Worker Bees Blog

Lately I've seen discussions revive about various forms of online, or even more specifically, blogging "ethics."

Two examples are Susan Getgood's discussion of bloggers posting ethics policies and Darren Rowse's discussion of whether it's OK for commenters to leave "signatures" at the end of their comments.

And it seems to boil down to two questions you should ask yourself:

Are your readers your guests? Or your customers?
Are you a host? Or a service provider?

Can we just admit right now that there are a whole bunch of bloggers who don't give a fig about this entire discussion. Lots and lots of people blog for fun. Or for an outlet. Or to practice writing. And they blog because tools have made it an easy and independent process. There is no way it makes sense to discuss ethics or policies and expect it to apply across the board to all bloggers.

Ironically many of those bloggers who use and read blogs purely for personal expression and entertainment and education would be the most stringent policy-makers. They don't want to see ads. They don't care about traffic and don't want you to either. They feel perfectly within their rights to do whatever they want with posts or comments. To them the blogosphere seems almost like hallowed ground, a place of pure personal expression, unfettered by editors, filters etc. But there is absolutely no incentive for such bloggers to bother with official policies.

But we're not talking about those bloggers. We are talking now about bloggers who consider their blog some extension of their public or professional persona, and to therefore reflect on their character. And in many cases impact their business, whatever it may be.

And this is a segment in which I can see some conflict between the readers as guest vs. customer attitude. This is the segment in which I think the blogger has to have a clear sens eof which they consider themselves to be.

Let's take example #1: Blogger as host; readers are guests
Russell Beattie's blog. Russell has been quite clear that he considers his blog his space, and you are a guest there. To that end he has no compunction about deleting comments. He doesn't have this stated on his About page, but I've seen him post to this effect. Now, one could argue...this isn't just a personal blog. He talks technology, a lot. It's clear for whom he works. He runs at least one technical group (Mobile Mondays.) All true. There's no rule that says someone who blogs and refers to their professional life can't have the host/guest view of his or her blog. And Russell executes this style very well. Why do I think so? because he's not trying to be in business with his guests. If you go to someone's house for what you think is a nice dinner, and instead you find yourself in the middle of a pitch for something...well, nobody likes that. (Don't get me wrong: if you were invited to a Tupperware Party and showed up, that's fine.)

But here's example #2: Blogger as service provider, readers as potential customers
I personally consider Darren's ProBlogger site to fall into this category. I mean the name says it all, right? I want to be absolutely clear: I think this kind of blogging is absolutely fine. I have no false perspective that the blogosphere should remain pure and unsullied by commercial enterprise. I find it ironic that some strong blogvangelists out there have expressed dismay that their blogvangelizing actually worked, and they no longer control how the technology tool is being used. I, as is obvious from this very blog, think blogs are an amazing tool for business communications.

But once you blog in this fashion, the "host" attitude must change. Your readers are now potential customers and deserve the kind of care you would deliver to potential customers in the offline world. Does it mean you have to accept abuse, or profanity (if it offends you) or spam. No way. But as I said in the comment I left in Darren's post on comment signatures:

"...if you were a personal blogger, I might understand this concern for pure and promotion-free commenting. But you host a business blog, full of ads and self-promotional posts and links. It’s a very uni-directonal attitude."

[Of course, maybe Darren doesn't buy into the whole "markets are conversations" meme, and uni-directional is exactly what he was going for.]

There's no single answer for how bloggers should handle any part of their blog, from commenting policies, to self-disclosures (just as, I might add, there is no such monolithic answer for web sites in general.) I vote we stop looking for sweeping policies that could be applied to all. Perhaps we should all just add a line to the top of our blogs that said "Welcome Invited Guests" or "Welcome Valued Customers."

Both statements are warm and welcoming. But they raise very different expectations from the blogger, don't you think?