You may wonder where I stand on Tim O'Reilly's proposed Code of Conduct, which may be summed up as follows:
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 far as I am concerned most of this is either banal or unnecessary. For myself, I delete spam comments, which I define as irrelevant advertising. The rest stay, whether abusive or not. I offer my own proposals to bring civility to the Internet.
- Gentlemen bloggers should doff their hats when commenting on a lady blogger's post.
- Wait to be introduced to someone before sending them digital pictures of your genitals.
- The order of precedence should be strictly adhered to in determing who should comment first. It would be unthinkable if the younger son of a marquess were to have to post after one of the Lords Spritual or a Knight of the Garter.
