Tim O’Reilly replies to his critics regarding his proposed blogger’s code of conduct.

I agree with the gist of his message, which is that civility is important. Without it, there can be no real discussions. Once we get dragged down by the name-calling, the baseless accusations, the flaming, the trolling, and the invocation of Nazism, it’s over. Hence, Godwin’s Law.

Note that Godwin’s Law came into existence on Usenet. In many ways, network news was the precursor of blogging, and they figured out a lot of these issues way back when. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.

And again, there really are potential legal liabilities with hosting a blog. Just consider slander and libel. You can say all you like about people owning what they wrote, but I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the fact that the blogger has the power to delete comments leads inexorably to the fact that the blogger has a duty to moderate his/her site. Sure, you can refuse to delete comments, no matter how offensive. But we must recognize that the blogger chooses to allow this. If something inflammatory and insulting is on your site, whether or not you wrote it, you still have a hand at allowing it to be visible.

You simply cannot abdicate your responsibility as moderator.