aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

I came across this post on Weblog Ethics a while back and found it to be the best of any I've seen. It's apparently from 2002; if so it has held up pretty well. Clickthrough for footnotes. It is excerpted from The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog by Rebecca Blood, copyright 2002, all rights reserved.

1. Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true. If your statement is speculation, say so. If you have reason to believe that something is not true, either don't post it, or note your reservations. When you make an assertion, do so in good faith; state it as fact only if, to the best of your knowledge, it is so.

• check! This one's easy.

2. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it. Linking to referenced material allows readers to judge for themselves the accuracy and insightfulness of your statements. Referencing material but selectively linking only that with which you agree is manipulative. Online readers deserve, as much as possible, access to all of the facts �? the Web, used this way, empowers readers to become active, not passive, consumers of information. Further, linking to source material is the very means by which we are creating a vast, new, collective network of information and knowledge.

On the rare occasion when a writer wishes to reference but not drive traffic to a site she considers to be morally reprehensible (for example, a hate site), she should type out (but not link) the name or URL of the offending site and state the reasons for her decision. This will give motivated readers the information they need to find the site in order to make their own judgment. This strategy allows the writer to preserve her own transparency (and thus her integrity) while simultaneously declining to lend support to a cause she finds contemptible.

• check! Will do.

3. Publicly correct any misinformation.

If you find that you have linked to a story that was untrue, make a note of it and link to a more accurate report. If one of your own statements proves to be inaccurate, note your misstatement and the truth. Ideally, these corrections would appear in the most current version of your weblog and as an added note to the original entry. (Remember that search engines will pull up entries without regard to when they were posted; once an entry exists in your archives, it may continue to spread an untruth even if you corrected the information a few days later.) If you aren't willing to add a correction to previous entries, at least note it in a later post.

One clear method of denoting a correction is the one employed by Cory Doctorow, one of the contributors to the Boing Boing weblog. He strikes through any erroneous information and adds the corrected information immediately following. The reader can see at a glance what Bill Cory originally wrote and that he has updated the entry with information he feels to be more accurate. (Do it like this in HTML: The reader can see at a glance what Bill Cory originally wrote and that he has updated the entry with information he feels to be more accurate.)

• check! I typically add the correction to the original entry when I find it. I sometimes use strikethrough playfully in a post, so prefer to make the correction explicit at the end. If it's minor, I may do it in the body.

4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.

Post deliberately. If you invest each entry with intent, you will ensure your personal and professional integrity.

Changing or deleting entries destroys the integrity of the network. The Web is designed to be connected; indeed, the weblog permalink is an invitation for others to link. Anyone who comments on or cites a document on the Web relies on that document (or entry) to remain unchanged. A prominent addendum is the preferred way to correct any information anywhere on the Web. If an addendum is impractical, as in the case of an essay that contains numerous inaccuracies, changes must be noted with the date and a brief description of the nature of the change.

If you think this is overly scrupulous, consider the case of the writer who points to an online document in support of an assertion. If this document changes or disappears �? and especially if the change is not noted �? her argument may be rendered nonsensical. Books do not change; journals are static. On paper, new versions are always denoted as such.

The network of shared knowledge we are building will never be more than a novelty unless we protect its integrity by creating permanent records of our publications. The network benefits when even entries that are rendered irrelevant by changing circumstance are left as a historical record. As an example: A weblogger complains about inaccuracies in an online article; the writer corrects those inaccuracies (and notes them!); the weblogger's entry is therefore meaningless �? or is it? Deleting the entry somehow asserts that the whole incident simply didn't happen �? but it did. The record is more accurate and history is better served if the weblogger notes beneath the original entry that the writer has made the corrections and the article is now, to the weblogger's knowledge, accurate.

History can be rewritten, but it cannot be undone. Changing or deleting words is possible on the Web, but possibility does not always make good policy. Think before you publish and stand behind what you write. If you later decide you were wrong about something, make a note of it and move on.

