Tim O’Reilly’s Code of Crap

As part of the fallout of the Kathy Sierra debacle, a bunch of folks thought that the world would be a friendlier, happier place if there were some sort of blogger code of conduct. This weekend, Tim O’Reilly put fingers to his keyboard and published such a document, complete with some really cheesy badges.

I note that it is a “draft” and I hope that means it will change… a lot… before anyone takes it seriously. I’ve got several issues with some points in the code of conduct, addressed here in a random order:

• There’s nothing wrong with anonymous comments. People can be abusive using their own name, and people can make some good points when posting anonymously. Making it harder to participate in the discussion will hamper overall quality.
• It’s absurd to think that every blogger who wants to write about something else someone else has said is going to contact them privately for permission before blogging about it. I didn’t write Tim O’Reilly to let him know I was going to make this post, and that’s OK. O’Reilly claims the policy is about “frank and open conversation.” In my world, frank and open doesn’t mean needing to ask permission to speak.
• Bloggers aren’t responsible for commenters. Intelligent people can separate the differences between the two. Only allowing comments that happen to meet some vague standard for acceptability.
• The proposed code of conduct states:
  

  We define and determine what is “unacceptable content” on a case-by-case basis, and our definitions are not limited to this list… [We reserve the right to change these standards at any time with no notice.]

  That’s just lovely. There’s nothing quite as beautiful as a set of rules which change on a whim and aren’t really defined.

Fortunately, it seems that pretty much everyone realizes this is a load of crap. At Deep Jive interests, Tony notes that folks are really talking about comment policies. Scoble explains why he can’t adhere to the code, and Michael Arrington lists out the various ways in which he won’t abide. I see that local bloggers Jack and b!X chime in as well.