Blogging Manners
04.09.07 - 03:21pm
One of my metrics to determine exactly what the state of the blogosphere is would be Techmeme.com. It’s a great website that gives me a broad look at the Internet beyond my regular Tech feeds. Most importantly it lets me know what is big in the non-Tech blog world and what huge things are going down that I should care about. I will openly admit that I could care less about the state of the blogosphere, I don’t have enough time to sift through the millions of splogs to find the few gems so I just stick to my little circle of friends but occasionally I spy things that just irk me. In this case it is this sudden rush/uproar over blogging manners and online commenting. The Internet is a free resource to be used by all but how far does this term “free” extend to the entire Internet?
Technically public streets and sidewalks are free, paid for by the public for the public to use. Just like these sidewalks and streets the Internet is a free utility that lets individuals travel from one location to the next with relatively little to no difficulty. Blogs, websites, aggregators, video games, and chatrooms are all part of this public domain however unlike those public streets and sidewalks, I’d equate these pieces of intellectual property to front yards, houses, businesses, and backyards. Within these semi-private domains it should be understood that your rights are limited to what the owner agrees to be acceptable. I don’t understand why individuals have such a hard time understanding this, you have left the public domain and are now utilizing somebody’s resources, stepping on their turf, and you should act accordingly. It just makes sense that you don’t enter someone’s house, spray graffiti on the walls, and then tell them their curtains are hideous, this is not how a guest acts. In a similar manner you should not blatantly attack an individual, spam their site, or try to cause any other harm, physical and intellectual, to them. In the case of Kathy Sierra who received multiple threats including death threats due to an argument over deleting comments left by visitors, it is her right to screen, edit, and delete comments left on her website.
Some comments just don’t garner a response and are best deleted immediately, spam comes to mind in this case. I myself have JUST crested 30,000 spam comments in the last 7 months, that is more than 30 times as many regular comments that I received. On top of this there have been perhaps 25 comments that I have deleted due to their inflammatory nature, flamebait is not tolerated. I feel it is my right to regulate the content that is displayed on my domain, both my personal content and content left by others. To disagree with a writer/blogger is acceptable, we aren’t all going to share the same opinion, but to verbally attack an individual has taken it to another level and dropped your comment from useful to useless. If you search around on my website you will find many instances where I have pissed somebody off, they commented, and I either replied or left the comment up. Your opinion can be useful but you should check your attitude at the door when you walk into my domain. If you have a problem with your comments being edited/deleted then open up a MySpace account and join the 30 million other individuals that setup “blogs” on MySpace to rant about their problems.
I suppose that just about covers it, perhaps I should have followed my own advice and opened up a MySpace account and posted this there. I just can’t imagine why individuals are capable of getting so uptight about having comments removed, nobody is forcing you to leave a comment or even read their content. I guess this is what happens when everyone and their brother is able to voice their opinion, they expect to be the center of attention and believe their opinion is the right one. The only thing that I know is that here, my opinion is the most important one and you guys will just have to settle for that. Now time to go delete/modify a few comments.
Relevant Material: NYTimes.com
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