Trenchwork

Mim recently raised a question about the need for posting codes of conduct, and it’s made me think.

Since my blog is low profile with a very limited readership, I haven’t particularly worried about inappropriate comments or feedback; I just hose those things before they can appear. There is a statement to that effect on the About page. But for bloggers with high profiles and large readerships, things can get tricky.

Sometimes we assume that others operate by our rules, but of course that’s not reality. In that sense, sometimes establishing the parameters helps make the playing field clear. Posting codes of conduct also, I think, helps a reader understand that the space is not an uncontrolled state of anarchy. It is owned, nurtured, and supported by its writer who is effectually offering participation in that space to others (via comments). The rules tell the reader that s/he is welcome to join in the game as long as s/he follows the house rules, and that creates a stronger sense of involvement in an active community.

It seems to me, though, that the need (perceived or real) to lay those rules out there is based on something else. I’m still thinking about this, but it seems to me that the need to lay out rules is connected to a common perception that the Web is a blank environment that allows—and even creates or encourages—faceless anonymity.

I don’t believe that’s true.

While a user can sign an comment or post with an alias, there are always markers. A clever programmer or hacker can potentially track that alias, hosters are generally not keen on protecting criminal abuse, but more importantly, people leave traces of themselves wherever they go. Like DNA fallout. The Web is—like the rest of the world—increasingly growing smaller. Online communities recognize individuals—by whatever names they choose to call themselves—as personalities. And they keep track of them. Word spreads about those who break the rules—implied or explicit—just as effectively as gossip in a small town. Sometimes the word goes out within a small segment of a larger group, but people are generally not compartmentalized in one and only one online community.  People have more than one aspect to their personalities and are active in more than one forum or community.  A member of a knitting group may also be a member of a spinning group, a photography group, a teaching group, a writing group, and so on.  I tend to think of the Web in terms of a cluster of small towns, all of which have lines of communication between one another on different levels.

It seems to me that the perceived anonymity of the ‘net is a misperception based on a surface assumption that there is nothing more to Internet presence or identity than the most superficial level of text.