The titans of the Internet have taken up a network code of conduct

    Wales and O'ReillyPerhaps future Internet historians will someday celebrate these days as the days of the beginning of the transformation of the blogosphere into something much more organized, constructive and decent. Or maybe they won’t. But the idea of creating a single code of conduct for blogs, conceived by Tim O'Reilly, picked up by Jimmy Wales and developed by visitors to the corporate blog of the creators of Wikipedia, is at least worthy of attention and detailed consideration.

    O'Reilly announced his appeal to bloggers from all over the world to finally come together and work out a few convenient simple rules governing the acceptable moral framework for both the posts themselves and for comments on them, following the incident with his colleague and girlfriend Kathy Sierra, whose blog swept a wave of gross insults and threats. The rules he proposed for the most part have long been on the lips of the network public, but there are still nothing to which the supporters of rational behavior on the Internet have to not explain their position each time.

    O'Reilly originally proposed7 rules, providing them with detailed explanations. But in this form, they still could not be used as a program document of the movement gaining momentum, and here the help of many Wikipedia authors came in handy. And now, although work on the Code is still ongoing, the rules have acquired a fairly concise digestible form. I think it will be useful to bring their translation here. So,

    Blogger Code of Conduct

    1. We are responsible for our own words and reserve the right to limit comments on our blog that do not comply with the basic rules of courtesy.

      Acts considered to violate these rules are specifically listed and include the prosecution, disclosure of personal information about someone without his consent, insults, threats, defamation, as well as violation of copyright and trade secrets.
    2. We won’t say anything on the net that we wouldn’t say personally.
    3. If the tension increases, before we respond publicly, we will contact the interlocutor personally.
    4. We will take action if we notice that someone is unjustly attacking another.
      The measures are to indicate (if possible personally) to the offender about his mistake and induce him to apologize. If he switched to a threat, it should be reported to the competent authorities.
    5. We support anonymous commenting.

      This rule is most in need of justification, therefore it is described in great detail and with examples. The main argument - those who have ever experienced the need to hide their identities when posting a comment will understand.
    6. We ignore the trolls .
    7. We will facilitate the introduction of rules on blog hosting.

      Obviously, this is necessary in order to act on indifferent people.


    It is proposed to advertise your support for this Code with the help of a special icon, the design of which has not yet been agreed.

    Whether this initiative will have a serious response among bloggers is a big question. But the fact that such well-known active personalities took up it inspires some hope that through the buzz of the hive, the philosophers will become better heard so far unknown, but brilliant melodies.

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