Guidelines to Ethical Blogging

From IndiWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

This page is a work in progress, and was started thanks to Mrinal, who brought up the subject of blogging ethics at the recent blogger meet at Bangalore. Subsequent discussion revolved around the fact that most bloggers are simply unaware of what's right and what's not. Sridhar then brought up the idea of creating a wiki on IndiBlogger, so the blogging community can formulate the rules and guidelines of ethical blogging.

Perhaps we could start with outlining broad topics, such as Plagiarism, Manners, Content, Commenting, etc. Feel free to edit this page and let's start the process!


Plagiarism:

  • Do not use anyone else's content (text, pictures, audio, video) without that person's permission. Most bloggers have a license associated with their content so please adhere to that. If there is no license then the author has by default reserved all rights and you should not use his content without his permission. Most bloggers use the Creative-Commons license which states that you can use this content if you give credit to the original author, read more at http://creativecommons.org/international/in or http://cc-india.org.
  • Adherence to point 1 above should be both in letter and in spirit. While it would be a temptation to reproduce an idea without copying the content word for word, it will still be copying. Seconding an idea with due accredition to the original would be the recommended way to go about it.
  • Always give credit to your source of information ... that source could be a blog, a book, a tv show or anything else

Manners:

  • Make corrections to your post if pointed out and found factually incorrect.
  • If you are discussing someone else's post, make sure that you give a link back to the original post. Do not link to the main blog as such, but try to link to the post itself.

Posting:

  • If you are posting commercial posts, make sure that this is displayed on the blog or post. You can even create your own disclosure policy at http://www.disclosurepolicy.org
  • Try not to self-censor by removing posts or comments unless spam.
  • When someone does not follow the rules, make sure that you make him aware that he is doing so by writing a post about him or commenting on his particular post. Make him aware of the Blogger Code of Ethics.
  • Avoid flaming whenever possible. Though this is a feature more found in Forums, "flames" can creep in whenver there are comments and replies to a particular post that someone does not agree to. For a complete explanation on Flaming, check the Wikipedia article at Flaming
  • We all hate trolls. In the LOTR books and especially at our comments section. Do not post controversial, irrelevant and off topic comments on someone else's blog. Lookup the Wikipedia article at Troll.

Comments:

  • Do not flame. Plain and simple.
  • Do not post off topic comments.
  • Try not to comment spam. Comment on the relevant post. Incase you want to contact the blog author, try and see if there is a contact page or link where you can send him a personal note. If this is not found, then the author obviously does not want to be contacted.
  • Do not go looking for "friendship" on blogs. That's what social networking sites are for.
Retrieved from "http://wiki.indiblogger.in/index.php5?title=Guidelines_to_Ethical_Blogging"
Personal tools