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What is a blogger, and how should he/she behave.

In Action for a Better World, Thoughts on 16 December 2006 with 7 comments

In this day there has been some strange movements with techcrunch Uk and Ireland because of LeWeb3. I admit that I didn’t follow it, neither I get involved in the comments, but something happened… but this is another story.

My thought today are generated by some posts I’ve read, some comments I’ve seen and some Blogs I usually follow. Let’s go to the point.

What is a Blogger and how should he/she behave?

Internet is more than a Book

In my opinion a Blog is the top of the iceberg called Web 2.0, it is the Social Network infrastructure, a sort of web that is the brushwood of the idea sharing. The blogs should be connected, sharing links and ideas.

I’ve read a post on Mavero’s blog (in Italian, sorry) about Beppe Grillo’s one. In this post it is asked if anyone goes to Beppe’s website any longer. Grillo was once a comedian, but nowadays he is the first to unveil the Italian Decadence. His website is visited by thousands (or millions…) of visitor every day, and every one of his daily post has thousands of comments. I personally like what he writes, because I think that he is the “Voice Against” in Italy… BUT… but the fact is that Beppe has never posted a comment, he don’t have any outgoing link and he doesn’t participate in the whole evolving of his speech. Is it a blog? Uhm… maybe not.

First point (IMHO) for defining a blog: there should be interactions between the blogger and the visitors.

Then there is another very important point: the freedom to comment. I don’t like when someone post something offensive in my blog. I think that the respect is essential when you post a comment, but if you are a dumb… well I’m sorry for you. There are more than one way to answer to provocative comments. You can answer with anger, you can reply calmly, making everyone notice that the respect was missing, or you can censor the comment. Yes, let’s kill the idea of Social Networking, becoming like a normal journal, or like the king of your own Orwellian domain.

So, freedom to think, to tell, to scream: because everyone is responsible for his words, and Internet have a very (VERY) long memory.

The web is not a book written by a single author. The web is a book where everyone is free to write! 

so? what do you think? Am I a stupid idealist?

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7 Comments

Well… you are not alone. I do get annoyed when I go to read a story on a newspaper site or a blog and I want to leave a comment and I find there is no way to do it.

I must say, it takes a little getting used to the idea that you might get negative comments but over all it is good. Actually the comments are a check and balance. It makes me do my best to communicate clearly and check my facts (I get some comments pointing out mistakes I made). So in the interest of debate I have only deleted spam comments from my blog – I even leave up the ones where I am critisized.

I am thinking you’re right, a blog really should have open comments and the author participate. A blog with no comments is basically an online diary or a static web page.

Posted by Webomatica on 16 December 2006 @ 2am

I don’t think that your point of view is kind of too idealistic, but you “do forget” one thing: What about lawsuits against bloggers or before them against operators of forums, just because someone wrote something out of his very personal oppinion.

For me it is that I am a person able to deal with criticism. But that does not necessarily have to be the same with others. I agree with you, totally. People should comment whatever they want. What about someone who blogged on a famous person, and anotherone who commented and made a fool out of this famous one. There are a lot of written warning spread across the operators of blogs that clarify that it is not possible to comment whatever one wants. Not a question of potential borders in law and order, but just if some people feel insulted or imagine their company to be shown in a bad light.

Posted by Alexander Trust on 16 December 2006 @ 6am

Very good points Carlo. As we have seen with the TechCrunch UK debacle (where an editor was unjustly fired by Mike Arrington for refusing to remove a comment which had already circulated and been republished around hundreds of blogs) comments cannot be deleted in reality. The lesson is, THINK before you write anything online, because it will be there forever, in one form or another. The responsibility should be on the commenter, not the publisher, therefore. It is up to all of us to take personal responsilibility for our own actions, and not rely on ‘favours’ to remove any rash statement we might make online.

Posted by Mike Butcher on 16 December 2006 @ 10am

Hi Guys!
I agree on the fact that I feel myself very annoyed when I read something on the online newspapers and I can’t comment it. I’m probably addicted to the way of living blogs…
Of course one of the most important things to say is that there are still some questions about “who is responsible for the comments on your blog“. I come from Italy and I know that laws can be quite different, but the borders, in internet, are not very well defined. Take FCHouse, for example: do we have to count the my nationality, the place where the server resides or the place where I’m currently living? There has been a lot of debates on this, but a clear result is still hard to find.
I agree on both the facts that a blog without comments is like an online book and nothing more, and also that once a comment is published, there are no way back: RSS feeds, Search Engines and so on guarantee that anything is written remains forever. (even the bull****s I write :)
Of course there is a border that should never be crossed while posting a comment; that point is when a comment become a threat to the bloggers’ life. In this case probably a moderation could be better… of course everything depends on how “important” your blog is and how much resonance it has. Yes, internet can make small things get bigger…

THINK before you write anything online, because it will be there forever, in one form or another

This is wise indeed. My mother was used to say that when a stone is thrown, there is no way of stopping it: therefore before doing stupid things, just count to ten.
The only problem I can see on the responsibility of the comments is that nowadays there are not certainties of who really wrote the comments. Yes, you can take your access log, you can use your statistic to prove that a single comment comes from a specific location,but it means trouble. The idea of a “personal passport” (the link refers to the DRMs issues) would be a good way to start (with all its pro and con!), but it will help improving things. Everyone of us has its own identity in normal life, if we would be granted with a digital identity (shared through the technologies) a lot of issues could be easily solved (while some else would pop up)

…thoughts…

Cheers guys!

Posted by Carlo on 16 December 2006 @ 1pm

Hey (nice feed and other changes). The digital identity thing is important. Sorry to sound like I am promoting a service, but I noticed this site: MyBlogLog. Maybe we’ll see if it gets more popular, but it provides a way for people to identify who people are across blogs. I think it also extends to comments. I am not signed up for it right now, but maybe in the future.

But how it might help is to create an identity for people, and with that, less feeling of anonimity which is part of the reason why people are so rude: because they figure their words will never come back to them.

Posted by Webomatica on 16 December 2006 @ 8pm

Hi Jason!
Don’t worry about “Promoting services” or not: as long as it is interesting, it’s welcome!
Not only a common management for identities (I imagine it like a sort of distributed service, like the DNS) would make people more aware that they are what they are, even in the digital experience, but it would solve a lot of problems: if I could use a single password for all the site I have a login, I would be really happy! (ok, on the security we should discuss hours, but it is not this I’m trying to focus on).
A lot of people, especially the non-bloggers (who do not give a logic email – I have someone from bush@blair.com = and who do not leave the url of their blog) think that they are untraceable, therefore they can write whatever they want!

Would you like to join trying to create a “new standard“? He He He… megalomaniac, ain’t I? :D

Posted by Carlo on 16 December 2006 @ 9pm

[...] For me, this raises the issue of blogs and comments. Some people might think that the best solution to is to disallow comments, forbid the blogger to react to or post in the comments, or simply delete any controversial writing. [...]

Posted by TechCrunch UK And Blogging » Webomatica on 17 December 2006 @ 11pm

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