Bloggers Propose Code of Conduct

akintayo writes "The New York Times reports that in response to the recent brouhaha, some technology bloggers have suggested raising the level of civility on tech blogs by implementing a code of conduct. Kathy Sierra, a technology blogger and friend of O'Reilly was subjected to threats and insults from readers and other bloggers. In partial response, O'Reilly and others have proposed a code of conduct which could include restrictions like the outlawing of anonymous accounts."

Kind of a worthless piece of reactionary tripe.

Jeff Jarvis takes it apart [buzzmachine.com] better than I could.

Coles Notes Summary

Coles Notes Summary:

It won't work because the internet can't be policed, and those who would self-police aren't the problem anyway.

As an aside, while the writer in your link has a good point, he could have made it in a paragraph. Stretching it out for three pages is sheer pedantry.

Re:Coles Notes Summary

As an aside, while the writer in your link has a good point, he could have made it in a paragraph. Stretching it out for three pages is something we like to call a "blog".

"There. Fixed that for ya."

Actually, methinks both are wrong

Actually, methinks both are blinded by their own "I'm so great because I have a blog" ego trip.

E.g., Jarvis seems to think it's some media agenda or conspiracy to judge all blogs by the worst examples. Guess what? So is everyone else that can be squeezed in one category. Big surprise that it applies to blogs too.

E.g., one thing I remember being told in the army was that, basically, when you're in uniform, pay attention what you're doing, because people won't go "oh, Moraelin is drunk again and making a nuissance of himself", they'll go "oh, great, so that's what the _army_ is doing." Every single soldier or cop will be judged by the actions of the worst soldier or cop.

Same here. Once you fought to be seen as some monolythic "blogosphere" that challenges all the traditional sources of information in some virtual two-front Schlieffen Plan... Guess what? You _are_ seen as a monolythic entity and judged by the worst examples. Whop-de-fucking-do. Big surprise there.

The traditional media faces the same problem, which is why they all try hard to maintain a facade of impartiality or of only reporting. Yes, I'm sure someone can jump in with a "hah, the media and impartial, that's rich. Well, I remember <insert anecdote when they weren't impartial>," Well, that's the whole point. The worst fuck-ups are taken as representative of the media as a whole.

And _especially_ die-hard self-proclaimed advocates of the blogosphere are quick to latch on every single media fuck-up and fashion a battle banner out of it. Well, then don't be surprised if it's a two way street, then.

From there, both are equally deluded in some utopian view of it, if in different directions. Basically:

- O'Reilly: guys, we need to police ourselves and become some kind of utopia where everyone plays nice, is responsible, etc. (Yeah, right.)

- Jarvis and the like: nooo, people are smart enough to see who's right and wrong on their own, check the credentials of every blog page they read, know who put their real name behind their opinions, etc. (Yeah, right. As if I have the time to check if, say, Jarvis himself exists or is his real name.) And the unspoken rules that exist for a real community, surely work flawlessly for an anonymous online group. No, really, they'll start working any day now. (Equally: yeah, right.)

The former is bogus because it obviously can't work, the latter... for the exact same reason. I'll point out at what Penny Arcade called The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory [penny-arcade.com]. There'll always be someone who thinks that "anonymity + an audience = an oportunity, nay, a _duty_ to be a complete fuckwad."

One fact that all the "it'll work like a real community" utopians miss is that, medically speaking, about 1 in 30 people are sociopaths. (Well, in the USA at least. I don't know what the statistics are for other countries.) Most are kept in check IRL because, while they might completely lack empathy and consideration for their fellow man, they do realize that there are consequences for their actions. There is a name and a face on each such action, and that might come back to bite them in the ass. So they proceed to be normal members of society, for lack of a choice. Take away the "action => consequence" feedback, and they revert to being the assholes they always wanted to be. Even if you got them to maintain a name and a face attached to their blogs, they'll use sock puppets and astroturfing for their trolling.

So neither of the two extreme point of views even work, or have anything even vaguely resembling the world-saving qualities that their advocates claim.

So choosing between the two is like having to choose between an enlightened dictatorship utopia, and an anarchist utopia. Those too have had their own share of apologists, and whole tomes written about how and why they'd work better than the current society models. Too bad they don't work in practice. Well, now we see basically the same extremes appli

Actually, methinks it's something else entirely

Do you think it's surprising that the New York Times, which, like all newspapers, has been getting its narrow ass kicked by these "uncivil" blogs suddenly wants to "clean up" the most unbridled and successful mode of mass communication ever devised? Or that the very thing that has again given life to political discourse and has given voice to an entire generation of social commentators displeases a newspaper that let down the Nation by being complicit in the phoney-baloney run-up to the War in Iraq, and that it was thousands of political bloggers who were right about Iraq being a huge mistake while the "Newspaper of Record" didn't bother to question the prevarications and canards it was being fed by the Administration?

