Blog Guidelines.
1. Thou shall not confuse thy opinion with gospel truth. There is a
strong temptation, particularly when discussing contentious issues, to
claim unimpeachable authority on the subject at hand. Yes, everybody is
entitled to express personal opinions, but by treating your blog or wiki
like a panel rather than a pulpit, the dialogue will more likely be
divine.
2. Thou shall not invoke personal attacks. One of the magical powers
blogs and wikis seem to possess is the capability of turning otherwise
sensible people into bickering schoolchildren. Unless the discussion
subject is "Say something insulting about somebody who holds a different
opinion than you," leave the personal invective out. Rule of thumb:
Argue with the post, not the poster.
3. Thou shall stick to the subject at hand. Blogs in particular can get
tangential in a hurry. To some, that's part of the charm - you start
with an idea and end up somewhere completely different. That's all well
and good, but let tangents arise organically within the context of the
discussion. If you've got something wildly off topic to say, start a new
thread or keep it to yourself until it becomes relevant.
4. Thou shall cite thy references. As we all know, people can come up
with statistics to prove anything; 40 percent of all people know that.
So, set yourself apart from the herd by showing where you get your
facts. You'll look knowledgeable, honest, and trustworthy. What's not to
like about that?
5.
Thou shall punctuate and capitalise. We're not saying you should write
every post with one eye on The Chicago Manual of Style, but writing
several paragraphs as one gigantic, all-lowercase, run-on sentence is a
definite no-no. As is writing in ALL CAPS, WHICH IS LIKE SHOUTING!
Punctuation is your friend, so use it.
6. Thou shall own up to thy mistakes. Despite online chest-puffing to
the contrary, nobody's perfect. You are going to make mistakes. You are
going to be wrong about things. Instead of being defensive and denying
it, just admit your blunder and move on. If you have the urge to
browbeat somebody about making a mistake, refer to the second
commandment.
7. Thou shall not use aliases or sock puppets. If you have to invent a
separate identity in order to create the illusion of agreement, then
perhaps your point isn't as good as you think it is. Although it's
tempting to play games with the pseudo-anonymity the internet provides,
it's far better to stick with one identity.
8. Thou shall not feed the trolls. When people spew insults, pick
fights, or take contrarian positions just for the sake of being
contrary, ignore them. Insulting online miscreants or engaging them in
arguments accomplishes nothing, it just further pollutes the pages with
pointless back-and-forth.
9. Thou shall resize thy images. Remember, not everybody has screamingly
fast broadband connections like you, and not everybody has the patience
to wait for that huge picture of your pet iguana to download. Plus,
margin-breaking pictures are just plain annoying.
10. Thou shall respect the old adage: What happens on the wiki stays on
the wiki. It's wonderful how blogs and wikis can provide you with new
knowledge, insight, and perspective, and you should certainly carry what
you learn with you when you leave your computer. But all the bickering,
arguing, correcting, and other antics it took to get there? Leave those
behind. There is no need to bring your wiki-capades home with you.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/internet/9550/blog-etiquette-top-10-dos--donts/?pn=2
- Never offer any personal information including your last name, contact information, home address, phone numbers, school's name, e-mail address, last names of friends or relatives, instant messaging names, age, or birth date.
- Never post provocative pictures of yourself or anyone else, and be sure any images you provide do not reveal any of the previously mentioned information. Always remember to look at the background of a picture too.
- Assume what you publish on the Web is permanent. Anyone on the Internet can easily print out a blog or save it to a computer.
- Use blogging provider sites with clearly stated terms of use, and make sure they can protect the actual blogs, not just the user accounts, with password protection. (Even so, it's better to assume anyone can see it.)
- Avoid trying to "outdo" or compete with other bloggers.
- Keep blogs positive and don't use them for slander or to attack others.
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