Ethics and Blogging

Comments

1. Rirath (14 comments.) says:

   1/11/2007 at 3:30 pm

   I like Steve (No Last Name Provided). He even gets a comma before his name.

   I have to disagree with points made here, especially “The distinction only becomes ambiguous when trying to rationalize greed.” That said, at least the argument is fairly thought out.
2. Matt (23 comments.) says:

   1/11/2007 at 3:47 pm

   Ethics in blogging is a nice idea. Leave to those who don’t understand it to rip it apart and or feel threatened by it. If I’m reading a blog, I want to know that the opinion of the person writing it is just that – an opinion. I can no more trust his opinion than I can trust what he wrote in his about section.

   Taking a blog post at face value is as good as taking it with a grain of salt; whether that person was compensated or not, they still have an opinion. This opinion is no more invalid than if they had not been compensated. The compensation only sweetens the deal.

   But even if the deal is “sweetened”, it wouldn’t change whether or not the product in question for the post in question had flaws or not. Most people can see through a smoke screen. This is why they are coined “influential”. That, and the fact that a larger number of readers happen to agree or at least respect their opinion.
3. knsheppard (1 comments.) says:

   1/11/2007 at 8:40 pm

   Do reviewers of books compromise their neutrality by receiving the books they review for free? I don’t think so. And reviewing is vital to the scholarly community. It seems to me that Microsoft has every right to do what it wants to get its product out, including offering free computers and allowing bloggers to review them be they positive reviews or not. It doesn’t even strike me as a particularly ethical issue in the first place.
4. juice says:

   1/12/2007 at 3:02 am

   An awful lot of bloggers like to pretend that they’re journalists, but their actions (gift receiving, in this inst.) and their writing says otherwise all too often.
5. Scott (1 comments.) says:

   1/14/2007 at 10:16 pm

   A generally well-done essay with some roughness in terms of style and argument, I can really see where you’re coming from.
6. GregA says:

   2/14/2007 at 1:02 pm

   I don’t see the problem. When you compare this to the factless Vista bashing that has gone on in the anti-vista blogging community, Microsoft looks much more ethical. As far as I am concerned, right now the IT journalism profession has less credibility than the MSM who ignored all the facts in the lead up to the Iraq war. The “journalists” who have been bashing vista have been telling outright lies about Vista. Shouldn’t integrity be more important than page views?