Take The Pledge By Not Taking The Pledge: A Meta Exercise In Three Bowel Movements

First off, let me observe that [my friend] Bill is stupid and his mom wears combat boots in bed.  Now I will address his alleged "points" in a fisting, er...fisking manner.

First of all, NTodd has decided to ally himself with the "uncivil" set that the Code seeks to address. He writes, "Look, civility is great and shit, and nice people are nice and assholes like me are assholes."

WRONG! I haven't decided to ally myself with anybody.  I merely observe that I am, in fact, incivil.  That's merely my state of blogging, not some conscious choice to join other assholes in Asshole Solidarity.  I don't give a shit if somebody else is civil or incivil--well, now maybe I do, but more on that in a bit,

Let's remember how this current round of "wow, the blogosphere is a shrill place" got started -- with threats of sexual assault and death on a prominent technology blogger. NTodd may be a fucking potty mouth, but I don't think any reasonable person (so this excludes Althouse and her ilk) would consider him part of the problem.

Indeed, I am not part of the problem.  But golly, if I don't take The Pledge of Holy Blogging Goodness, how could any reasonable person tell?  Oh yeah, because they're reasonable people. 

For the comments threatening sexual assault and death, well...a Civility Code isn't going to stop the insane dorkwads who do that shit from doing it.  What's more, there are legal remedies in place for that, whether it be on a blog, via phone or with the person scrawling threats on your walls with your dog's blood.

There is a misconception, hinted at in the Times piece yesterday, that the freest speech is that which is completely unmoderated -- anything goes.

Watch out when playing with fire, Strawman!  You could get hurt.

I know of nobody who actually believes this--at the very least, I do not.  I never suggested that unfettered speech in any and all fora is the freest.  That's why in my previous post I recommended that people who want civility in their threads do stuff like post their house rules and moderate the goddamned comments.

"[T]hat shit" is fucking rampant out there in the woolly blogosphere and it sucks -- just as much as comment-spam -- more if you're the one getting the death threats. So what's wrong with saying "that shit won't fly on my blog?"

Uh...nothing.  Which is a large part of my point: bloggers can go ahead and say that.  Right now, without Timmy or Jimmy to help them.

I have a "support EFF" button on my blog. That button declares my support not only for the Electronic Frontier Foundation itself, but also for my general concern with copyright, privacy and free speech issues online. It's a badge that states my alignment with a certain set of guiding principles. Visitors to Candleblog can see that, and know that I'm hip to the work being done on warrantless wiretapping and frivolous DMCA takedown notices. Those buttons are common in the blogosphere and they have helped to shape its culture. That's the hope here.

Do you often make apple pie with oranges?  EFF is an activist organization that is protecting civil liberties online and fighting corporatist overreach.  Here we're talking about people promising to be excellent to each other in online communities.

Yes, that's exactly what this code is about Todd, bloggers stating their commenting policies. It's just a little bit organized in an effort to show some solidarity. Nobody is forcing anybody to do, say or think anything. There is no Blogger's Code Board set up to punish those who don't toe the line. Please get off your high horse -- you might fall and hurt something.

Projection, thy name is Bill.  The whole point of the Civility Code is to give birth to the Civility High Horse.  What organization is needed for bloggers to say, "hey, I'm civil"?  Absolutely NONE.

What you're failing to see is the larger context of such codes and pledges and shitbrained "solutions".  As I said before, I've seen this kind of thing crop up and all it really ends up being is some bullshit to let people claim moral superiority when underneath their civil language are wholly incivil concepts. 

"Don't use the word faggot...and by the way, that's icky and they shouldn't have civil rights."

"Don't say 'fuck'...but if somebody disagrees with you, out them and their family."

Dig?

Anyway, another strawman rears its ugly head here: I've not suggested that there is a Blogger's Code Board or anything.  The point here is that even such voluntary things, which have no real pragmatic purpose, are fucking stupid and I damn well always will criticize them in the loudest, most obnoxious manner NToddly possible.

And Todd is the second blogger I've seen compare the "Infamous Scribblers" Hamilton and Burr to "uncivil" blog commenters. It's a weak comparison. Hamilton and his ilk were nothing, if not substantive. The same cannot be said for the commenters who called for the rape and murder of Kathy Sierra.

Uh...Hamilton was killed.  One might say that was not just having a comment call for his murder, but rather murdering him in actual fact.

Further, you're now conflating threats with civility.  When BDG, the troll from Toronto, pretended to be my dead mother, my dead SIL, and my ex-wife whilst making disgusting comments, that was incivil.  Making threats is another thing entirely and, as I noted above, has remedies that necessarily go beyond pledges and codes.  Law enforcement needs to be engaged in that situation.

As for the rest, I dare say that the incivil bloggers who give the blogosphere the rep as being incivil and shrill and nasty and whatever do, in fact, provide substance in addition.  Being naughty and being logical are not mutually exclusive characteristics of most bloggers and commenters.

And now I offer the wide world of blogging my own pledge.  To show solidarity, I demand that all incivil bloggers unite under my banner. Don't take this Holy Fucking Pledge and you can earn The Seal:

We fucking celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces words like 'fuck' and open conversation. But frankness does not have to mean we can't have fun and swear like sailors. We present this Holy Fucking Pledge in hopes that it helps create a culture that encourages both personal expression and constructive conversation. One can say naughty words and insult one's mom without losing points in the discussion.

1. We take responsibility for our own words and reserve the right to call stupid people names when they fucking annoy us.

2. We won't tell anybody to fuck off if we wouldn't tell them to fuck off in person.

3. If tensions escalate, we will start a metablogpissingmatch, if only to generate traffic.

4. When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we escalate and get more personal and nasty.

5. We allow anonymous comments because who the fuck really cares?  It's a goddamned blog.

6. We troll other sites for shits and giggles.

7. We encourage parody sites because if you can't take a fucking joke, you're a goddamned moran and shouldn't be blogging.

I left all the long-winded explanatory stuff under each point as an exercise for the individual blogger.  Fuck you, you lazy-assed pieces of shit--I ain't doing all the work.

ntodd

[X-posted at Dohiyi Mir]

[Update: Bill has responded again.  Well, uh, that's just your opinion, man.]

Comments

[Diane C. Barking-Mad]

Bravo!

These same people apparently believe "civility" is more important than integrity. One of their heroes just might be Rep. Cantor, whose blog not only moderates comments, it fucking alters them.

BTW, nice looking new site!

[Thers]

All right, but NO FUCKING PARODY BLOGS.

[Barry from Alaska]

I demand to be listed as a Champions of Integritude, you ungrateful little kibble chomper!

Farging Harumph.