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I personally don't care for anonymous posters on blogs. I think Gabe
from Penny Arcade summed it up best (contains foul language):<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19">http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19</a><br>
<br>
However, you can't take them away without hurting those who really do
need the anonymity; such as whistle blowers, people with honest
opinions that irrationally anger a particular group, people who would
like to tell the truth about their government but would get in trouble
for it, and people who know the blogger but don't want the blogger to
know who they are. There are many other reasons for anonymity, I'm
sure. Of course, it depends on the blog. If it's a blog where someone
shows a picture of their belly button every day, then taking away
anonymous posting may be ok.<br>
<br>
Real threats can be dealt with if they appear in a blog as easily as if
they were said in person. Probably easier, because there is an
electronic trail of evidence to follow. I think that any attempt to
reign in over-the-top posters is doomed to failure and will have worse
consequences than a few incendiary posts would ever have.<br>
<br>
I just think that people should grow thicker skin or stop reading blogs.<br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<br>
kerry becker wrote:
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type="cite">
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<div class="byline">By <a title="More Articles by Brad Stone"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/brad_stone/index.html?inline=nyt-per">BRAD
STONE</a></div>
<NYT_TEXT></NYT_TEXT>
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<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Is it too late to bring civility to the Web?</p>
<p>The conversational free-for-all on the Internet known as the
blogosphere can be a prickly and unpleasant place. Now, a few
high-profile figures in high-tech are proposing a blogger code of
conduct to clean up the quality of online discourse.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 (<a
title="Call for a Blogger’s Code of Conduct"
href="http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/03/call_for_a_blog_1.html">radar.oreilly.com</a>).
Mr. Wales then put the proposed guidelines on his company’s site (<a
title="Blogging Wikia: Blogger’s Code of Conduct"
href="http://blogging.wikia.com/wiki/Blogger%27s_Code_of_Conduct">blogging.wikia.com</a>),
and is now soliciting comments in the hope of creating consensus around
what constitutes civil behavior online.</p>
<p>Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Wales talk about creating several sets of
guidelines for conduct and seals of approval represented by logos. For
example, anonymous writing might be acceptable in one set; in another,
it would be discouraged. Under a third set of guidelines, bloggers
would pledge to get a second source for any gossip or breaking news
they write about.</p>
<p>Bloggers could then pick a set of principles and post the
corresponding badge on their page, to indicate to readers what kind of
behavior and dialogue they will engage in and tolerate. The whole
system would be voluntary, relying on the community to police itself. </p>
<p>“If it’s a carefully constructed set of principles, it could carry
a lot of weight even if not everyone agrees,” Mr. Wales said.</p>
<p>The code of conduct already has some early supporters, including
David Weinberger, a well-known blogger (<a
href="http://hyperorg.com/blogger" target="_">hyperorg.com/blogger</a>)
and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard
Law School. “The aim of the code is not to homogenize the Web, but to
make clearer the informal rules that are already in place anyway,” he
said.</p>
<p>But as with every other electrically charged topic on the Web,
finding common ground will be a serious challenge. Some online writers
wonder how anyone could persuade even a fraction of the millions of
bloggers to embrace one set of standards. Others say that the code
smacks of restrictions on free speech.</p>
<p>Mr. Wales and Mr. O’Reilly were inspired to act after a firestorm
erupted late last month in the insular community of dedicated
technology bloggers. In an online shouting match that was widely
reported, Kathy Sierra, a high-tech book author from Boulder County,
Colo., and a friend of Mr. O’Reilly, reported getting death threats
that stemmed in part from a dispute over whether it was acceptable to
delete the impolitic comments left by visitors to someone’s personal
Web site.</p>
<p>Distraught over the threats and manipulated photos of her that
were posted on other critical sites — including one that depicted her
head next to a noose — Ms. Sierra canceled a speaking appearance at a
trade show and asked the local police for help in finding the source of
the threats. She also said that she was considering giving up blogging
altogether.</p>
<p>In an interview, she dismissed the argument that cyberbullying is
so common that she should overlook it. “I can’t believe how many people
are saying to me, ‘Get a life, this is the Internet,’ ” she said. “If
that’s the case, how will we ever recognize a real threat?” </p>
<p>Ms. Sierra said she supported the new efforts to improve civility
on the Web. The police investigation into her case is pending.</p>
<p>Menacing behavior is certainly not unique to the Internet. But
since the Web offers the option of anonymity with no accountability,
online conversations are often more prone to decay into ugliness than
those in other media.</p>
<p>Nowadays, those conversations often take place on blogs. At last
count, there were 70 million of them, with more than 1.4 million
entries being added daily, according to Technorati, a blog-indexing
company. For the last decade, these Web journals have offered writers a
way to amplify their voices and engage with friends and readers.</p>
<p>But the same factors that make those unfiltered conversations so
compelling, and impossible to replicate in the offline world, also
allow them to spin out of control.</p>
<p>As many female bloggers can attest, women are often targets.