I'm calling "bullshit" on this entire "uncivil, nasty blogs" meme that this little officious prick Howard Kurtz has been peddling. There is a lot of righteous anger in this country, in this world, right now, and sometimes it manifests itself in the word "fuck" being used as in "fuck-ing war" or "fuck-ing economy" or "fuck-ing chimp cocksucker who inhabits the White House and has less regard for the Constitution than the paper that sits on the bottom of his fuck-ing birdcage". You know, like that.

So if the medium that has been most endangered by the energetic, sometimes rude, crude or nasty medium that happens to be the last best hope for liberty and democracy decides that something is wrong and has to be changed, I say "Fuck them, and fuck that effete worm Howard Kurtz".

Claro?

Godwin's Law?

Godwin's Law was always there [wikipedia.org]

Why anonymous anyway?

I have never understood the need for anonymous posting anyway!

Re:Why anonymous anyway?

I don't care if you post anonymously or not, as long as you stop posting under my name!

Signed, A. Coward

I thought I knew funny..

...But THAT is funny. Please, guys, you're killing me

interesting final thought

"Mr. O'Reilly said the guidelines were not about censorship. "That is one of the mistakes a lot of people make -- believing that uncensored speech is the most free, when in fact, managed civil dialogue is actually the freer speech," he said."

really? "managed dialogue", eh? hmmm...

Re:interesting final thought

just for those that don't get it, here's the expanded, collectors edition of my "hmmm":

who does the managing?
  as a subset of that: can we trust them? what about potential abuse? etc.
how does restriction produce greater freedom?
how can you get more free than uncensored?

and now the special features, aka rambles:

one of the things i love about /. is that it doesn't delete the trolls/flames; it's uncensored, but it works.
Of course, it only works because of the millions of users willing to forsake their right to speak for the greater good... how this would work with mom 'n' pop's blog site that some viagra spammer is targetting, I don't know. Actually. I do. It wouldn't

I've had the feeling for a while that net communication would work a lot better if *everything* was anonymous. In the truly anon sense; "user24" is not anonymous. My internet footprint is massive.

Anonymous

From the slashdot summary:

In partial response, O'Reilly and others have proposed a code of conduct which could include restrictions like the outlawing of anonymous accounts."

From TFA:

5. We encourage anonymous comments.

Apparently, this was only recently added [wikia.com] by an anonymous prankster, but it shows why it's important to link to the specific revision of a wiki page you're discussing in addition to the "latest trunk"...

In any case, I'm not sure how requiring the use of a valid email address is going to help. Anyone who wants to make a threatening or otherwise comment will just use dodgeit or a similar service to do so - you could ban them, I suppose, but good luck to you finding them all. And even if you do manage to, trolls will just create hotmail.com addresses; sure, you could ban hotmail as well (although you'd probably already be hurting some legitimate contributors that way), but then, trolls would use simply move to other free services. Do you need an alternate email address to sign up for Google Mail, Yahoo or so? I'm not sure, but even if you do, a troll could just use a hotmail.com address (or, for that matter, a dodgeit address or so) to create a GMail address, for instance. Ultimately, requiring valid email addresses (and I'm assuming you actually mean working ones, not just well-formed addresses, as some sites do) will not hurt trolls; it will make their job more difficult, but anybody who's already wasting his life on something as idiotic, useless and unproductive as trolling likely won't care much.

Of course, this is symptomatic of a bigger problem: a code of conduct, by definition, is a convention that is voluntarily followed - but those that agree to follow it are precisely those who're not a problem, anyway, and for whom a code of conduct is wholly unnecessary. The trolls, on the other hand, will simply disregard any aspect of it that is not guarded by technological measures.

If you really want to weed out trolling, the best idea is to a) delete obvious troll comments; b) possibly require approval for comments prior to them being published (I personally don't think that this is throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but it would solve the problem, at least); or c) implement a moderation system like Slashdot's - if you have a sufficient userbase where the trolls are outnumbered by the "good" folks, it should work quite well. Oh yeah, and in any case, d) grow a thicker skin, stop worrying and learn to love the bomb. Stop running around like headless chickens after some troll managed to scare you - calm down and think sensibly and move beyond fear.

