If you haven’t had a chance to meet Bill Slawski in person, travel on over to Webpronews and soak up a chance to meet via an inspiring interview about local search. You’ll see a video where Bill Slawski and Loren Baker are interviewed by Webpronews’ Mike McDonald.
One of my favorite things about these video interviews is seeing how people I’ve read for the last few years move and interact. So far, I continue to like us all quite a bit. We share an intellectual generosity and curiosity that I treasure.
The interview itself moved from local search to the proposed blogger’s code of ethics, an interesting mix. Both ethics and local search can find a foundation in personal commitment, yet so much of the online environment is in flux. Great swaths of SEO/M are still chewing through info land with baby teeth.
As technology, social marketing and SEO/M methodology evolve, local search can seem like a moving target. However, at the heart of “local” there is a steadfast potential for individual businesses to promote themselves. In the interview, Bill and Loren mention motivating customers to write reviews on Yahoo, Google or citysearch.com. Creating and verifying a business listing on the map feature of Google or Yahoo is free and opens a door for customer input, even if the business doesn’t have a web site. Mike McDonald affirmed, “Think globally, act locally.”
I feel that the blogger’s code of ethics proposed by Tim O’Reilly and Jimmy Wells is the well-meaning product of attempting to think a little too globally. A blanket code of conduct can’t take the place of personal judgment on the part of whoever is responsible for a particular site. Regardless, why be satisfied with shooting for a minimum acceptable baseline?
Bill pointed out that the code of ethics is aspirational, directing bloggers to “be a good person,” versus establishing a minimum baseline for acceptable behavior. This doesn’t really say anything because we may have different ideas about what doing our best means.
Bill, Loren and Mike all agreed that blog comments that are acceptable in one place may not be as OK in another. Sometimes passionate discussion with diverse, strongly voiced opinions is natural and desirable and would be missed if it were to be eliminated.
Character is part of community. Watching interviews like this one puts a little color in the black and white text of forum and blog posts. Ideas flow. Plus, there’s nothing quite like putting a voice to a message.
Nice to “meet” you, Bill.
See Bill Slawski and Loren Baker interviewed on Webpronews
Thanks, Elizabeth.
I was talking with Loren and Mike in the hotel lobby, and we were getting into a pretty interesting conversation about local and ethics when Mike suggested that we take the conversation to video.
In some ways, I wish the beginning of that conversation was captured on camera. Loren raised some great points about Google’s new local search by phone, and sponsored advertisements for those results.
While I don’t like the idea of a handful of people trying to legislate morality and conduct for anyone who wants to blog, I also questioned their approach in doing so. The difference between aspirational codes of conduct, and defining a baseline is that setting up a baseline code of conduct makes it a lot easier for people to understand and follow that code. The baseline doesn’t have to be a “lowest common denominator” kind of conduct, but just rather expressed in a way that’s easier to follow and understand.
Saying “don’t write something online that you wouldn’t say offline” isn’t that helpful. It’s a lot easier to ask people to not engage in personal attacks against each other (attack the post and not the poster), not to threaten one another, not to use offensive and x-rated language. The standards aren’t necessarily different, but the ways of expressing them are.
Comment by Bill Slawski — April 28, 2007 @ 4:39 am
I’m fine with positive aspirations. It’s just that they should live in a different arena than enforcement or protection. An aspiration could be an intent to stay beautifully virus free by getting an antivirus and updating it as often as possible. Something like intent or aspiration can motivate, but can’t zap viruses on its own.
I wonder if it’s too early to do too much defining of baselines that are specific to blogging, or if they will even be needed. Aren’t some baseline-type things that can apply to the blogosphere already covered by existing law? Perhaps what is needed is more like an easier-to-grasp clarification of how existing law can apply to online life.
Comment by Elizabeth Able — April 28, 2007 @ 5:59 am
Aspirations are good, and listing them may give people something to aspire to, but while they can define the kinds of behavior that may be covered within a code, they likely won’t be easy for people to understand or police.
Prescriptive codes do define kinds of behavoir, and are much easier to understand, discuss, and follow. On the negative side, they tend to be much longer than an aspirational code.
If one were to write a code of conduct, perhaps the best approach might be to mix aspirational and prescriptive aspects together, and clearly label them as one or the other.
Sure, some kinds of behavior are covered by existing law. Defamation, death threats, and the like, are things that people should really know better than engaging in. Perhaps thats partially why I’m not certain that we really need to have a “blogger’s code of ethics.”
Comment by Bill Slawski — April 29, 2007 @ 12:04 pm
See what happens when I go offline for a 4 day vacation? Someone interviews Bill! I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching a Bill Slawski interview before, and I really enjoyed that. It was a bit like sitting at a table with the 3 gentlemen and having a casual chat.
The two main subjects were of genuine interest. My thinking on a blogging code of conduct is that anyone who would take such a code seriously probably already behaves themselves without having to be told to do so. It’s the people who seem to be without finer feelings who make things unpleasant, and I would imagine these are the last people in the world who would be swayed by a hypothetical code of conduct. In point of fact, it would probably amuse them to break the ‘official rules’.
If you’re dealing with pathological individuals, rules don’t work. If, however, you are dealing with rude people, I believe peer pressure will be the most effective method of curbing their unwanted conduct. Appearing foolish or ‘uncool’ in the eyes of blogging peers would likely seem a fate worse than death to anyone immature enough to leave rude, attention-getting remarks, so it is likely that self-government will have to remain the way of handling this situation.
The one issue that I would like to see discussion on in regards to this is the effects unpleasant comments have on the repuation of the host (a blog, a social media site, etc.). At this point in the game, Digg’s users have created an atmosphere that is being called juvenile, hostile, nasty, profane by scores of Internet users. While I realize that buzz and action are the things Digg wants to create, do they really want to be known as the nasty site? I don’t re-visit sites that I find to be offensive. I wonder how many other people feel this way, and what other bloggers or social media hosts feel about allowing users to create an unpleasant atmosphere in their place of business.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for posting this. A real treat.
Miriam
Comment by Miriam — April 29, 2007 @ 5:07 pm