Heather Armstrong, a blogger in Salt Lake City who writes publicly
about her family (<a href="http://dooce.com/" target="_">dooce.com</a>),
stopped accepting unmoderated comments on her blog two years ago after
she found that conversations among visitors consistently devolved into
vitriol.</p>
<p>Since last October, she has also had to deal with an anonymous
blogger who maintains a separate site that parodies her writing and has
included photos of Ms. Armstrong’s daughter, copied from her site. </p>
<p>Ms. Armstrong tries not to give the site public attention, but
concedes that, “At first, it was really difficult to deal with.”</p>
<p>Women are not the only targets of nastiness. For the last four
years, Richard Silverstein has advocated for Israeli-Palestinian peace
on a blog (<a href="http://richardsilverstein.com/" target="_">richardsilverstein.com</a>)
that he maintains from Seattle.</p>
<p>People who disagree with his politics frequently leave harassing
comments on his site. But the situation reached a new low last month,
when an anonymous opponent started a blog in Mr. Silverstein’s name
that included photos of Mr. Silverstein in a pornographic context.</p>
<p>“I’ve been assaulted and harassed online for four years,” he said.
“Most of it I can take in stride. But you just never get used to that
level of hatred.”</p>
<p>One public bid to improve the quality of dialogue on the Web came
more than a year ago when Mena Trott, a co-founder of the blogging
software company Six Apart, proposed elevating civility on the Internet
in a speech she gave at a French blog conference. At the event,
organizers had placed a large screen on the stage showing instant
electronic responses to the speeches from audience members and those
who were listening in online.</p>
<p>As Ms. Trott spoke about improving online conduct, a heckler
filled the screen with personal insults. Ms Trott recalled “losing it”
during the speech.</p>
<p>Ms. Trott has scaled back her public writing and now writes a blog
for a limited audience of friends and family. “You can’t force people
to be civil, but you can force yourself into a situation where
anonymous trolls are not in your life as much,” she said.</p>
<p>The preliminary recommendations posted by Mr. Wales and Mr.
O’Reilly are based in part on a <a
title="BlogHer: Community Guidelines"
href="http://blogher.org/community-guidelines">code developed by
BlogHer</a>, a network for women designed to give them blogging tools
and to guide readers to their pages.</p>
<p>“Any community that does not make it clear what they are doing,
why they are doing it, and who is welcome to join the conversation is
at risk of finding it difficult to help guide the conversation later,”
said Lisa Stone, who created the guidelines and the BlogHer network in
2006 with Elisa Camahort and Jory Des Jardins.</p>
<p>A subtext of both sets of rules is that bloggers are responsible
for everything that appears on their own pages, including comments left
by visitors. They say that bloggers should also have the right to
delete such comments if they find them profane or abusive.</p>
<p>That may sound obvious, but many Internet veterans believe that
blogs are part of a larger public sphere, and that deleting a visitor’s
comment amounts to an assault on their right to free speech. It is too
early to gauge support for the proposal, but some online commentators
are resisting.</p>
<p>Robert Scoble, a popular technology blogger who stopped blogging
for a week in solidarity with Kathy Sierra after her ordeal became
public, says the proposed rules “make me feel uncomfortable.” He adds,
“As a writer, it makes me feel like I live in Iran.”</p>
<p>Mr. O’Reilly said the guidelines were not about censorship. “That
is one of the mistakes a lot of people make — believing that uncensored
speech is the most free, when in fact, managed civil dialogue is
actually the freer speech,” he said. “Free speech is enhanced by
civility.”</p>
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