Lately, I have been interested in the subject of the ethics of blogging specifically whether it is ethical to edit material after submission, how self revealing one must be, whether it is ethical to have an online persona, etc..

The first thing I realized is that people take this much more seriously that I thought.

• Essay on blogging ethics. This essay suggests that you shouldn’t edit material later. This is fine if you want to be a journalist instead of a diarist.
• OnePotMeal: Learning to Read. Examines some of the boundaries between truth and fiction.
• Jonathan Delacou: Art’s Emotional charge.
• mamamusings: honesty of a different nature
• Blogging, ethics, and moolah
• Washington Post takes on ethics and blogging.

Does it matter if the blog entry is true? To me, the answer is sometimes not.

For instance,these confessions are hilarious, entertaining and instructive even if not true.

• Hannah’s confession
• Andrew’s confession

However, if the BBC “blog” entries were false I would be peeved. It’s all about context to me.

However, I think that really the issue is people want to understand the author’s intent when they read. They don’t want to get emotionally wound up over fiction, for instance.

On the other hand many blogs have the tone of an annual Christmas letter. Does anyone really argue over whether the Christmas letter account of the previous year is an accurate and faithful recording of the years events?

I have a solution to propose. I propose that people adopt a standard way of tagging their content. Here are some categories that people could use sort of like the Creative Commons license.

• Readers choice (Reader decides veracity)
• Author Editorial opinion
• First Hand Account
• News Commentary
• For Fun
• Self Revelation
• Speculation
• Fiction
• Plagiarism

Each of the categories above would exist in a “signed” and “unsigned” author state. The “signed” state would indicate that the author would be willing to swear in a court of law, stake their online reputation, or be willing to provide evidence of the “truthfulness” of the blog entry. The unsigned state would be less rigourous. For instance a “Self Revelation” entry that did not completely bare the soul and all the nuances would be “unsigned”.

The readers would also be able to sign the material. In this way a web of trust” could be developed, so that others might have a frame of reference for the material.

Perhaps this would prevent a “journalist” in China from mistaking the onion for a real source of news.

I suppose some of the heat in this discussion is generated by people who see blogging as a means to creating a world dominated by peace, love, freedom, and democracy through a connected informed public.

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