Been done before.

Code of conduct?

There's already a great one: The Golden Rule [wikipedia.org]

Re:Been done before.

There's already a great one: The Golden Rule

But I'm a sadomasochist. Hmmm... woohoo party time!!

Slashdot proves the argument is bullshit

O'Reilly and others have proposed a code of conduct which could include restrictions like the outlawing of anonymous accounts."...

Anonymous Cowards in Slashdot have been the single largest source of valuable information and dialogue, in the single largest technology forum (Slashdot) over a large period of time.

No wonder I didn't RTFA.

dumb idea

Don't loose the anarchistic nature of blogging !

Re:dumb idea

Don't loose the anarchistic nature of blogging !

Too late dude, it's already been loosed. I think the article is about the attempt to deloose it ;-)

She unfairly blamed other bloggers

I recall when this story broke originally that she started blaming various bloggers for the threats with zero evidence, among them some fairly prominent names,

Note that there's a big difference between a known blogger "insulting" you and an anonymous one writing threats.

A blogger's code of conduct? "We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person." Yeah, might as well shut down the entire Internet.

The great thing about it is you can say what you want. It's a double-edged sword, but trying to turn it into a butter knife will simply result in everything becoming numbingly dull corporate-speak.

Bloggers is not a noun

Bloggers is a condition

How this will go:

1. A code of conduct will be created.
2. The code will spread as a meme between blogs.
3. Some of the more popular bloggers/blogs will pick up on it and implement it, adding a bit graphical/text certification.
4. Typepad/Wordpress/Moveabletype will implement the code as a feature.
5. Boingboing will rally against it.
5a. Slashdotters will bitch about it.
6. It'll stay around as a tool - like creative commons, trackbacks, pings, etc. Some people will use it/live by it, others will rally against it, most will ignore it.
7. Everything will go back to normal.

Just like with everything else...

From what I read here...

I can say... Bloggers take themselves far too seriously. No one else does. :/

On serious business, anonymity, and civility

A blogger, considered journalist or not, is still posting stuff on the internet. True that if the site I'm posting on is one of recognition and esteem, then my words might carry the slightest bit more credibility but if I'm posting on a blog just anywhere then it might be yet another episode of Bigot vs. Bigot.

If my words make sense, convey logic or beauty or are simply pleasurable to read, then the stuff I post on the 'net is worthwhile. This is however a property of the content of my post, and no Blogger Badge or such will magically endow my words with worthwhile content.

There already exists a 'code of cunduct' called 'civility' which is in scarce supply on the net, much thanks to anonymity but moreso thanks to poor upbringing. Another reason for lack of civility online is this blessed ease at which I post. Since with little investment of effort I can make my words reach people my words in themselves represent little effort. If flaming people online required me to write by hand, go to the post office and pay for stamps, I'd likely not flame a whole lot of people.
The ease at which we communicate is however not something many of us are willing to give up on, so we are left with the variables of anonymity and upbringing. Only the former is up to me, and evidently it's not something I'm very willing to give up. Until I post something I feel is important enough to sign with my real name I'm just another Anonymous lolling on teh intarwebs.

Why not let this be our badge? When we post humously instead of anonymously, pseudonyms notwithstanding, then we mean serious business. Don't append your name to anything you don't want to be held accounted for, and accept that the words of an AC will not be taken seriously.

Huh?

What would the code of conduct do? Fedaral laws themselves don't stop crime, how would a stupid code of conduct wiki thing stop bloggers from sending threats and all? I don't understand.

Wanna be famous? Be prepared for exposure.

It's that simple (see headline). I do feel sorry for her and the shock she's gotten from some sick person photoshopping her into some porn scene or something and I really like her books (I got two of them myself) but there is one thing you should be prepared for when going public, be it as a popstar, a politician or a professional writer and blogger, and that is exposure.
There are a measurable amount of sick people out there who get a hard-on from doing stuff like this. It's a perfectly normal state of things - like the slugs in your garden. Not very nice to look at, but in some way part of the ecosystem. In a way I feel sorry for these people.

The ethics of non-anonymity

The most prominent and usual argument I have seen for non-anonymity is that it raises the level of civility and constructiveness in a forum, because people are personally accountable for their statements.

