Circuits: Is It Time for An Online Code of Conduct?

From NYTimes David Pogue Blog

...Anyway, Tim O'Reilly, the publisher of her computer books (and mine, by the way), responded with a proposal on his own blog: a voluntary, seven-step blogger code of conduct. You can read the full draft here.[O'Reilly Radar: Call for a Blogger's Code of Conduct]

There's room for argument over some of his points -- true to form, most bloggers' first reaction was to criticize it -- but one point, I think, is unassailable:

"3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments."

That's it, baby. People don't go to psychotic extremes when their names or e-mail addresses are visible.

Just look at the reviews for books and products on Amazon.com. They prove that it's perfectly possible to express dislike of something without spewing hatred. And if you've signed your name, you're a *heck* of a lot less likely to do that.

For the record, my assistant and I moderate the comments on my own blog. Criticism, snarkiness and anti-Pogue comments are all permitted. The only things we delete are off-topic political diatribes, vulgar language, and spam. Yes, spam; you have no idea how many spammers seem to think that a tech blog is the place to find customers for Cialis and Viagra.

(OK, Amazon deletes vulgar and abusive comments, too. But I'll bet that it amounts to only a small percentage of submissions, just as we delete only about 1 in 1,000 Pogue's Posts comments for offensiveness.)

The quality of the discussion at nytimes.com/pogue is very, very high, as a number of readers have noted with delight. I think the biggest reason is that on this blog, readers don't feel anonymous. Your comment is posted under a nickname, but you're nonetheless aware that we know who you are; after all, you've signed up for free nytimes.com registration. Plenty of Pogue's Post readers even use their real names as their nicknames.

And why not? If you're proud of your thoughts, why would you be afraid to be associated with them?

Yes, I know, there are exceptions; certain blog topics have good reasons for offering anonymity (spouse-abuse forums, HIV sites and so on). I'm not suggesting that *all* blogs eliminate anonymity.

Nor am I suggesting censorship. As Tim O'Reilly put it: "I'm not suggesting that every blog will want to delete such comments, but I am suggesting that blogs that do want to keep the level of dialog at a higher level not be censured for doing so.

"There are many real-world analogies. Shock radio hosts encourage abusive callers; a mainstream talk radio show like NPR's Talk of the Nation wouldn't hesitate to cut someone off who started spewing hatred and abuse. Frat parties might encourage drunken lewdness, but a party at a tech conference would not. Setting standards for acceptable behavior in a forum you control is conducive to free speech, not damaging to it."

I'm just observing that the blogs with the best and most intelligent discussion are the ones where postings aren't anonymous -- and vice versa. Over and over again, the sites that permit anonymous pot shots are the ones that seem populated solely by [bad stuff].