Blogger Code of Conduct?

A hot topic of discussion in the blogosphere this week is the proposition of developing and adopting a code of conduct for bloggers, advanced in a Monday article of the New York Times. The measure was called for by Tim O'Reilly, in response to reports of blogger death threats.

Lot's of uncouth comments and articles pop up in the blogosphere. It's not hard to see why some would want to subscribe by a set of ethical standards. What O'Reilly purports is that users choose to abide by the code, and then represent their subscription by the presence of a logo on their website. As part of the code, bloggers are in charge of all content on their website (including comments) and have the ability to delete comments as they choose.

This isn't a first amendment issue, people do have a right to do what they want to do--and put whatever content they choose on their website or blog. However, since subscription to the code would be voluntary, I don't see it solving any of the problems bloggers are facing anyway. Bloggers have the ability to do most of the things outlined in the code, without putting pressure on themselves to moderate every single comment that finds its way to their website.

Many bloggers are quite upset about this proposal. Check out the BuzzFeed to see more of what others are saying.

From a product promotion perspective, I'm not sure if the presence of "moderated" blogs would have an effect on a site's traffic or not. I think depending on how well such a code was received by users, advertisers would either pull advertising or increase advertising. Perhaps if the code resulted in less "noise," advertisers would see an opportunity to have more effective reach by advertising on sites that endorsed it. However, looking at company-run blogs and similar things, I think the presence of using a code could be problematic. The last thing companies want to be associated with is controlling the conversation in order to unfairly promote their products.