A Proposed Social Media Deontology.

Jub - Feb 6, 2009

I think the most important point is the one you make in article 7.

I am happy for anyone to use twitter and any other micro-blogging service for self-promoting. Frankly, that’s their choice, and I can choose to not follow back.

But then, they have totally missed the point of it, and will have a hard time maintaining a good level of followers unless the content they share is of a superior quality.

Hehe, but they don’t care. They have twenty five better things to do than actually think about the medium they’re trying to get people to use.

I don’t see you that often on twitter at the moment..

I wish more folks would write up a post like this, explaining their feelings/stances.
I wish more folks did what you suggest in #6 and believe #7 is just.

About 5 million people use the website from what I’ve heard, but out of those people I’m sure there are people you know already that might be using it, Could start by following them and seeing how they use it.

I think this is a great outline for the way social media sites should be used in general. You’ve put together here, something that I feel like a hundred or so of us should sign, and declare a declaration of social net.

Richard, I appreciate you laying this out. Article 3 and 4 really stuck out to me. Treating each person equally goes so against human nature that when you are intentional about doing it, there are widespread ramifications because people notice. What you are doing is seeing people for who they are, not as a tool to advance your agenda. This leads into #4 where you are striving to not promote your work at the detriment of being social. Again, as social networks evolve this will be an ever needed quality among its users or else they will digress into marketplaces where ideas are broadcasted but never sharpened and where products are hawked but never given feedback. Great stuff for me to incorporate as well! Cheers.

From what I see you’re working on some community building too. You’ve got 25 within 5 months. I’m not sure about the details but I see you’re experimenting with live blogging and community building for a particular group of people.

Community building is one of the hardest things to do online. It’s one of those things you have to cherish because without that active community your website or project does fall to the side. We’ve seen a few projects fail over the years.