Blog Etiquette, eh?

My dear friend Carolina, who has blogged a great deal more than I have, informs me that some exciting new Rules of Blogging Conduct have started to circulate, apparently after some tech blogging that turned nasty ended up with death threats being tossed out onto some comments.

After scanning these bold, new rules, I am reminded of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. i.e. Play nice, be courteous, etc. In other words, act like civilized human beings. This seems like common sense, and hardly worth jotting down into a code, but the New York Time's Brad Stone hit the nail on the head when he noted: "Since the Web offers the option of anonymity with no accountability, online conversations are often more prone to decay into ugliness than those in other media."

A point upon which I don't really see a need to "debate" is the idea that blog comments should never be deleted, because as soon as they are written, they are part of living history. Whatever. If someone decides to disagree with one of my posts with a simple "You're wrong, you dumb b****" then I will most certainly delete it; and I will not feel that history is being cheated by this edit. If, however, the comment is followed by some well-researched rebuttal, bring it on. I welcome it. That's what being Nitpicky is all about; getting all the facts and then making an informed decision.