Month: March 2007

Blogging Code Of Conduct

Yesterday I wrote about threats in the blogosphere and really had no idea how bloggers could approach the situation with a viable solution. Some have dug up the old call for a “code of conduct”:

Among those calling for a bloggers’ code of conduct is Tim O’Reilly – one of the web’s most influential thinkers. 

He told BBC Radio Five Live that it could be time to formalise blogging behaviour. 

“I do think we need some code of conduct around what is acceptable behaviour, I would hope that it doesn’t come through any kind of [legal/government] regulation it would come through self-regulation.”

Shelly Powers responds:

There is a code already: it’s called humanity. There could never be any form of legal regulation, because the internet is ubiquitous. What laws transcend borders, such as murder, terrorism, or child pornography, already have laws and regulations in place regardless of the form of interaction. 

We do not need a ‘code of conduct’ other than respect for each other and a sense of fair play. Oh, and people learn to think before reacting–to read what’s sometimes behind the words, rather than only the words, themselves.

A Blogger Code of Conduct has been brought up for the blogosphere as a whole and even locally. Virginia bloggers have debated codes of conduct in the past. The problem with developing a code of conduct is that those who will most likely sign onto such a code already voluntarily follow it. Such a code does nothing other than create a voluntary level of bureaucracy in what should be an independent and free form of discussion on the web, whether political, technical, local or about your cat. Anonymous and pseudonymous bloggers would still be free to voice their opinions and violate such a code.

Perhaps the greatest code of conduct is simply a sense of community among bloggers. Whether or not you agree with one another’s opinion, if you are able to relate to one another as fellow bloggers or simply fellow human beings, you are less likely to find yourself decending into petty fights and threats that turn to calls for such codes. Gatherings like Sorensen and the Bloggers United Conference and especially meet-ups like the one recently held here in Richmond can go a long way to helping one feel like they’re part of something other than the internet (the purpose of which seems to be solely to anonymously denouce something as utter crap). Putting faces to names and sites make this more human and, ideally (if you have a soul), make one less likely to find themselves unreasonably aggressive toward one another.

The Art Of Hacking Your Life

Life hacking is an interesting phenomenon that’s been making its way through the blogosphere over the last few years. The term was presented by Danny O’Brien at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in February 2004. Via Wikipedia:

The original definition of the term life hack referred to quick and dirty shell scripts and other command line utilities that filtered, munged and processed data streams like email and RSS feeds. Examples of these types of life hacks might include utilities to synchronize files, track tasks, remind yourself of events or filter email.

As the meme spread, the definition of the term expanded. Today, anything that solves an everyday problem in a clever or non-obvious way might be called a life hack. The term became popularized in the blogosphere and is primarily used by geeks who suffer from information overload or those with a playful curiosity in the ways they can overclock their workflow.

O’Brien own site with life hacks failed to materialize but others jumped on the idea. 43 Folders launched in September 2004, January 2005 saw Lifehacker.com and May of the same year saw Lifehack.org. Each of these sites provide links and posts about how to better manage your time, your finances, neat little programs that provide all sorts of services, uses for random items and more. Combined it’s an interesting encyclopedia of helpful hits and tips that can apply to any area of life.

Threats In The Blogosphere

Blogger Kathy Sierra cancelled her appearance at an ETech workshop earlier this week after receiving not just hate mail but outright death threats on her blog. What makes this even more interesting is the players involved, like Cluetrain co-author Chris Locke (who responded here). The site that really caused a lot of the havoc, MeanKids.org, no longer exists (at the moment). Responses from tech-blogging big names like Shelley Powers and AKMA are certainly worth a read, especially AKMA when he speaks on the anonymous nature of the threats and the damage they can cause:

In this way, anonymity cuts more directions than one: It enables a mysterious assailant to terrify Kathy, but it also provides the grounds for Kathy suggesting that Frank, Chris, Jeneane, and Allan are complicit with a would-be murderer.

Dangerous indeed.

Unfortunately, this is a trend that’s rearing its ugly head more and more in the blogosphere (and, on some level, was brought up at the RVA meet-up earlier this month). While it may appear only to pop up in tech or political blogs, many blogging trends start in these areas and unfortunately see themselves spread to the rest of the blogging topics and community. How to best approach this and deal with it is really up in the air and something that will evolve as blogging itself does. But Shelley Powers provides a great reminder about the power of words:

When people write about you with loathing, for good or bad, you’ve touched their life. They don’t have power [over you] — you have power over them.

What To Do After A Period

In writing, that is. Ha ha.

I was taught in typing class way back in the day that you ALWAYS double-space after a period. This is just the way typing works. More and more I’ve noticed that not happening so much, though, whether by a forced removal of the double-space by a program or people just not bothering with two spaces after periods when they write.

Dan Santow says it’s a habit worth breaking:

The practice of double spacing after a period is a holdover from the days when typewriters had “monofaced” type, meaning fonts in which every letter had exactly the same width (in other words, “m” used the same amount of space as “i”). Because of the monoface font, two spaces after a period made it easier to see where one sentence ended and another began.

Today, however, most fonts we typically use are proportionally spaced, meaning that characters take up an amount of space relative to their actual width (the “i” uses less space than the “m”), so that double spacing after periods is not only unnecessary, it mars the look of your text by scattering it with small gaps. Books, magazines, brochures, newspaper, desktop publishing, etc., use only one space after a period, as do both AP style and The Chicago Manual of Style.

