Mon 2 Oct 2006
A lot has been made recently about whether enemy combatants, who are not party to the Geneva Convention, should be afforded protections of that same agreement, and how we should more completely define appropriate behavior.
In a similar vein, I wonder if we’ve come to the point that we need define and become signatories on an agreement for acceptable blogging behavior.
Last week’s personal attacks on Michelle Malkin were petty, stupid, and really took “the politics of personal destruction” to a new low level. It’s not that Michelle has thin skin or needs people to stand up in her behalf. She can take care of herself. Of course, it’s the top guy who everyone is aiming to ‘bring down a notch’. But that still doesn’t make stuff like that right.
This whole blogging thing is an amazing information and idea wave. We have everyone from journalists and professional writers to college kids to Average Joes all participating. The whole concept of being able to communicate what you think and throw it out to the world is a pretty empowering idea when you think about it. Of course, most of our little blogs aren’t going to change the world. But everyone gets a chance to ‘think out loud’ and communicate with people across the country - some you may agree with and some you may not. But in the end, I don’t think that anyone can say they don’t learn something.
Seperating fact and opinion. You don’t have to like the message that a particular blogger is bringing. If they mis-state, misrepresent, or screw up their facts — then by all means they should be corrected. New information comes to light all of the time. If you don’t like their opinion, then that’s fair too. Instead of taking the Kindergarten route and calling them names or drawing a nasty picture of them and showing it to the boys in the bathroom so you can all have a laugh at their expense, maybe you should instead focus on presenting your own opinions and logic using the same set of facts.
So do we need a “Code of Conduct” in the blogging world? If we can’t seperate attacking the message from attacking the messanger, then maybe it’s time for it.
