I read this journalist’s POV in response to the Blogger’s code of conduct :
Tony Long, Wired News, The Blogosphere, Where a Tawdry Culture Goes to Die

Much like Long’s analogy “you can put earrings on a hog but it’s still a hog”, I agree with what my grandmother similarly used to say : “what do you expect from a pig but a grunt?” Some people, and sadly it’s more people than you and I would care to admit, just have no clue what proper conduct is – on OR off line.

Or do they?

I believe that it’s easy to KNOW what the right thing to do is, but it takes a better and bigger person to DO the right thing. Especially on the web. The anonymity and disconnection we can feel online empowers some of us to take risks such as posting outrageous comments, publishing explicit videos, or spreading unfounded rumors. Why do they do it, is another question. But the fact is, once it is out there, it’s out there. For everyone else in the world to hear, see, watch, read – and react to.

Can we no longer regard the photographer, film maker, or journalist as an “artist” or a “professional”, when just about ANY Joe Schmoe can share a photo album, post a video, or write an editorial and syndicate it all over the world? The web has become a platform for otherwise unknown but emerging new artists and writers, and in no way does or will Joe’s work compare to the quality of those at their craft. What Long rather sarcastically (is that a bit hypocritical – to call for professionalism in such a whiny, antagonistic tone? Isn’t his last line the very type of school yard taunting we see too much of on the web? ), but I think rightfully, points out is that if Joe Schmoe is calling himself a “journalist” and is exercising his right to “free speech”, then he should be held to the same legal consequences for his slandering, racism, copyright infringement, and unfounded reporting no matter how much of a right he has to publish it. With every right comes responsibility. Ask Don Imus. Rosie may insist he has a right to free speech, but when you make irresponsible comments like he did, you should be stripped of your profession. And go back to just being Joe Schmoe.

Look, I read PerezHilton.com. It’s a celebrity gossip blog. Its frivolous and flippant, self-indulgent and an intellectual void (I admit it!!). In it, the author, who was indeed a nobody Joe Schmoe til he made this blog, posts photos from other papparazzi-sharing sites that he often doctors with slanderous labels like “whore” or “man slut”, publishes rumors about celebs from “tips” he gets on the street or via email like who is gay and doesn’t know it or who is in AA, and generally types up his opinion on just about everyone and everything they do, wear, say, eat, sing, etc., and he is not particularly nice about it unless he likes them that day.

Once his blog blew up in popularity, Perez was quite quickly sued for copyright infringement which has forced him to cite the sources and get permission for the use of all of his borrowed images, and he gets plenty of defamation threats (and physical threats!) from celebs. He also now cites the sources of his “tips.” He may be covering his own ass, but he certainly is still pretty cruel at times.

Is civility dead? It sure is under fire and just as technology has exploited and glorified it, technology has been taking the blame for it. I get a bit bristled when a young man doesn’t give up his seat for an elderly person on the bus. Was that same man on the bus too tuned into his iPod to notice the old man? Perhaps! Look around on the T some time and count how many people have earphones on. And don’t miss the jerk blabbing on her cell phone about personal stuff, as if no one is there! Is virtual reality compromising our view of what is reality and how we live in it?

I love the internet. I believe in its power to connect and empower people to share ideas and achieve a global understanding of one another. It has its risks and its benefits and as it grows, the boundaries we try to lasso around it stretch and contract.

So why didn’t I keep my match.com profile up for more than 3 minutes? Delete. I guess I wanna still believe in the real world.

Related Links :
Miss Manners for the web
The Blogosphere, Where a Tawdry Culture Goes to Die
Blogger’s Code of Conduct
CBS fires Don Imus

Google has added icons to its Google Earth map of Darfur in Sudan which highlight detroyed villages and displaced people.

Related article : tectree.org

So besides owning that company called Microsoft, Bill Gates also owns Corbis which happens to own the rights to over 100 million stock photos, including most of the world’s most recognizable images – Marilyn Monroe from the 7 Year Itch, Einstein sticking his tongue out, JFK Jr under the President’s desk…you can picture them in your mind, but you can’t republish them without forking over at least $250 per image! In response and in light of the emergene of collaborative archives of imagery such as Flickr and iStockPhoto, Corbis has made moves to corner the microstock business and basically be the first one an advertising agency calls for the rights to not only images, but stock video clips, and even songs.