I make a point never to post anything I am not willing to stand behind even if I later disagree. I work to be thoughtful and accurate, no matter how angry or excited I am about a particular topic. If I change my opinion in a day or two, I just note the change. If I need to apologize for something I've said, I do so.

If you discover that you have posted erroneous information, you must note this publicly on your weblog. Deleting the offending entry will do nothing to correct the misinformation your readers have already absorbed. Taking the additional step of adding a correction to the original entry will ensure that Google broadcasts accurate information into the future.

The only exception to this rule is when you inadvertently reveal personal information about someone else. If you discover that you have violated a confidence or made an acquaintance uncomfortable by mentioning him, it is only fair to remove the offending entry altogether, but note that you have done so.

• Mostly! I agree with the sentiment but have had two instances where I've violated it.

I once deleted a post because I feared it might jeopardize my job. I thought it was a terrific post, but it inadvertently expressed a belief that was at odds with my employer. It was a mistake to write the post, but the day job pays the bills. My pledge is to avoid such mistakes in the future.

The other situation was switching blog software, which broke every link I had out there.

I am a terrible speller; I use spell check and still make errors. I will correct them when I see them. I may also change a headline to be more pithy or edit content for clarity. I don't make substantive changes and don't typically do that more than an hour or so from the time I post. When/if I do it later than that I note it.

5. Disclose any conflict of interest.

Most webloggers are quite transparent about their jobs and professional interests. It is the computer programmer's expertise that gives her commentary special weight when she analyzes a magazine article about the merits of the latest operating system. Since weblog audiences are built on trust, it is to every weblogger's benefit to disclose any monetary (or other potentially conflicting) interests when appropriate. An entrepreneur may have special insight into the effect of a proposed Senate bill or a business merger; if she stands to benefit directly from the outcome of any event, she should note that in her comments. A weblogger, impressed with a service or product, should note that she holds stock in the company every time she promotes the service on her page. Even the weblogger who receives a CD for review should note that fact; her readers can decide for themselves whether her favorable review is based on her taste or on her desire to continue to receive free CDs.

Quickly note any potential conflict of interest and then say your piece; your readers will have all the information they need to assess your commentary.

• check! The talk lately has been that disclosure's not enough. I tend to think it is, but remain open to the possibility that I'm wrong.

6. Note questionable and biased sources.

When a serious article comes from a highly biased or questionable source, the weblogger has a responsibility to clearly note the nature of the site on which it was found. In their foraging, webloggers occasionally find interesting, well-written articles on sites that are maintained by highly biased organizations or by seemingly fanatical individuals. Readers need to know whether an article on the medical ramifications of first trimester abortion comes from a site that is pro-life, pro-choice, or strongly opposed to medical intervention of all kinds. A thoughtful summation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be worth reading whether it is written by a member of the PLO or a Zionist �? but readers have the right to be alerted to the source.

It is reasonable to expect that expert foragers have the knowledge and motivation to assess the nature of these sources; it is not reasonable to assume that all readers do. Readers depend on weblogs, to some extent, for guidance in navigating the Web. To present an article from a source that is a little nutty or has a strong agenda is fine; not to acknowledge the nature of that source is unethical, since readers don't have the information they need to fully evaluate the article's merits.

If you are afraid that your readers will discount the article entirely based on its context, consider why you are linking it at all. If you strongly feel the piece has merit, say why and let it stand on its own, but be clear about its source. Your readers may cease to trust you if they discover even once that you disguised �? or didn't make clear �? the source of an article they might have evaluated differently had they been given all the facts.

• check! I do my best.

Added Monday, June 11, 2007

Clarification to #2: LINKS ARE NOT ENDORSEMENTS

I link for many reasons. Sometimes endorsement, sometimes commentary, sometimes merely to document and record for my own future reference the source of the material I'm referencing. If I do not explicitly add clarifying text that indicates an endorsement, A LINK IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT. I will sometimes choose not to link to a source. That choice may be commentary, but the choice to on occasion use the absence of a link for commentary does not infer that any other choice to link is an endorsement.

The paragraph above also applies to quotes.

The occasion for this clarification is the experience of Scott Kaufman.