space, since the people that might listen are not your neighbors you may get a lot more of that than you would standing on a soapbox. Bigger audience (potentially), bigger risk, maybe bigger reward.
Bloggers it seems are unhappy about negative comments, apparently. They want a code of conduct, some rules they can rely on, like having the police show up to remove the public nuisance.
The old rule was if you couldn’t take it, don’t get out the soapbox. So, first off, I say can’t take the heat? Don’t blog.
Of course none of you dedicated bloggers will listen to that, after all its freedom of speech, you are just exercising your rights. (so are the hecklers). And since you can’t really soapbox anymore the internet has pretty much returned those rights, at least for now.
Ok, so you won’t stop the blogging, next option, turn off that space for comments. You won’t get all the smiling head nodders to boost your ego but you also won’t get the hecklers. Problem solved.
Oh, you want the positive stuff don’t you? Well, let’s see. You could make people have to login to comment, that way you can control access to the select few you know agree with you, or you can at least count on providing polite civilized disagreement. Problem solved.
Uh,oh. That won’t exactly work either. There are a lot of people out there (like me) who will never be bothered to read a blog that doesn’t allow comments. Reason is pretty simple, you don’t care about my opinion, I don’t care about yours. The whole idea of blogging is a platform for public discourse on whatever topic interests you, just posting doesn’t count. Its not a blog anymore.
Now to the $64(million) question, what to do about those nasty comments that somebody came along and polluted your webspace with.
1)they are rubbish, delete and sweep out with the rest of the trash!
2)Ignore them. If someone can’t articulate an opinion without resorting to a dozen 4 letter words per sentence what they have to say is not worth thinking about.
3)Respond, put effort into teaching them to behave better, or convincing them they are wrong.
The problem with solution 1 is that they are exercising the same freedom of speech you are, how can you expect to have yours taken seriously if you ignore theirs? Opening a blog for public comment is like opening a restaurant, once its open you don’t get to say who can eat there. Of course you will clean-up after they leave, so if you want to sweep all the trash to one side maybe one of these days you will admire how big or little the pile is (a special page, call the trash heap if you like, put all the stuff you really would have liked to delete there. I love reading these).
Solution 2 is really probably the best one, the guy on the soapbox usually ignored the heckler and just dodged tomatoes until they ran out. Heckling somebody that doesn’t respond is no fun, the heckler will go look for more excitement elsewhere soon.
Three is another fun option, the conversations that get going are a lot of fun to read. More power to you if you want to try this one and I hope you don’t get frustrated easily.
Bloggers want a code of conduct so they don’t have to think these things out for themselves.
Our grandmothers knew exactly what to do:
If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen.
Years ago I occasionally wrote as The Old Soldier or Inspire 28 [my Korea phone number] but as blogs got hotter I decided that anonymnity harmed open discourse far more than it contributed, therefore I Yam what I Yam and who I say. I have little respect for the anonymous insult flinging coward. Given an option I would probably frequent only blogs with names, ideally where the name is confirmed via some secondary channel.
Put up a soapbox and somebody will want to tax it, censor it, regulate it, control it, etc.
Why is it that so many tend to the nanny state? They cannot abide someone else having an opinion contrary to theirs. It just comes down to control games.
When I am here, I try and stay civil. Try, I said.
When I am at Mishas, I let the bile flow sometimes.
The analogy is that when you are at Grandma’s house, you mind your manners, when you are out drinking with the boys you cuss, ogle girls and behave like a kid. If you say that you don’t then you are either a liar or way too boring!
It all depends what the audience is, folks.
The Hobo
I liked Chet’s comments at 7:44. Happen to disagree with a lot of what he said, but he argued his case pretty well.
Let me start off by saying my own blog’s pretty small, and most of the comments there usually mention pertinent facts I either forgot about or didn’t know in the first place. So those are welcome.
I also receive thoughtful disagreements. Sometimes, they change my mind on an issue. Those are welcome, too.
(Nothing wrong with an “amen, brother” every now and then, either.)
Everything else is fair game for me to hit the delete button on. (In practice, that hardly ever happens.) Because I disagree with Chet’s notion that my blog, or anybody else’s, is an anarchic commons where people can leave porno spam or say any crazy sh*t which pops into their heads. My blog is…MY blog. It’s kinda like my house. In my house, I get to set the rules. And in your house, you set yours.
Had a Christmas party a few years ago where a guest made a crack about Jews and ovens. (Boy, nothing puts people in that festive Christmas mood better than a jolly good Holocaust joke.)
I expressed disgust, but didn’t denounce him in front of the other guests. I had a party to host. But he didn’t get an invite to any subsequent parties, either. My house, remember?
A speaker’s corner in a town square is utterly different from my house, or my blog. I don’t own the town square, so I don’t get to set the rules. It’s as simple as that.
My blogging platform is Typepad, which costs me $50 a year. Actually, it’s more like $80 or $90 a year now – I had to upgrade after the first year because I was using too much bandwidth for the basic package.
Now, just think about that for a minute. If somebody leaves a comment, it takes up disc space somewhere. Disc space I’m paying for. When viewers see that comment, they consume bandwidth – which I also pay for. So the “free” speech my commenters are enjoying is really coming out of MY pocket. True, for any individual comment it’s an almost infinitesmal cost, but it still a cost.
There’s something profoundly illiberal about expecting people to PAY for speech which they object to. It’s immoral to demand Christians to subsidize anti-Christian art, and obscene to expect Jews to help diseminate the views of Holocaust deniers – even if we’re only talking about fractions upon fractions of a penny. Likewise, bloggers are under no obligation to keep comments that cross their boundaries, no matter how broadly or narrowly they happen to define those boundaries.
After a year and a half of blogging, I received my first death threat last night. I’m not going to delete this particular “comment” because I think it makes the issuer look like an ass, and me good by comparison. But that’s MY call to make, no one else’s. Just as it’s my call not to allow my blog to become a vehicle for pro-communist views. Like the fellas said:
“I PAID for this microphone, Mr. Green!”
-Ronald Reagan
“I’m payin’ the cost to be the boss.”
-B.B. King
“And you can speak your mind,
but not on my time.”
-Billy Joel
The Foreigner,
I concur with everything you wrote (& admire your prose style) except this:
“It’s immoral to demand Christians to subsidize anti-Christian art, and obscene to expect Jews to help diseminate the views of Holocaust deniers”
I don’t see it as either immoral or obscene, though I can see why some would raise objections. There are times when we decide as a group that something….art….lecture series…museums…public town halls, etc…..are worth public funding AND AT THE SAME TIME decide that such occassions, events, foundations, etc. should not be subject to political or individual censorship. Certainly, it might be nice if each of us could opt out of our share of funding projects we disagreed with. I’d love to not have any of my tax $$$ go to sending troops to Iraq, e.g. But, in a democracy, sometimes we have to pay for things…speech even…that we are strongly opposed to. God knows I don’t relish subsidizing Dick Cheney’s speech.
The Foreigner,
I agree with much of what you had to say. I would much rather not have my tax dollars going to causes I don’t support.
The rub is that when you open a wesite for posting you have implicity declared it a public space, its not your ‘home’ anymore. You can make it a private club, members only but if you allow posts from anyone then it really should be from anyone.
If not you might as well open the front pages with a statement like ;
You are welcome to post here as long as you are not Jewish or I don’t dislike what you say (blacks please use the back entrance)
(sorry I know thats a bit inflamatory but sometimes its needed to make a point)