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I’ve always been an anarchist but just recently I’ve realised that even in the anarchic world of blogging I’ve realised the need for rules as a couple of bloggers need their heads banging together.
There is the local food blogging equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis going on between Grocer at Get Real! and Duncan at Syrup and Tang. I remember a time when everybody said food blogging was too nice. But both are extremely heated and possibly taking the personal assaults robust debate too far to the, um, wrong side of robust.
Jeff Jarvis, a US-based new media journalism academic who blogs at Buzzmachine, has a simple set of rules:
- Any email sent to me can be quoted on the blog.
- Personal attacks, hate speech, bigotry…in the comments or comments will be killed along with commenters.
- Any comment or conversation on this blog may be quoted elsewhere.
Australian social media commentator Laurel Papworth has her longer version which are also worth reading.
Read those two sets of rules and you’ll understand the rules for this site and I’d urge other food bloggers to adopt them.
My one addition is:
- Advertising on this site will not buy editorial although from time to time on my whim I will engage in promotions (surveys or charity events) with advertisers.
I say this because an unnamed advertiser decided to withdraw from this site because they thought paying for advertising on here would buy space in my journalism. I declare all conflicts of interest to my journalism employers and they make the final call.
What are your rules?
Having said all that don’t forget to visit my Food Blogs and the Media survey. Kitchenware Direct which is giving away a $299 Shun knife set to one lucky entrant.
Popularity: 8% [?]
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
gee thanks ed.
personal assaults?
and I thought you were above getting involved…
Just trying to calm it down. Read ” a robust debate”. Sorry
Hiya Ed.
I dont like any advertising on blogs at all, just me. I also diliberated for ages whether to include a side bar of links to other sites, which of course I relented & I’m glad to have done so. I first thought, selfishly & vainly, that I wanted to capture the attention of my readers & didn’t want to give them an opportunity to escape my site as I wanted them to absorb my content without distraction.
These days its difficult not to keep adding to that sidebar!
I agree with the rules, perhaps like Asimov’s they’ll become part of our vernacular?
When I have had an unsettling episode in response to a posting & its subsequent comments I have found from experience that staying out of the melee the best course followed by a unrelated post to take my mind from the drama. I have learnt not to be goaded into a response that I usually regret.
Maybe we can combine Asimov’s rules to blogging as well Gobbler? It’s pretty funny when you do it.
1. A blogger may not injure another blogger or, through inaction, allow another blogger to come to harm.
2. A blogger must obey orders given to it by their moral conscience, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A bloger must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Thanh-You are SO onto something here! get Sticky to do a licencing agreement for you & TM it ASAP!
Thanh, nice one.
Gobbler, I’m trying to keep ads so they aren’t too intrusive and probably need to limit them to one animated one. As writing is my only income source I’m just trying to make a bit of money from it.
Not sure if the coup-contrecoup from head banging will result in concilliation or concussion.
That aside, I am a simple person and not sure with Jarvis & Papworth’s rules that what they are saying is “It is MY BLOG and if I find something posted on a blog somewheere then I can use it on my site in whatever way I like and because it’s my blog then if anybody has a differing view I can kill that comment/commenter?” Maybe I read it wrongly - as said elsewhere I failed high school English and need things explained in very simple terms.
I know Papworth say BE NICE, that is important, VERY IMPORTANT. Let’s be nice. We are a small community.
My Rules
1. Be honest
2. Correct errors
3. Acknowledge criticism
4. Don’t accept freebies unless they are trivial - eg a glass of wine, and acknowledge them.
5. Avoid sarcasm
6. Ads v no ads - up to the individual. Everyone knows what they are so who now really cares
7. Relish debate
8. Accept plagiarism as a compliment but ask for acknowlegment
But what if it’s a glass of 1787 Chateau Lafite, Elliot? Apologies for my flippancy…have been absent from these shores for a couple of weeks so missed most of this debate…please you guys, have a look at this; http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/07/27/vale-randy-pausch/
All great rules.
ut si, I’d love the 1787 Lafitte but the link is better and i’m following it now. Randy’s lessons from about 70 minutes in:
You can’t get there alone, and I believe in Karma
Tell the truth
Be earnest
Apologize when you screw up
Focus on others, not yourself
When you do the right thing good stuff has a way of happening
Get a feedback loop and listen to it. The hard part is the listening
Show gratitude
Be good at something: it makes you valuable
Work hard… “What’s your secret?”
Find the best in everybody; no matter how long you have to wait for them to show it
Be prepared: “Luck” is where preparation meets opportunity.
If you lead your life the right way your dreams will come to you
Yep, and;
We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
Don’t complain. Just work harder. And, have fun!
I know we’ve all heard this self-help stuff before but there was something about the way he said it that makes you wish you’d met him. Maybe it was his honesty or humility.
What surprises me is not that issues like this get blown up. It’s that food bloggers feel like they need to be part of a community in the first place.
Sure it’s great to leave comments on peoples blogs, and get them back. But since when does the fact that you have a blog about food mean you have anything in common with anyone else who does ?
It’s like getting all the people who use pens and paper together and expecting them to be best friends just because they all write.
I like Matt’s point (and the rest of the comments have been interesting too:) ). The idea of community in any circumstance is of course fragile and is either perpetuated by focusing on the strongest common threads, or is acknowledged to be weak by actually talking about where differences lie (for better or worse). There are relatively few truly safe threads in ‘food’, but perhaps the external negativity about blogs has encouraged people to behave as if those threads are stronger than they really are.
Matt/Duncan, good points. I guess the novelty of the new creates a connection. But does it matter if we have nothing in common? There is a full spectrum of views in the world and it’s a healthier place for robust debate. I wonder what the Frying pan debate would be like in 2009 on the same subject as this year. It is astonishing to see how blogs are maturing and developing to the point that we can have a good fight rather than simply coo over cupcakes and beautiful styling.
Sorry Matt, just realised that I was the moron (not sure if I can say that under the rules?) who mentioned the “C” word. I thought that when a large group of food bloggers were getting together for the 3rd Bloggers Banquet, that there was a community. Apologies from this new blogger to all those who contributed for suggesting that you needed to “belong”. I am not sure that anybody really feels that they need to “belong” but by linking up with others via our blogs we are by default in a virtual community (or at least that is my understanding - need to check Wikipedia). Really think we have more in common than individuals with just a pen & paper.
Again - sorry for misrepresenting other people with computers and internet connections who write about food.
thought this might be of interest to some:
http://www.sugarrae.com/dear-seo-community-its-not-me-its-you/
Thermomixer, thinking about it I think Matt may be wrong.We are a community. All sorts of groups are referred to as communities in that they share some common thread although it doesn’t mean they all get along or have anything else in common. Aren’t old media food writers a community of sprts with things in common?
Grocer, cheers