In thinking more about core values we believe ought to be brought to our online dealings—either as a practice, as guideline or in theory—I wanted to understand more about instances where people have trouble with certain behaviors. I wanted to look at why we are concerned and what we want or need in order to create trust and value with each other.

I'm interested in these things: Why we value information online; What context or peripheral information cause information to be more trusted; Why we respect people; and What we need to see visually to trust information we find online, if that is possible or desirable. We appreciate it when people help us with information we need, share insights we hadn't thought of, or give us new windows into previously closed systems or institutions. Those types of information, presented in a particular format, largely explain why blogging is so popular and appears to be so persistent. (I’m specifically referring here to topic blogging, versus say journaling, though depending on the relationships between reader and writer, what appears to strictly be a journal to some may actually provide insight for others....)

We also appreciate it when people are honest with us. We like it when they share their motivation for publishing, or at least lead us to believe that we know what their motivation is, based on their blog's content. And we like it when we feel we can trust that they're telling us about ethical issues we can't see. The blogosphere has a history of outrage over blogs that have been less than honest about their origins, identity or economic relationships in an attempt to fool readers and linkers into believing things are other than they actually are. However, we cannot force disclosure. We rely on and trust people to tell us the truth about their economic or other relationships.

One thing we've enjoyed the past few years in the blogosphere is a relatively pure state, where people are motivated to blog, link, and connect for many reasons other than money. This is partly because it's been difficult to make money with most blogs. It's the reason that “money and blogging” have been discussion topics at previous events, and at this one, because some bloggers do want to figure out how to make money with their blogs in ways that don't conflict with readers’ sense of ethics, so that they can keep their readers. It has also been possible to blog for profit or other hidden reasons, and therefore online communities have reacted strongly when these examples were discovered.

Many blogs exist without any advertising support, and readers have expressed respect and appreciation for the idea that these blogs are as pure as possible. Because there is no monetary support for the writer, these writers are simply expressing themselves for their love of getting out opinions and ideas. Or because they love to connect with people, and to iterate ideas and talk back to media or other institutions that used to be difficult for individuals to talk back to due to the high transaction costs of mass publishing. Whether this is actually true, or real, it has been people's perception, and supporters of blogging have held up this kind of not-for-profit blogging as laudable, showing examples of how blogging has changed things for the better.

Another model, a slight variation on the one above, has also developed. In this case bloggers who otherwise appear to be operating under the intentions, ideals, and principles of the pure blog model, have taken ads that are unconnected to who or what the blog writer is, how the writing is done, or (mostly) what the subject is. This kind of blogging has been perceived as mostly pure. And those well-schooled in the cues of online communication have believed they could differentiate between when some economic or other benefit has gone to the blogger for her writing versus when an algorithm randomly placed an ad on her blog via some program. AdSense, Blogads, and many self-negotiated ads and sponsors are present on some blogs, but we see them and believe that some sense of integrity has prevailed where the blogger is not paid directly for writing, either writing a certain way, or for writing anything at all. Rather, the ads have often been dependent on readers clicking through, and thus, we haven't seen that ad model as inherently corrupt. Most bloggers I know make between $10 and $100 a month with ads, though I know a few who make thousands of dollars. However, because we can watch the quality of the blogging and because it appears to us that that is not influenced by the ad relationship, we believe we are still seeing the bloggers’ unadulterated voice, opinion, and link referrals—which is the reason we want to read blogs.

Some people may be upset about the monetizing of blogs because they feel that if bloggers have any economic interest in what they write as it is tied to a business model that rewards sales of say, a product they have written about, or if they are paid to write at all, bloggers will be less free to say what they want or believe, because their motivations for writing change. People have gotten a taste of something that didn’t easily exist before: mass distributed and searchable publishing with individual voice, and they don’t want to give that up, even if it isn’t as pure as they perceive.

Others think writers who profit from more than randomly placed ads may be steering themselves and some part of the blogosphere back to top-down media model. They don’t want to see blogs dependent on and beholden to the business side of things, as large media organizations are with other interests than just finding some measure or kind of pure truth, or having biases in ways that purport to show one view when in fact they show another, among other criticisms.

We could label blogs without any ads, sponsors or other monetization as being the pure blogs as ‘angelic,’ the ones with AdSense, etc on the side as slightly ‘heathenish,’ and the ones with actual business models as ‘devilish.’ This sort of labeling construct at times seems to underlay criticisms about blogs that make money, but I think it is unconstructive. Although it is important to bring it to the surface, to make it explicit and discuss it, if only to make clear that it's there. For those who get to define the labels, labeling values and behaviors is powerful, but purity or devilishness only reflect one set of values. People, like the blogosphere, are much more dynamic and varied than those few labels, and therefore they need more dynamic cues in online systems to tell what sort of actions are taking place so that they can make up their own minds about whom to trust and read.

Other value systems that could be applied to blogs without ad systems versus blogs that make money of some sort, could be that of a protestant work ethic or a capitalist ethic, where earning money is much admired, if done relatively honestly. Therefore, money-making blogs that explicitly tell us they do so are the heross of that framework. Or there’s the communitarian value system that values those who promote and enrich the community, those who promote the good work of others, those who share credit, those who collaborate well, etc..., There is also the leadership value system, where those who ferret out good information or push memes or are especially innovative are valued.