But what mechanisms actually lie behind this? Surely the concept of accountability for unconstructive or insulting posts relies on the mechanisms of fear and status. If someone doesn't care about status, then it is all fear - you are fearful that posting the insulting comment will result in negative experiences for you personally. Which it most likely would and is part of the intended design from the beginning - the rationale is that if someone goes around posting 'Sieg heil, sieg heil' or 'gay homofagosexuals' in comments section, then their real name _should_ be visible, so that cyber and real life activists can descend upon them and intimidate and frighten them from posting stuff like that again, and also that the government can rule them out of jobs like e.g. social care where their mindset is a danger to the health of children and the vulnerable.

Compare this to the mechanism in China. Why do people criticise China for banning anonymous blogs? Because they somehow infer that posting unpopular or government/society-critical will lead to them being personally harassed, subject to cyber and real life activism, and also that the government can rule them out of jobs.

The difference between the 'evil guys' (China) and the 'good guys' (us) then becomes that they harass people for saying good and true things, while we just harass people for saying deconstructive and antisociety and insulting things towards groups and individuals that they deserve harassment for.

Of *course* they can have my personal info...

Let's see, for this site I'll use the name... (consults the AD&D naming tables) Pedro AxeLayer. I live at 123 main st, in whatever town the site's owner lives. I, by some amazing coincidence, have the same phone number as the site's local police.

I will make an account on a site to give myself "persistant" in-context credibility (as with "pla" here on Slashdot), but I simply don't give out my real contact info. I don't even give that to most companies with whom I do business - They need a way to bill me and nothing else.

Now, I harbor no delusions that I have "real" anonymity - Of course someone sufficiently motivated could track me down IRL. But I can sure as hell make it difficult, as well as providing myself a layer of plausible deniability for most purposes ("Someone with the same username as my email address insulted your favorite sports team? Why, what a coincidence, Mr. Boss! I'll have to contact the site admin and see if they can get that username revoked, ASAP!"). Anyone who chooses to befriend me here on Slashdot does so based entirely on what I say. Not my name, race, age, gender, location, height, or weight. And I consider that a "good" thing (though for the record, I don't count as unusual in any of the preceeding list).

As for bloggers... I've said it before (and lost karma) and I'll say it again (and probably lose more karma) - Who cares? Make all the rules you want. It still won't make you "real" journalists (With some notable exceptions, of course, but the rest of you angsty teens and cat-lovers, don't kid yourself - No one cares what Fluffy dragged in today).

Why is this news only now?

I generally don't like Michelle Malkin, but she's gone through much more of this than Kathy Sierra. You have a lot of this in the political blogging world directed at women who take conservative or libertarian views. In fact, with Malkin, add in everything that was done to Sierra, AND a load of racism from even mainstream liberals like those at Wonkette who've been known to make racial sexual slurs against her.

But hey, that's ok! Bitch brought it on herself, right?

Seriously, this is like only noticing that racism is a problem, when a "nice, pretty black women" gets in trouble with the KKK.

no to anonymity...?

I would welcome a site which outlawed anonymous accounts and might even join one. I also like the idea that I can post anonymously, send anonymous emails, blow whistles and so forth. I really don't think that there's much fruitful discussion in arguing whether some such site should or shouldn't allow anonymity - there's a market for both perspectives and people will go where they feel most comfortable.

In the academic world, for example, discussion is mostly open and the discussants can be easily identified. This doesn't mean that some junior academic shouldn't be allowed to post about some prof's misdemeanors anonymously on caughtintheact.blogspot.com or wherever. What would be wrong is to have blanket regulations outlawing anonymity across the interweb - that would both undermine civil liberties and be unworkable.

Like Asimov's three laws of robotics

This code of conduct is fictional too.
Do you REALLY believe that robots are REALLY obeying Asimovs three laws of robotics? Especially battle robots?!

Morons

Just disable anonymous, non-registered commenting while setting up your blog and thats that.

Hypocrisy

We define unacceptable comments [wikia.com] as anything included or linked to that:

• is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others
• is libelous, knowingly false, ad-hominem, or misrepresents another person.
• deliberately misconstrues the posted matter with the purpose of quarreling
• is overly quarrelsome or intended to cause strife through quarreling or objecting.

This is a cynical attempt to harass and threaten people who prefer to post anonymously. It follows a knowingly false article [typepad.com] which misrepresented and deliberately misconstrued teenage trash-talk. It is intended to gain publicity by causing strife.

4. When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.
When someone who is publishing comments or blog postings that are offensive, we'll tell them so (privately, if possible) and ask them to publicly make amends. If those published comments could be construed as a threat, and the perpetrator doesn't withdraw them and apologize, we will cooperate with law enforcement to protect the target of the threat.

