Month: April 2007

The Code’s Target Audience

With all this talk of a Blogging Code of Coduct there doesn’t seem to be much discussion on who exactly such a Code is trying to make feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Bloggers? Current blog readers? New blog readers? The mainstream media?

If such a code is targeting fellow bloggers, trying to bring civil bloggers closer together or create a close circle of the “cream of the crop”, then it’s entirely unnecessary. That group exists in seperate forms through conversations on the blogs. Established bloggers already know who their friends are, already know who fellow civil bloggers are, and already read, converse with, blog about and generally interact with those bloggers.

The same applies for current blog readers. For the most part they’ve already culled out the good from the bad, the blogs they want to include in their “Daily Me” and the ones they wish to ignore, either because they don’t like the blog or its content.

If the code is targeting new readers, well, that gap is already filled through the blogs themselves. A new reader will stumble across, say, Kottke.org and get a feel for the blog and its content and find sites that Jason Kottke also likes by looking at his blogroll or the blogs he links to in his posts. Blogs inherently create a spiderweb of community through their linking and readers are quick to notice this, whether they’re new to the medium or not. That is the nature of blogging and blog reading.

So that leaves us the mainstream media. Is the code merely a way for blogs to say, “hey, we’re mature and can take care of ourselves, regulate ourselves, and therefor should be taken seriously”? Blogging is not about being mainstream or trying to appeal to the mainstream. Blogging’s about filling in the gaps of the mainstream, fleshing out the skeleton the mainstream creates or catching the pieces that fall through its cracks. If we start making ourselves more like the mainstream, more appealing to the mainstream, we become more mainstream and fail to achive our goals and develop our own voices.

Ultimately, a blogging code comes from a sense of community. Blogs create their own community with blogrolls and hyping the work from other blogs. It is through these communities that people will develop relationships that will shield them from attacks and threats that the code aims to prevent. These communities provide core groups to lean on in a time of need but also a chamber which will not allow the negative echo to gain a foothold.

My friends and I have differing opinions, but there is an unwritten agreement of civility among us, a self regulation of sorts that simply comes from finding common ground and being there for one another that transcends our differences. The same thing applies to blogging. When you start putting it in writing you take away its spirit, you make it cookie cutter and stiff and you open yourself and all “legitimate” bloggers to greater regulation from outside sources. Today it’s a draft code, tomorrow it’s federal law.

If we can truly take care of and regulate ourselves, do we need to put it in writing? Or can we simply have a sense of civility and associate ourselves with those elements that highlight it?

We bloggers can translate this community and self regulation into something casual readers can follow through the use of blogrolls and conversations within the community. By talking to one another in public forums like our blogs and not looking to the blogs that we individually feel do not reflect the tone we’d like to take, we create that code on our sites. We share with our readers our thoughts on what blogs are worthwhile to us by simply directing them there, not with a badge but with relevant posts and actual content. Though this we can serve all potential audiences of a code without opening ourselves to the limitations the code presents. And everyone ends up with the warm fuzzies in the end.

Kottke On July

Last week I linked to Miranda July’s site for her new book No One Belongs Here More Than You where the site is nothing more than her messages as written on household appliances in dry erase format.

Jason Kottke shares his thoughts on the site:

The really intriguing thing about the site is that it breaks pretty much every rule that contemporary web designers have for effective site design. The site is a linear progression of images, essentially 30 splash pages one right after another. It doesn’t have any navigation except for forward/back buttons; you can’t just jump to whatever page you want. July barely mentions anything about the book and only then near the end of the 30 pages. There’s no text…it’s all images, which means that the site will be all but invisible to search engines. No web designer worth her salt would ever recommend building a site like this to a client.

There’s more (though not too much, just another paragraph, still worth a read) and I agree completely. Though I’m also one for sites that don’t quite fit the mold of regular webdesign for creative promotion and the like. Sites like dontclick.it make me stand up and take notice because they’re different and show what you can do if you are willing to play with the web just a little bit. And the sites remain interesting and engaging to the viewer. Sure, cookie cutters help greeting new folks, but sometimes they’re a turn off, every site looking and working the same way. It’s a format that works for certain models but if you’re going for something more creative, like the promotion of a book or even a blog, you should be willing to break out of the typical mold and really play with the medium a bit more.

MLB: J’s Not Paying Attention

Baseball season started over a week ago and I’ve yet to pay any attention to any results or standings or games or anything. And I call myself a fan.

Well it seems I haven’t missed too much. The Yankees are 2-3 after only winning one out of three against Baltimore (who’s only two wins were against the Yankees). The Nationals are 1-6, their only win against Florida, four of their losses at the hands of Arizona.

