Blogs, Law and Reality
Out of nowhere a client asked me a blogging question, which is pretty funny considering BlogWorld is this week. But this had nothing to do with BlogWorld. He wanted to talk about comments on his company's blog. After giving him the usual info about not violating the rights of third parties, and what he is and is not responsible for, I mentioned one of my favorite themes, that blog comments are a form of social networking, or what we used to call an "online community."
Just as no set of laws or etiquette books can anticipate all human interaction, and a person often has to rely on their interpersonal skills to make up responses on the fly, so no set of "Rules for Comments" is going to ever replace the need to understand people. And understanding people online is analogous to, but not at all the same as, understanding them in person. I know quite a few people who are wonderful at communicating online, and who seem socially inept in person. And I know even more who function very well in person and do nothing but build animosity online.
Charles Johnson, who runs Little Green Footballs, a blog with a very active comments section, gets online communities. In fact, when I went to get his URL, I just saw his site is up for "Best Online Community" award at BlogWorld. And a lot of that has to do with how Charles responds (or doesn't respond) to things going on in his comments section.
My client who asked the question, and I can say this, because I told him I would blog about it, and besides I'm not naming names, doesn't get it. It was clear from talking to him, that he wasn't going to get it. And the law isn't going to help him. In the end I recommended that he not have comments, or that he find someone in his company who did "get it." But I'm re-thinking even that. He'll interfere and just annoy people. I think I'll email him and tell him to skip the comments entirely. Maybe he can do a nice little survey.