Author cannot be serious. The police have plenty of real crime to fight without protecting hurt feelings. OTOH I have never seen such an offensive article, so perhaps I should co-operate with them to get author locked up.

There are other options.

Richard Kyanka has, what I think, a better reaction [somethingawful.com] to the situation.

Classic Argument actually

Sacrificing the right for anonymity in order to increase the security of bloggers that don't need it.
NOT a good idea.

"electrically charged topics"

FTA: But as with every other electrically charged topic on the Web, finding common ground will be a serious challenge

Most topics on the web are electrically charged, that's how they're transmitted from computer to computer. Generally speaking, the connections between the computers carry a common ground so it shouldn't be that hard.

New York Times is loving it...

...especially given their attitude towards "citizen journalists". Instead of making blogging more respectable O'Reily and company manage to make it seem far worse than it really is.

Censorship, shmensorship.

My blog is NOT a public space, it's MY space. My blog, my disk space, my bandwidth, my rules. Obey them or fuck off.

Communities are grown, not decreed.

Communities are tended and grown into healthy, fun, productive communities. They are not made that way merely by declaring them so.

This Code of Conduct is being presented as if a central entity is trying to own the process, and that's just not going to fly. Respectfulness is not something that can be owned and branded with a name and a logo.

The War on Terror^WBlogs!

Awesome. Maybe President Bush will intervene and save us all from the anonymous evil persons on teh intarwebs.

Anonymitity

While the comments posted against Kathy Sierra are despicable, I really feel that they are quite empty threats by a lonely, angry, frustrated, and upset individual. I understand Kathy's cause for alarm given as we live in times of media sensationalism that has encouraged copycat criminality. Yet I urge her and everyone to proceed slowly and methodically because we may travel down a slippery slope that we will be unable to recover from. If history is any indicator, look at George W. Bush, the passing of the Patriot Act and the formation of a Homeland Security Department. The Patriot Act has had disastrous effects on civil liberties because it was enacted far too hastily with powers broad enough to destroy everything our forefathers worked for. This is why I am a proponent of anonymous blogging: it may be some of the last ways to safely express dissatisfaction with our government and status quo. Craig's List [craigslist.org] has built a hugely successful community moderation system wherein inappropriate, threatening, or criminal posts are removed or appropriately referred for action. Use Craig Newmark's system as a model for a blogging system.

Log the IP address and be satisfied with that.

There's nothing more you can do to strip away anonymity than to track the IP address of posters, because there's nothing more that gmail and hotmail and yahoo will do for you.

They can't... they have no more idea who [e-mail] is than you, unless you think the IP address of the public terminal they used to set up the account is useful.

Thought punishment and freedom through security

Once again, to quote: "That is one of the mistakes a lot of people make -- believing that uncensored speech is the most free, when in fact, managed civil dialogue is actually the freer speech".

What a chilling bit of doublespeak. Freedom through security is not freedom, no matter how loudly your boss or your government or your school tells you it is. As a writer and internet service provider, I feel it is my core responsibility to protect and promote freedom of speech (online or off), and it is horrifying to see six years of political re-invention already so thoroughly ingrained in our sensibilities that we no longer call things out for what they are. Anything inhibiting freedom of speech is a direct perversion of our human rights. Not our American rights - our human rights.

Now, it is absolutely unfortunate that Kathy Sierra was attacked in her online community and made to feel physically unsafe by threatening commenters - but it's not an unusual incident - not when you're actively participating in a medium where EVERYONE, including the emotionally disturbed, has a voice and an easy mechanism for making it heard. Anyone who's been a participant in the web for any length of time has not only likely received negative attention from some corner, but probably also said a few things they wish wouldn't show up so easily in Google ten years later. I commend her for making it public and taking steps with her local law enforcement to make the threat known to physically protect herself, but I will admit it frustrates me how quickly the online community began calling for blood and legal retribution over what was basically a nasty, adult-sized playground bully doing what bullies have been doing online for as long as they've been able.

From a higher perspective, I would argue that we need to nip in the bud the developing American tendency to legislate/regulate/restrict thought and word instead of punishing actual actions. I may be just as outraged as anyone that someone said what they did about an author whose work I admire, but changing the way people are allowed to talk is not the way to fix that problem or protect one's self. With that said, I imagine this won't come to anything - that those who require an official document to remind themselves to be civil aren't likely to subscribe to that Blogger Code of Conduct anyway.