What does all this mean? I dunno. It’s early in the season so records are pretty meaningless and I really didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to any preseason reports on who was supposed to be awesome and the like.

So I guess the whole point of this post is to say “yay, baseball” and that it was so much easier to care when I worked in DC, read the Washington Post everyday and was able to make it to a couple games every year (with great seats to boot).

Maybe I should look into Richmond Braves seats.

NYT: A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs

The New York Times chimes in on a call for a blogger code of conduct:

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.

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.

“If it’s a carefully constructed set of principles, it could carry a lot of weight even if not everyone agrees,” Mr. Wales said.

The code of conduct already has some early supporters, including David Weinberger, a well-known blogger (hyperorg.com/blogger) 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.

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.

Tim O’Riley has a draft of the code available here.

Jason Kottke has some thoughts, particularly on the comment regulations within the recent proposals.

John Welch is less than gentle in his picking apart of the code.

As I’ve said before, most of the bloggers who would sign onto such a set of guidelines already voluntarily follow them. By creating a code of conduct and subscribing to it, you are opening yourself up to greater regulation. Sure it’s voluntary now, but what’s to stop the government from stepping in and using such guidelines as the basis of laws or FEC regulation (as was almost faced this last election cycle)?

PS – Another thing Kottke points out is the long (personally) forgotten Blogger Code. Mine: B9 d- t- k+ s+ u f i o x e l c–

425p UPDATE: It may be an event that started in the techblogs, but poliblogs are paying attention as well. The way of the blogosphere, blogging started as techblogging, led to poliblogging, and now is used for any number of things. Its trends, both good and bad, tend to follow the same path.

Aside from that, Ann Althouse makes a good point:

Now that I think about it, the NYT really has an interest in siding with the blog-o-niceness movement. Bloggers are a threat to the Times in part because we can do so many things that a mainstream newspaper can’t. So wouldn’t it be great if we were stuck with their standards? Stop being vicious and wild! Write like the NYT, and maybe people will just read the NYT.

Memorandum also shows a lot of folks talking about the NYT article.

626p UPDATE: I’m not the only Virginia blogger noticing: Waldo has his thoughts here.

Excuse Me, Mr. Cube…

Chas Bowie from Your Daily Awesome:

Last year, as part of my job, I had the opportunity to sit face to face with Ice Cube. Despite all the questions I could have asked him—about pioneering an entire genre of music, about the shift from being the self-proclaimed enemy of white America to the star of Are We There Yet, about the cultural impact of some of his more inflammatory music—I had only one question to ask him, and it was one that I had been waiting to ask since 1991: “Would you rap with me?”

To my amazement, he said yes.

When we see personal attacks, we need to speak out. We need to tell the commentors and the people in the chat rooms that these statements are NOT okay. We can disagree with ideas, but attacking people personally is NOT okay. If you have a ‘friend’ who is engaging in this type of activity, you have to tell that person it is NOT okay. What is not okay in ‘real life’ is not okay in virtual life. If the virtual space is truly that democratic, of-the-people, world changing, Read/Write wonder that we proclaim it to be, we need to clean it up.

– The Unsinkable Kathy Sierra – Miss Rogue 3/27/07

Irish Road Bowling At Kent’s Store

Man I wish I’d brought my camera.

This past Saturday, in celebration of Kenney The Elder‘s birthday, family and friends gathered for our first attempt at Irish Road Bowling out at Kent’s Store. What is this Irish Road Bowling?

The basic premise is similar to golf. Participants, usually four person teams, throw a 28 ounce (800 g) bowl or “bullet” along a country road course, up to 4 km long, and the fewest throws to traverse the distance wins the contest.

Participants in or from Ireland traditionally bet during the contest.

It is a sport which suits all ages, although serious participants acquire styles and distances that casual bowlers can only imagine.

It definitely took some getting used to, some of us getting the hang of it pretty quick, others taking a bit longer. Once we got out of the gravel driveway the game got a bit more interesting with a lot more roll to the throw on the road and the banking really making shots interesting. We also ended up having a few spectators other than family after a while.

Lessons learned:

– Spray painting the cannonballs with bright colors would be quite helpful for when the ball goes off the road and into Lord knows where.

– A road shower would be helpful, not just for marking the best path but also making sure folks know where the ball is when it leaves the road. And maybe help avoid these situations.

– Once we hit the open road the rest of the Kenney Bros. just couldn’t compete. That’s right, I said it. You guys suck.

– Perhaps I should study this guy’s technique:

There was not only talk of doing this again sometime (you can bet it’ll happen again) but also talk of opening it up to anyone wanting to join in. I will keep the world posted.