I don’t think so. I think what bloggers need is a healthy dose of common sense, which is mostly what the bloggers’ code of conduct that Tim O’Reilly has proposed (full text here, and a wiki/editable version here). I’m siding with Tony here, in saying such a “code” will not be much help in solving the problem.

A Code of Conduct for most bloggers doesn’t have much a point because the blogosphere is self-regulating. If you act like an ass, people will know, and for the most part, will readership will decline. If it doesn’t, that probably means they won’t care a whit about any rules of conduct anyway. Secondly, even if one did have an audience who might care, if you broke it what really happens? Nothing.

Humans are social by nature, and whatever social attitudes and actions that we have in real life will inevitably reflect in the online world. There will always be miscreants who will ruin the experience for the rest of the population.

Still, as Abe says, there’s nothing wrong with asking people to be nice and responsible. Being an avid blogger, I think the best way to handle this is to put up the “code” as a guideline that good bloggers can refer to and adhere to, instead of rules that you should follow or else.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s not the code per se that is flawed, but it is the fact that we are hoping a code will solve everything that is the problem. We look outside for solutions, when it is within we should find these. Again, social media inherit humanity’s social nature. We can start looking for solutions from there.

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