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Daily conversation with friends and family members are normally very casual and some serious words and statements may be toyed with. However, when it comes to public speaking or "public writing", we really may need to have full grasp of each word we use and how to properly use them.

Blogging is a public activity. In blogging, Internet users publicly write or talk about different subjects, from personal experience to general beliefs. If we do exercise some caution as we speak or write publicly in real life, we may need to apply same caution when we blog.

Citizens in most countries are happily aware of their freedom to speak, which in the Constitution, is normally referred to as Freedom of Speech. This Act has been consciously adopted for Internet activities like blogging, chatting, and the like.

There is no known lawfully established international code of conduct for blogging for now, but some websites have started what we may call an "open source" code of conduct for blogging, especially the blogging done on their websites.

Here are some of them.

A blogger must know the words used and should take fully responsibility for them.

A blogger shouldn't blog with words he wouldn't use or say in person.

For writings specifically targeted to a particular group or sect, the part of the blog containing such writings should only be accessible to that group or sect alone.

Blogging should not be done anonymously or pseudonymously.

Sources should be kept private.

You should blog in a way that doesn't pose any harm to anyone.

Scrutinize what you are about to post, think twice, then post it.

The subject and target audience should be explicitly stated in your blog.

Each blog should have a kind of "Terms of Service" for viewers.

For blogs that allow comments, the blogger should be ready to delete comments that may be obscene or may go against the blog's terms of use.

Some websites that offer the services of blogging have adopted some of the codes of conduct stated above. A person interested in running a blog from such websites is made to state willingness to stick to the codes of conduct, as failure may lead to closure of his blog.

While these blogging-services providing websites are beginning to adopt some blogging codes of conduct, viewers of blogs should also imbibe some discipline. People may not need to visit blogs that deal with subjects that might be offensive to them or subjects they are completely not interested in.

SOURCE

http://blogging.wikia .com/wiki/Blogger's_Code_of_Co nduct

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