Rebecca Blood has an excerpt from her book The Weblog Handbook posted dealing with weblog ethics that’s well worth looking at. I do my best to abide by these rules — to me, most of them are pure common sense — but it’s not a bad idea to occasionally refresh the concept in your mind.
- Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.
- If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.
- Publicly correct any misinformation.
- Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.
- Disclose any conflict of interest.
- Note questionable and biased sources.
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Well what can I say? Although I like the list and it would be nice if people followed it. I’ll be the first to admit I have no intention of setting these rules as my guidelines.
I’m ok with #1
And I try to do #2 but don’t or can’t at times. (I’m learning)
I’m even ok with #3.
But #4 I have major problems with. I’m not a journalist or a reporter and my blog isn’t “news” it’s opinion and I reserve the right to change anything, anytime I want or delete anything any time I want.
5 is an odd duck for me, I think I would but I can’t think of how I would ever run into it. I am selling some of my pictures but it should be clear to everyone that I’ll make a little money off the sale. Oh wait I get it! I could tell everybody to run out and buy Xerox printers and not tell them I work for Xerox. Of course I won’t make any money from the sale and Xerox printers suck so I guess that’s out.
I also have a bit of trouble with # 6. Quite frankly in my mind, ALL sources are questionable and or biased. But in the end, I do try to be “Fair and Balanced.”
Isn’t that enough?
I’ve developed my own blog policy that I actually try to abide by completely. So far it’s worked out for me.