Another thing to consider with value systems such as these applied to what is specifically seen on a blog is that they don't take into account other ways authors benefit from blogging. This is because they only consider the direct act of blogging and not the secondary effects outside of the blogosphere inn the author's life or work. I know many bloggers who have found opportunities due to their blogs. I myself have been offered jobs, have been asked to edit books, have been asked to dinner with interesting people that I didn't know but who read my blogs, have been asked on dates, and have generally been treated very differently and much more invitingly in a wide variety of situations because of my blogs, than if I didn't have them. But because these opportunities are not openly apparent on my blog, unless I write about them, readers are not aware of these secondary opportunities. Yet they happen regularly, and have been an extremely positive benefit of blogging, though I didn't start blogging for this reason, and I don't write anything in particular to make anything happen. However, this second degree of reward is potentially corrupting, depending on the circumstances. A blogger who takes a different job might find the blog more highly scrutinized, or that there is pressure to write differently by the new boss. Jeremy Zawodny recently wrote about this after moving back to the search division within Yahoo .

So what values do we use to understand online communication and communities? How are we going to show information about our activities, so that people with different value systems can make their own decisions about our blogs and the information they come across?

Also, are the acts and cues to understand online information presented with these core values different if blogs make money in some way, versus if they do not?

I'm interested in making a list of the values we believe are necessary for blogging or are open questions to discuss in the Core Values of the Web session. I'll start it here:

1. transparency of relationships and motivations for writing and linking 2. transparency of identity, including pseudonymous writing 3. excellence of content—by which I mean writers honestly writing what they believe, even if it turns out to be untrue in the iterative process, versus publishing known untruths 4. editorial independence 5. linking for attribution of ideas

Please add to this list via comments below or bring ideas to the session.

# Posted by mary hodder on 11/4/04; 8:38:27 AM - --

We had an election on Tuesday, the result was known on Wednesday, today's Thursday and the day after tomorrow is BloggerCon. The buzz is incredible, people are flying in from all over the world, Stanford is going to be a great place to have our blogging conference, and we've got people from all walks of life, red states and blue, podcasters and people who think it's a fad, students and teachers, doctors, lawyers, people from Wisconsin, you name it, we got it!

Before the conference here's a checklist of things you should know:

1. On Friday night at 7PM we're having an opening dinner at Ming's on Embarcadero and 101. 7PM. Signup required. $30 per person.

2. Registration begins at 7:15AM on Saturday at Stanford Law School. A light breakfast and coffee will be served. Pick up your badge. The opening "National Anthem" discussion begins at 8:15AM in the main meeting room, 290.

3. Saturday night Food For Thought dinners. On Saturday at 8PM we will have dinners hosted by the discussion leaders at local Palo Alto restaurants. Signup required. First come first serve. If the dinner you want is fully booked, choose another. Going to a dinner with people you normally wouldn't eat with makes you smarter and happier. I don't know if this is actually true, but it sounds nice.

4. You may of course bring your laptop (it's a blogging conference) and there will be free Wifi, provided by Sputnik. All statements like this of course are subject to Murphy's Law, which says the Wifi probably won't work at all, but if it does, it will take two hours to get everyone online.

5. Thanks to Doug Kaye and Mike Lehman, we should have MP3s of all the sessions shortly after the conference. There's a chance it will be webcast. Everyone is welcome to record the conference. If you have questions, or need help, please post a comment here. We will have some kind of IRC, I'm trying to delegate that, as I will be busy everywhere but IRC the day of the conference. If you know someone who can help with this, who will be at the conference, please let me know. Thanks.

6. BloggerCon is an unconference. That means there is no audience, no speakers, no panels. Each session has a discussion leader. They're not all famous (a few are). They are all good at leading discussions. Everyone in the room is an equal participant. The DL is like a reporter, choosing people to speak, in an order that makes sense to her or him. There's no Q&A at the end. The whole session involves everyone. No need to go out in the hallway to have your conversation, have it in the room.

7. Each room has a projector and an audio system. The DL can hook up a laptop so that the session can involve stuff on the Web. Since this is a Web conference that makes sense. There will be two roving mikes in the room, handled by law students. They will come to you. You don't need to line up. Raise your hand, get recognized by the DL, and then please wait until the mike arrives. This is important so that your comments will be heard on the audio system and on the recordings.

8. No commercials. This is a user's conference held at a university. Vendors are welcome, and may participate as users. You may talk about products with the permission of the session DL. You may not talk about your products unless requested to do so by the DL, and he or she will only ask if it's a necessary part of the discussion. Vendors also may listen, to get an idea of how users think, and what they may want from your products. This is not a marketing opportunity, it's a learning and sharing opportunity.

9. BloggerCon For Newbies. I've put together a checklist for people coming to BloggerCon. I'll review all the items on this list in the opening session, and the items in this email.

# Posted by Dave Winer on 11/4/04; 2:31:49 AM - --