bloggy manners

There's an interesting article on the front page of the New York Times today about manners (or lack thereof) in the blogosphere: "A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs." It's worth a read.

Last week, Tim O’Reilly, a conference promoter and book publisher who is credited with coining the term Web 2.0, began working with Jimmy Wales, creator of the communal online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to create a set of guidelines to shape online discussion and debate.

Chief among the recommendations is that bloggers consider banning anonymous comments left by visitors to their pages and be able to delete threatening or libelous comments without facing cries of censorship.

A recent outbreak of antagonism among several prominent bloggers “gives us an opportunity to change the level of expectations that people have about what’s acceptable online,” said Mr. O’Reilly, who posted the preliminary recommendations last week on his company blog (radar.oreilly.com). Mr. Wales then put the proposed guidelines on his company’s site (blogging.wikia.com), and is now soliciting comments in the hope of creating consensus around what constitutes civil behavior online.

I've had my share of nasty comments in the past, although since I started moderating comments it's been better. I still allow anonymous comments, mostly because I have non-techie friends who read the blog and haven't figured out how to leave comments otherwise.

For the record, I do have my own comments policy posted on the sidebar:

Comments to my posts are welcome but are also moderated. Pertinent and thoughtful comments only please. Threatening, libelous or otherwise inappropriate comments will be deleted.