From Witch Mom: The blogging manifesto

I saw on my feed this morning a new post over at Parenting by the Light of the Moon, and wanted to share it. It's the blogging manifesto, basically a picture assembled with three incredibly important points that I think all bloggers ought to take to heart.

Most do, I think; the concepts are simple enough, stating that as bloggers there are a few things we do, don't do, and don't want from our blogs. For example, we don't want to be given a preconceived identity by a reader and locked into that. A mom who blogs about her religion may also blog about food, her family, her job, her hobbies, or any number of things - just because her main focus is often religion doesn't make her just a religious blogger. We also are held accountable to our actions, in that just as in school it's a really terrible idea to plagiarize, or simply copy and paste someone else's comments or posts as if they're your own. Not only are you not giving credit where it's due, but (almost more importantly) you aren't learning how to think for yourself, come to your own conclusions, and form your own thoughts. Last, but not least, the ever-important (especially in the religious community) is the idea that we should be kind to one another. The ubiquitous Golden Rule. The idea here being, of course, that we truly will treat others as we wish to be treated, and act as much the part on our blogs as we do in other parts of our lives.

Luckily, the fast pace of the internet and the tendency of people to want to voraciously protect themselves and their work practically guarantee that even the smallest mistake will eventually come to light. This can be a good thing - such as someone intentionally or otherwise copying another's work - or a bad thing - such as when a poster makes a comment out of frustration or anger and ends up called out on it later. Either way, it's an eventuality.

The point is, though, that we all just need to police ourselves, be kind, remember the Golden Rule, and respect others. If we can honestly do all of that, we'll be doing just fine.