Comments on: “Rules of the Road” for bloggers and their readers? http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/ The Blog@ Team and prominent comics personalities share what’s on their minds. Sun, 19 May 2013 11:18:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 By: Kevin Church http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/comment-page-1/#comment-101330 Kevin Church Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:17:26 +0000 http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/#comment-101330 <I>say wherever you want, start your own blog.</I> That should be "whatever." Stupid whiskey. say wherever you want, start your own blog.

That should be “whatever.” Stupid whiskey.

]]> By: Rob S. http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/comment-page-1/#comment-101328 Rob S. Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:10:59 +0000 http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/#comment-101328 That's the way I feel. I don't allow anonymous comments on my blog, and if I feel something needs to be deleted, I certainly will do so. Bloggers are in no way obligated to let whoever stops by say whatever they want. Screw hurt feelings -- some stuff should just go away. That said, it's actually never been an issue on my blog, which doesn't get a whole lot of strangers anyway. That’s the way I feel. I don’t allow anonymous comments on my blog, and if I feel something needs to be deleted, I certainly will do so. Bloggers are in no way obligated to let whoever stops by say whatever they want. Screw hurt feelings — some stuff should just go away.

That said, it’s actually never been an issue on my blog, which doesn’t get a whole lot of strangers anyway.

]]> By: Kevin Church http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/comment-page-1/#comment-101325 Kevin Church Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:04:42 +0000 http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/#comment-101325 <I>As far as handling post comments go, I don’t think anything should be deleted that isn’t illegal. The blogger opened their blog up for public comment and you get what you get. If someone posts something you, the blogger, find offensive or hateful, live with it. Deleting it inevitably just causes more problems and hurt feelings. It’s okay for people to disagree with you, upset you and even hate you. That’s just life.</I> You come to my party, you're expected not to shit on the couch or insult the guests. My website is not a free-speech, no-spin zone. I'll delete distasteful comments without any hesitation. I do the same on my forum. If you want a site where you can say wherever you want, start your own blog. Unless you have nothing interesting to say, which I suspect is the case. As far as handling post comments go, I don’t think anything should be deleted that isn’t illegal. The blogger opened their blog up for public comment and you get what you get. If someone posts something you, the blogger, find offensive or hateful, live with it. Deleting it inevitably just causes more problems and hurt feelings. It’s okay for people to disagree with you, upset you and even hate you. That’s just life.

You come to my party, you’re expected not to shit on the couch or insult the guests. My website is not a free-speech, no-spin zone. I’ll delete distasteful comments without any hesitation. I do the same on my forum. If you want a site where you can say wherever you want, start your own blog.

Unless you have nothing interesting to say, which I suspect is the case.

]]> By: Guy LeCharles Gonzalez http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/comment-page-1/#comment-101316 Guy LeCharles Gonzalez Wed, 11 Apr 2007 19:42:30 +0000 http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/#comment-101316 "...give admins license to moderate/ban members" is what I meant to say. “…give admins license to moderate/ban members” is what I meant to say.

]]> By: del gorky http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/comment-page-1/#comment-101315 del gorky Wed, 11 Apr 2007 19:42:20 +0000 http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/#comment-101315 Death threats are clearly over the line. Messing with someone's children obviously is too. But I wonder how anyone got a jpeg of this woman's children. I would frankly never post anything identifying my children online to the great unwashed public. As far as what a blogger should or shouldn't write about or behave I could care less. It's a free marketplace of ideas and reader's can decide for themselves if it's worth continuing to support. As far as handling post comments go, I don't think anything should be deleted that isn't illegal. The blogger opened their blog up for public comment and you get what you get. If someone posts something you, the blogger, find offensive or hateful, live with it. Deleting it inevitably just causes more problems and hurt feelings. It's okay for people to disagree with you, upset you and even hate you. That's just life. The Blogger as god of her domain can delete upsetting comments, it's their blog after all. But I don't see the need why you ever would. Let others comment as they wish. It's what it's there for to begin with. What you find upsetting, distasteful, offensive or upsetting may not be so to other readers/commenters. They may see it as honest discourse, satire, or as a poster setting an example of how others should not act. Most bloggers spend too much time trying to patrol and control the responses to their blogs which says more about them than "unfair" comments about them ever could. Death threats are clearly over the line. Messing with someone’s children obviously is too. But I wonder how anyone got a jpeg of this woman’s children. I would frankly never post anything identifying my children online to the great unwashed public. As far as what a blogger should or shouldn’t write about or behave I could care less. It’s a free marketplace of ideas and reader’s can decide for themselves if it’s worth continuing to support.

