In keeping with my earlier posts on blog attacks, I did some research and found some interesting debates on the role of civility in the blog phenomenon, some of them difficult to decipher but probably worth the effort. But is there something different about civility in blogging from any other medium? Seems to me a question worth investigating. One reason corporate blogging might be different from personal blogging is the role of civility. As with email and message boards, flame wars are a common event in blog-land. But flaming is not the kind of thing corporate types typically do well, and it probably doesn't make good business sense. Interesting then that this topic has not received greater play in discussions of corporate blogging. One way to illustrate this is to do a search on blogging and civility in any of the major blog search engines. What you get back is predominantly links to bile and spew decrying the loss of civility by the "other" side (read some examples and see for yourself), rather than a view of civility as an ethic shared among a group of communicators. The results for delicious, technorati, and icerocket are just cases in the larger phenomenon.
I gather we need to understand the emergent expectations regarding civility and blogging -- if any such expectations exist -- a little bit better. Some expectation of civility is reasonable and necessary to ensure a commons in which people can discuss freely. Civil doesn't mean boring, and that's where expert guidance and some additional social norming will probably happen. Sure, there are ettiquette guides for corporate blogs, how-to's, manuals and the like, but I don't think we have really arrived at ettiquette for those among us who blog as part of their job. Is there anything different about the way we should behave online, and in particular blogging, from other media? We see some of this emerging with the assertive stance some have taken toward harassing commenters, and with the withdrawal, albeit temporary, by a few high-profile bloggers from the medium. It will be interesting to see where this goes. The social rules are likely to be as important than the technology in determining the uptake of blogging by mainstream corporate functions.
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