Incredibly pretentious

Just as long as bloggers think they have the freedom to spread lies about other people, and have their readers believe every word of it, they deserve no special protection.

Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage

Every day, the hateful rants of Limbaugh, Hannity and Savage are broadcast far and wide across America. These guys regularly denounce half the populace as traitors, as terrorists and worse. Michael Savage, in particular, is known for calling anybody to his left a "lizard" who should be exterminated. Of course, these same people are regularly featured on network news programs. Their writings appear in our major newspapers and magazines. They have million dollar book deals. They're media darlings and celebrities.

And now these same media outlets are getting all upset because blogs are uncivil?

Idea!

If they manage to pass this bull chit. Someone really needs to come out with a Open Source Code of Conduct for bloggers. Then we can all sit back and watch all the bloggers use the open source version. lol

While we're at it...

can we have a Spammer's Code of Conduct?

If founding fathers blogged they were uncivil

This is a cut and paste of what I said at digg.com:

Here are Oreilly's 7 rules:

"We take responsibility for our own words and reserve the right to restrict comments on our blog that do not conform to basic civility standards.

We are committed to the "Civility Enforced" standard: we strive to post high quality, acceptable content, and we will delete unacceptable comments.

We define unacceptable comments as anything included or linked to that:

* is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others
* is libelous, knowingly false, ad-hominem, or misrepresents another person,
* Infringes upon any copyright, trademark, trade secret or patent of any third party. (If you quote or excerpt someone's content, it is your responsibility to provide proper attribution to the original author. For a clear definition of proper attribution and fair use, please see The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Legal Guide for Bloggers.)
* violates an obligation of confidentiality
* violates the privacy of others

We define and determine what is "unacceptable content" on a case-by-case basis, and our definitions are not limited to this list. If we delete a comment or link, we will say so and explain why. [We reserve the right to change these standards at any time with no notice.]
[edit] 2. We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person.

Unless we are trying to protect a confidential source, in which case, we may omit certain private details or otherwise obfuscate the soure of the information.
[edit] 3. If tensions escalate, we will connect privately before we respond publicly.

When we encounter conflicts and misrepresentation in the blogosphere, we make every effort to talk privately and directly to the person(s) involved--or find an intermediary who can do so--before we publish any posts or comments about the issue. Bloggers are encouraged to engage in online mediation of unresolved disputes. Mediate.com will provide mediators.
[edit] 4. When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.

When someone who is publishing comments or blog postings that are offensive, we'll tell them so (privately, if possible) and ask them to publicly make amends. If those published comments could be construed as a threat, and the perpetrator doesn't withdraw them and apologize, we will cooperate with law enforcement to protect the target of the threat.
[edit] 5. We do not allow anonymous comments.

We require commenters to supply a valid email address before they can post, though we allow commenters to identify themselves with an alias, rather than their real name.
[edit] 6. We ignore the trolls.

We prefer not to respond to nasty comments about us or our blog, as long as they don't veer into abuse or libel. We believe that feeding the trolls only encourages them-- "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it. (George Bernard Shaw)" Ignoring public attacks is often the best way to contain them.
[edit] 7. We encourage blog hosts to enforce more vigorously their terms of service.

When bloggers engage in such flagrantly abusive behavior as creating impersonating sites to harass other bloggers they should take responsibility for their clients' behavior. "

And here are the ways the founding violated these rules

1. Certainly with the declaration of independence the founding fathers "threatened others." You didn't think the British were dgoing to leave in a peaceful fashion did you? Further this line from the declaration might be considered an ad hominem attack" "The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States"

http://usmilitaryhistory.com/declrind.htm [usmilitaryhistory.com]

2. The founding fathers said neither the Declaration nor the Federalist papers in person to the British for the

What corporation or industry is pushing this?

Whenever I see talk of banning anonymous comments, I wonder "What corporation or industry is behind this idea?"

Think about it.

Re:Kathy's SSN is 558-27-4440 (more inside)

Fascinating read. Could you give us your real name, address and phone number?

I know that there is probably a 17 hour time difference between you and me, but I'm sure you wouldn't mind me calling you at 3 am to discuss this issue with you.

Re:Things were better a few years ago...

"This post will probably get modded down by some suicidal, over-emotional teenager who is blinded by the tears in his eyes [...]"

Don't read so much into it. You were probably modded flamebait because you're a misogynist, not for any more complicated reason.

Re:Pinky...

She didn't, dickweed. It was the poster of the death threat.