I am not sure any of this is necessary, but ...
Coming from the NY Times:
Last week, Tim O'Reilly, a conference promoter and book publisher who is credited with coining the term Web 2.0, began working with Jimmy Wales, creator of the communal online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to create a set of what to many would be common sense -- though already controversial -- guidelines to shape online discussion and debate.
Chief among the recommendations is that bloggers consider banning anonymous comments left by visitors to their pages and be able to delete threatening or libelous comments without facing cries of censorship.
I have no problem with anonymous bloggers and comments; libel is an issue however, as is civility.
Linkage: http://www.nytimes.com/...
More from NY Times:
A recent outbreak of antagonism among several prominent bloggers "gives us an opportunity to change the level of expectations that people have about what's acceptable online," said O'Reilly, who posted the preliminary recommendations last week on his company blog (radar.oreilly.com). Wales then put the proposed guidelines on his company's site (blogging.wikia.com), and is now soliciting comments in the hope of creating consensus around what constitutes civil behavior online.
O'Reilly and Wales talk about creating several sets of guidelines for conduct and seals of approval represented by logos. For example, anonymous writing might be acceptable in one set; in another, it would be discouraged. Under a third set of guidelines, bloggers would pledge to get a second source for any gossip or breaking news they write about.
Bloggers could then pick a set of principles and post the corresponding badge on their page, to indicate to readers what kind of behavior and dialogue they will engage in and tolerate. The whole system would be voluntary, relying on the community to police itself.
Something along those lines might not be a bad idea.
But those guidelines are already being established, by each independent site.
I don't see this proposal going very far.
Each blogging site is already establishing its own rules, along the lines suggested.
Perhaps it would be simpler if there were say three or four basic rule sets for various blog formats.