Evolving Norms of Blogging
Here's a question for the legal blogosphere. Where did these two common 'norms' of blogging come from?
1.: If you post something, you should leave it up unchanged, making additional points only with "UPDATE" comments at the end. Removing a conversation entirely is at least presumptively verboten.
2.: Editing a reader's comments in your blog should be limited to removing spam, offensive comments, and (perhaps) bad language.
I ask this because while they seem to have evolved and become general "rules" (at least within certain sections of the blogosphere), I have no idea from whence they came. Somewhere between blogging's proto-technologies (BBS systems, for instance) and the development of the current communities, the rules changed.
Mostly, I'm writing in response to this entry at Lawdork, where Chris says:
What is a blog but a place to open up your thoughts to the evalution of others?What are comments but a place to respond to another blogger's thoughts?
In other words: If you post it, live with it. (That's what [UPDATE] is for.) If you have comments, only remove unacceptably offensive comments and spam. (If comments disagreeing with you are that unacceptable, get rid of comments.)
I can certainly see the prudential reasons for either mode of behavior. An author/editor who frequently takes down conversations is not going to have many future participants. (Fewer people will commit the time to write if they know their words are going to be 'lost.') Similarly, someone who frequently edits a reader's comments is going to get a bad rep pretty quickly, especially if the editing is egregious. Cries of "That's not what I said" will ring pretty loudly in the ears of other users.
But BBS systems--at least those I used back in the late 80s--generally handled this in a more trust-based manner than considering them rules of behavior. That you could trust someone to treat your words well was a mark of why you posted on their site, but it was his site. This wasn't a bad thing, either: moderators of some boards I was on did exactly what their name described. They cooled down the conversation on the boards and eliminated whole threads that threatened to get rid of an air of comity between regular users.
Similarly, some board owners would kill threads just because they felt the topics were to old, too boring, or would spiral out of control. The general concept was that the place maintained by the BBS owner was his: you were guests who were there at his invitation, and his grace. Chris, from his comments, seems to think differently:
If you think of blogs as unedited books or rough drafts (private things), then I suppose it doesn't matter if you delete things. I, however, think of blogs as public places, where you are voluntarily opening yourself up to the support or criticism of others.I think this is particularly so in the case of blogs that have comments, which is an explicit request for commentary on your writing. To delete comments with which you disagree or to change your post in light of those (or e-mailed or real-life) comments -- as opposed to updating it -- seems to me to be something very unfair to the idea of putting your ideas out for others to read and comment upon.
This isn't to pick on Chris: I don't think his views on this are at all unique to him, and they simply differ from my own. I wonder if somewhere along the evolution of pre-Web bulletin-board systems (generally hosted in someone's home, and quite an expense to own and operate) into the much more open and easy Blogspot-style space, the popular consciousness shifted. Personal webspace became somehow 'public,' and comments weren't the words of guests attending a rather large dinner party, but rather something belonging to the reader by right.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. Early last term, a fellow blogger posted something that I felt was somewhat unwise: a less-than flattering description of some of our real-life friends. When the subjects of his piece found the blog, they left some less-than-flattering comments. In a bit of advice, I said it would be perfectly proper just to pull the entry: it certainly wasn't doing any good, it was causing anger and resentment among people who had to work together in real life, and it was distracting from what was otherwise a very good blog. I didn't see any reason not to bury it.
Now, it would seem my advice goes entirely against what Chris considers to be "good blogging." And I'm sure there's others who agree with him. So to my fellow blog-readers and writers out there, I'd like to ask two questions:
a) Would you consider these to be rules of behavior, or just something more like a prudent guideline?
b) Where have you gotten the "rules" by which you guide your online postings?
As I said, I'm eager to find out.
Comments
Posted by: monica | July 4, 2004 7:59 AM
Posted by: martin | July 6, 2004 7:51 AM
Posted by: AndyHat | July 7, 2004 2:21 AM
Posted by: A. Rickey | July 7, 2004 2:44 AM
Posted by: Chris | July 7, 2004 11:27 PM
Posted by: AndyHat | July 8, 2004 3:50 AM
Posted by: AndyHat | July 8, 2004 11:58 AM
Posted by: Anthony | July 8, 2004 12:33 PM