James Galvin

“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.�

Announcing the blogger code of conduct, courtesy of Tim O’Reilly from O’Reilly Media (those computer books with an animal on the cover). The media has latched onto this story like never before - it made the front page of the NY Times yesterday, and I’ve seen it springing up in a bunch of newspapers this side of the Atlantic, including on BBC news. I have been struggling all evening, tormented by the claims that the man behind this is from Cork - but now I see the wealth of publicity resulting from this attention-seeking gimmick, and the limitless potential for spin-offs and follow-ups exploiting the willingness of clueless journalists to spout a few internet buzzwords, and I am convinced that this can only be the work of a Kerryman with a dodgy birth cert.

On the internet, bad publicity does not exist. The bottomless well of negativity reacting to this beacon of stupidity must surely be overflowing by now, but as it spreads like an incredulous fungus, each backlink will only serve to feed the absurd monstrosity at the source. What worries me is that, against the tide of common sense, Tim O’Reilly is building up a legion of followers supporting the new measures. It reminds me of a Derren Brown act where where he told a bunch of people to walk to one end of the room. Those that did, stayed, those that didn’t, were sent home. This was his first step in filtering the most malleable of the group who would be susceptible to his tricks. One might suspect that Tim O’Reilly is assembling his own private army, a horde of enthusiastic do-gooders still trying to figure out whether two legs are good or baaad, as they proudly display their eye-catching “Civility Enforced” insignia that somebody found in the Microsoft’s ClipArt archives from 1997.

I don’t think there’s any need to delve into the details as to what exactly is wrong with the code of conduct, since I’d probably be preaching to the converted. Damien has a good summary of the response around the place, and it is refreshing to see that there aren’t so many people kitting out in their camouflage and sheriff’s badge just yet. I particularly like this guy’s response.

I’m always cautious using the word ‘blog’ in describing this site, and cringe outright at the mention of a ‘blogosphere’. The internet is so full of people trying to make their own definitions - I just want to update my website with cool stuff. Does this mean I go back to having a homepage again?

 del.icio.us   |    digg it

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 at 2:37 am and is filed under General, Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.