He may have a limestone cavern full of the originals (which is cool in and of itself), but can he really attain and monitor the rights to EVERY stock media in advertising? Phew. And all this while saving Africa. Go Bill.

Related article : A Photo Trove, A Mounting Challenge

Tim O’Reilly has teamed up with WIKI creator Jim Wales to form a collaborative consensus of a Blogger’s code of conduct. Anonymous posts can get nasty and unfounded viral gossip becomes downright libelous, but the cries for free speech and against censorship keep the forums open to anything. O’Reilly and Wales are calling for a consensus of acceptable guidelines which bloggers can contribute to in a wiki.  They envision the placement of graphical tags on posts, and the citing of sources to support any claims. Don’t expect any “blog police” to  patrol the web for violators, though, once guidelines are set. The whole system relies on the blogging community to police itself, just like the way wikipedia operates.

It’s sad to think that we need to publicly set standards of behavior online, but I do agree that it is necessary. Go on any myspace or to a you tube video and there is at least one  antagonistic comment like “that’s gay” or “you suck” or worse that serves no intellectual purpose to its posting. But the guidelinesa are only as effective as the people who enforce them, and thsoe people are the very users themselves. What O’Reilly and Wales and the rest of us are hoping for, is that we out number the haters.

Ms. Manners for the web!

http://blogging.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Blogger%27s_Code_of_Conduct

NYTimes article

Wow I got a letter in the mail yesterday addressed to “Professor L. Radden.” I began teaching at Bunker Hill Community College yesterday, hence the contract in the mail. It’s an intensive 15 week class in only 7 weeks, 2x a week, in 3 hour sessions, and all about computer applications – basically Microsoft tools and Windows XP basics. I am excited to be given the opportunity to experience teaching college students. I was asked to do this as part of a proposed Microsoft and NSF grant. The goal is to get high school teachers like me to teach community college technology courses, and then teach the course back to my own high school students. The students would gain dual credit as a result, and an increased alignment of IT skills and standards taught in community colleges and high schools would be achieved (ideally). Anyway, I am happy to be the first (a pilot study magnet, I am!) and to help build the model.

So the major news over the last week has been the arrival of the Guardian Angels into town in response to the escalation of violence in Boston. Boston has tallied 13 homicides in 2007, up from 10 this time last year, and witnessed 3 violent shootings in broad daylight in the span of only 4 hours on Friday alone, 2 resulting in death. The Angels have come to town to recruit peacemakers who can promote anti-violence within their own communities and counteract what the gangs are doing. Although they were not turned away, they were not exactly supported by skeptical police and hopeful but cautious civilians.

I say whatever help we can get, take it, and I do agree that the movement for peace needs to come from its own people, who need to welcome and trust the authority that are there to protect them. Although more guns are off of the streets, the gang mentality of anti-snitching and distrusting police remains, and it is a powerful one, powerful enough to keep families hiding in their homes, witnesses’ mouths closed, and teenagers trust of authority broken even as their friends get gunned down before their eyes.

Working literally right in the middle of the major areas entrenched in the gang warfare, and seeing 15 year olds come into school wearing t-shirts dedicated to their gunned down cousins, I am hopeful that the Angels’ work is effective but skeptical about the depth and longevity of its outreach. Of course they are seen as “outsiders,” not welcome, not supported. Who are they recruiting and what is their agenda? The future – the young people – to stop the cycle of violence that is clearly spiraling out of proportion.

I brought the topic to the attention of my 11th grade students today in class and every one of them had an opinion, a question, a comment about it, but were actually mostly asking me what I thought about it all. It amazed me because THEY are the ones who live it! I told them how much it disturbs me to have to listen closely to the names of the victims, or to hear students retell stories of gun shots fired minutes after getting off of the bus in broad daylight. I didn’t grow up in an environment like that, so I can’t relate – and I don’t know what the solution is. And they don’t either. But they are the ones the Angels, the police, the teachers, the neighbors are looking to for answers. They are the ones who have to stop the cycle. For their generation and the next and the next…but when asked “what do you think? what is it like to be you? what do you want to say about it?”, they seemed surprised that I was even asking, as if I were the first to want to hear it. In the age of the online democracy and the access they have to such a huge audience, wow, the implications of their messages could really be powerful. If only they had the confidence to say it, to film it, to ask it, to solve it…I guess that is what the Angels are up against as well.