Personally I’ve never found the double-spacing to be an issue unless it’s forced words to another line when I don’t want them to be (typically in webdesign and the like). Overall, the gap doesn’t seem awkward to me or that it mars the look but it seems natural, like there’s supposed to be that extra gap, because that’s the way you’re supposed to type.

I just can’t break myself of the habit, though. I’m sure that if I tried and worked on it that I could be rid of it over time, but why bother? Is it so bothersome to the reader that I must change what has been the industry standard since typing began? Perhaps I should just pick fonts that need the double-space so there’s no awkward spaces and the like. Or perhaps people should just not be so damn picky.

RVA Blogger Meet-Up Saturday, March 10th

Just a friendly reminder from Slantblog:

there will be an informal meeting at the Baja Bean to discuss putting together what would amount to a local blog convention, or “summit,” if you prefer that term. The gathering is open to all, but the point of it is for local bloggers to meet one another and air out their ideas on that topic.

…

As we all know, there are many motivations to blog. Some bloggers focus on politics and current events, others on their family pets. Some blogs are about art, or a hobby, others are about a neighborhood. Still others cover a variety of topics. What they all have in common is the desire on the part of the blogger to document some aspect of what they care about.

Accordingly, I see no reason for any Richmond blogger to feel unwelcome at this meeting. Please know, this call for a bloggers meeting hasn’t been made by corporate interests, or any existing group. No sticky name tags will be handed out, so if you want to wear one, make your own.

Talk “summit”, talk shop, talk about your dog, doesn’t matter, just c’mon out and enjoy the company. I’ll be there. But don’t let that stop you.

So Aggregating

A good number of people have welcomed to the Virginia blogosphere two recent entries in the aggregator list: Conservativa, Jane Dudley’s collection of conservative blogs, and the ODBA Aggregator, maintained by yours truly as a one-stop-shop for the Old Dominion Blog Alliance blogroll. Many have been very nice about it (and thank you all) and a couple, particularly from the other side of the aisle, have added disclaimers of sorts, both of which caution about the “daily me”.

Anyone who has read J’s Notes for a period of time has seen me drop the term “daily me” before. Coined (as I found it) by Cass Sustein in his book “Republic.com”, the “daily me” refers to an increasing instance of people using the Internet to limit their exposure to competing ideas, instead only reading the websites and blogs that present what they want to hear.

Does Conservativa and the ODBA Aggregator feed into this?

Thomas Krehbiel fears so:

As an evangelizing tool, I’m not quite sure what the point of a conservative-only or liberal-only aggregator is. People who subscribe to them are either going to be converted already or looking for a fight. If you want to reach a new audience and perhaps sway moderates to vote differently, which seems to be the entire purpose of politics, I would think you’d want to be involved in a more non-partisan aggregator.

Granted. But you’re assuming that these tools are meant for evangelizing purposes. I can’t speak for Conservativa, but the ODBA Aggregator exists more as a service to the ODBA members than anyone else. I for one wanted to have a way to view all the ODBA blogs without having to visit twenty-some-odd sites and without having to wade through BlogNetNews to get to it (BNN does have an ODBA option). If others choose to visit the ODBA for reading the member blogs, great, more power to them. But it was ultimately created as an extension of the ODBA community more than a tool for converting individuals.

Jack commented over at Waldo’s blog:

This whole business of conservative versus liberal blog aggregators isn’t a good thing. It will eventually lead to each group going off into it’s own corner with it’s own kind and never seeing what the other side has to say. We are all better off being confronted with opposing opinions every day. It keeps us all sharp and agile.

I don’t think the fear is justified, but I certainly agree with the last couple points, that opposing opinions are a good thing to have and view. I don’t believe Jane intends for Conservativa and I certainly don’t intend for the ODBA Aggregator to replace VAPoliticalBlogs or BlogNetNews, simply to supplement them.

The left has had many means of limiting their message and building their community for years within the blogosphere, whether it’s through LeftyBlogs or DailyKos or Raising Kaine. Now that the right is catching up through creating its own community, people are going to start critiquing. And that’s fine. I just hope that the same people are willing to take the came critical view of their end of things.

UPDATE: On a side note, the ODBA Aggregator has had a good number of hits from all over the place in the two days since it’s activation. An audience exists, and I’m more than happy to provide them a site to peruse.

Thomas Krehbiel also made a good point in his post:

I wish the new aggregators would put the name of the underlying blog in the post titles. A newcomer might not realize that the posts are all coming from disparate sources and authors. Maybe that’s by design.

Unfortunately, the platform that the ODBA Aggregator runs off of limits my ability to tweak how the posts appear. If I do get the ability to change that, blog titles will be more prominently placed with respect to the post. But this also highlights one of my issues with BNN in that when you click on the blog’s name over a post you aren’t taken to the blog but to BNN’s listing of that blog’s posts. I think it’d be nice if clicking on the blog’s name took you straight to the blog, but that could be a limitation of their software.

Commodore 6400?

Woo!

Commodore’s big beige glory days may be long past, but the familiar name is still out there kicking (such as it is), lending its considerable cachet to an array of otherwise unremarkable devices. Now the company appears to have decided to bring things back a little closer to its roots, prepping a new line of Commodore-branded PCs aimed at gamers, pitting them against the well-established likes of Alienware and VoodooPC.