More rules of blogging
Since I posted a “rule of blogging” in my last entry, I thought I’d codify a few more of my long-held but until-now-not-written-down beliefs about what a blog should be like. I’m not asking anyone else to follow these rules (although I certainly wouldn’t object. My primary purpose in posting them is to tell everyone what they can expect from this journal.
Use of cut tags. If I go on and on about a particular topic (and I sometimes do), I’ll put it behind a cut. Just like, for example, these rules.
If you don’t have anything nice to say… I strongly feel that blogs should not be used as a means of manipulating/hurting/getting revenge on people. Therefore, I’m not going to post anything negative about a person without talking to them about it first, at least to let them know I’m doing it.
Turn down the angst. This one should be fairly obvious to most people who have ever read a personal blog before. Posting angst once in awhile, IMO, is all right, as long as you make it clear that it’s angst and put it behind an appropriate cut. I will try to keep angst posts to a minimum and instead rely on my existing (offline) support network if I need to.
Don’t name names. This is the rule from the previous post. I will not use anyone’s name or LJ handle without their explicit permission. If you want me to use your name, let me know privately and I’ll make the appropriate edits.
Why this set of rules? I’ve become increasingly convinced that blogs are essentially a form of journalism, albeit with somewhat different subject matter than traditional news journalism. As such, I feel that blogs should follow a code of journalistic ethics (even if the “real” media doesn’t, but don’t get me started on that). Possibly even more so, because although bad journalism can cost jobs, bad blogging can cost friendships.
[gets off soapbox]
Again, I’m not really trying to preach to anyone else about how to write in their blog. This is the way I intend to blog. If you catch me breaking one of my own rules (and I’m human, so it will probably happen), please let me know and I’ll do my best to rectify the situation.
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Hurm. Not that I particularly have an issue with what your policies are for your journal, I do have a small problem with your train of thought.
Journaling and journalism are not only different but they are also things one does. LiveJournal, a blank book, a web press, a mailing list or whatever are tools you use to accomplish those things.
I agree 100%, and didn’t mean to imply that the medium particularly makes a difference to what code one should follow when writing.
However, I think there’s a big difference between blogs and newspaper journalism: typically, newspaper journalists aren’t writing about events in their own lives from their own perspective. They’re trying to present a balanced, factual view. That’s very much not what personal blogs are about, and that’s why I think they need a different set of ground rules.
I also think there’s a big difference between blogs and private diaries – specificially, that anything you write in a blog is a matter of public record. And yeah, LJ provides friendlocking and filtering features, except that the problem with those is that they don’t work, and things you thought were private become public. Hence why I have rules to prevent me from offending friends in a public forum.
Anyway, getting back to your point… journaling is like journalism in that it’s an activity one does in public. Whatever medium I use to write about my private life in public, I would still follow this set of rules to prevent that from causing Bad Things to happen as a result.
I’m usually willing to post using someone’s nick, presuming two things:
1) The nick isn’t a direct link to their name. Yours would be an exception. Mr. teem would not, although it is close. My thinking is that names/handles are very useful for identifying unique bodies. Non-identifying usernames serve a good purpose. Also, people are aware of the fact that putting themselves online like this presents them to a wide and mostly unknown audience. If they are concerned, they should take one or more of the following options; a) lock every post friends only. b) ensure there is zero identifying information in their online presence. c) not have an online presence. d) something similar that I’ve not thought of. Direct names are strong identifiers, and cross over to the offline world, so using them without at least warning the other person is generally a no-no with me. On occasion I will put in a handle of my own choosing for the person so that they can still be uniquely identified in the context of the conversation, but not necessarily further. I may use a nick that others in the same social circle will pick up on, but that an outsider would not be able to wield readily.
2) I don’t enter the name as a link to the person’s e-mail/blog/homepage/whatever. Partly because it is tricky to use lj tags in a non-lj blog, but mostly because of; a) making an easy link like that can also lead to identifying information going further than originally intended, but most of all because b) I’m too lazy to make links most of the time.
Whew! That was an unexpectedly exhaustive perspective on one small aspect of blogging etiquette…..
I’m all in favor of establishing rules, but I’ll pick a few more nits. For instance, I can think of three regularly-published journalists off the top of my head who use weblogs (blogs) as one medium in addition to their print work. (And, “balanced, factual view”? Pardon me while I squeegee my monitor. Factual, yes. Not necessarily balanced or unbiased.)
You did use the term “personal blog”–I think that’s quite accurate.
2c). This causes the person’s online identity to pop up when their name is Googled.
Does this mean we can expect more regular posts from you? =) (said the pot to the kettle)
Hopefully. At the moment, I’m planning to post at least once a week, preferably at least twice.
Sure. My terminology isn’t exactly precise here, but when I say “blog” I mean “personal blog”, or “public diary” if you prefer. And, yeah, I guess it’s not exactly accurate to say that journalists are “trying to” present a balanced, factual view, since a lot of them don’t even seem to be trying. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, though, and assume they’re just ignorant rather than malicious. (Although journalists these days might not count as “people”…)
I don’t understand the “nick” fetish. LiveJournal users link to other LiveJournal users by nick, and people know who each other is (are?), except those of us who don’t live in the LiveJournal bubble are completely disconnected from one’s universe. Just like I find screennames useless and view everyone by real name in my IM client, just as I override the names on people who use stupid fake names with their email addresses, so to I find the whole LiveJournal nick thing cumbersome and silly. I would suspect in the vast majority of cases people who use nicknames are not trying to hide their content from anyone. Those looking for pseudonomy could serve the same purpose with something more universal and secure, like a PGP key (and anonymous remailers, but let’s just ignore that component for now).
Although I have learned firsthand what my PageRank can do to people on my blogroll (i.e. connect them to their names). So far, only a single person has objected, and she was off the grid by the next Google Dance.
There was an small incident (and yes, by “small” I really do mean small). At the moment, I’m really, really paranoid about protecting everyone’s privacy. I know there are some people on my LJ friends list who’d much rather I post their nick than their real name, so that’s what I’m doing. However, if you’d rather I post your real name in my blog, I’m more than happy to do that as well.
And yet, here you are using a nick yourself. It’s a direct correlation to your actual name, as many are, but functionally, it is the same as my nick; those who know me, recognize my nick. Those who don’t might be able to guess, but probably not. Your nick I would be willing to use freely, as it isn’t actually your name. I still wouldn’t make it a link though.
Well, that’s cheating because I was “forced” to get one of these things in order to read and reply to (some) entries. But you can see it is linked to my real name and my real website. So link away.