As far as handling post comments go, I don’t think anything should be deleted that isn’t illegal. The blogger opened their blog up for public comment and you get what you get. If someone posts something you, the blogger, find offensive or hateful, live with it. Deleting it inevitably just causes more problems and hurt feelings. It’s okay for people to disagree with you, upset you and even hate you. That’s just life.

The Blogger as god of her domain can delete upsetting comments, it’s their blog after all. But I don’t see the need why you ever would. Let others comment as they wish. It’s what it’s there for to begin with. What you find upsetting, distasteful, offensive or upsetting may not be so to other readers/commenters. They may see it as honest discourse, satire, or as a poster setting an example of how others should not act. Most bloggers spend too much time trying to patrol and control the responses to their blogs which says more about them than “unfair” comments about them ever could.

]]> By: Guy LeCharles Gonzalez http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/comment-page-1/#comment-101314 Guy LeCharles Gonzalez Wed, 11 Apr 2007 19:41:04 +0000 http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/#comment-101314 Sierra's experience seems like a rather extreme exception, the kind that well-intentioned rules rarely have an effect on, and in that light, the spirit of what O'Reilly proposes in a code of conduct is admirable, if ill-conceived. Most forums have similar codes of conducts, and yet the people they're intended to police rarely abide by them. They're really just there to give admins license to police members. On a personal blog, though, I don't see why the owner needs codified permission to do as they please. Sierra’s experience seems like a rather extreme exception, the kind that well-intentioned rules rarely have an effect on, and in that light, the spirit of what O’Reilly proposes in a code of conduct is admirable, if ill-conceived. Most forums have similar codes of conducts, and yet the people they’re intended to police rarely abide by them. They’re really just there to give admins license to police members.

On a personal blog, though, I don’t see why the owner needs codified permission to do as they please.

]]> By: Jason http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/comment-page-1/#comment-101295 Jason Wed, 11 Apr 2007 19:21:09 +0000 http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/04/11/rules-of-the-road-for-bloggers-and-their-readers/#comment-101295 I've been following this through salon.com's reportage and it's very dis-heartening. The ability to be annonymous on the internet leads to a lot of open discussion, mostly good, but some of it is very frightening. Really the only way to avoid getting these types of unsettling comments is to limit yourself to a forum like the Engine which requires real names instead of aliases. I really don't know what the answer is. I pretty much follow all of the rules on the code O'Reilly posted and rarely say anything I wouldn't say to someone's face, but some people go on the internet for this very reason, for good or ill. That all being said, I truly hope she reported the pictures of her children being put on the "parody site" to the police. Someone may think that's funny, but that's a threat to me. I’ve been following this through salon.com’s reportage and it’s very dis-heartening. The ability to be annonymous on the internet leads to a lot of open discussion, mostly good, but some of it is very frightening. Really the only way to avoid getting these types of unsettling comments is to limit yourself to a forum like the Engine which requires real names instead of aliases. I really don’t know what the answer is. I pretty much follow all of the rules on the code O’Reilly posted and rarely say anything I wouldn’t say to someone’s face, but some people go on the internet for this very reason, for good or ill.

That all being said, I truly hope she reported the pictures of her children being put on the “parody site” to the police. Someone may think that’s funny, but that’s a threat to me.

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