- Thou shalt not deceive. Be honest with yourself and with your readers. Do not pretend to be someone you are not, do not pretend to know something you don’t.
- Thou shalt not make false statements about other people, businesses, products or any of the like. Disclose all conflicts of interest.
- Thou shalt not offend. Do not speak badly of your family, friends or employers. Understand that your blog is not a private diary. Once online you go public. Your blog is your responsibility. And so is everything else you do online: any comment you leave on other sites, even the anonymous ones (you can be identified).
- Thou shalt not harm. Words are weapons. Anything you write might cause a harm of a sort. So choose your words carefully! Even when other people make harmful comments on your blog, it is your duty to edit/delete/disclose them accordingly, to minimize harm.
- Thou shalt not be disrespectful. Understand that people have different values and different ideas and act accordingly. Refrain from pointing fingers and from self-proclaiming the superiority of your values. The universe doesn’t revolve around you.
- Thou shalt not steal content from other blogs or any other sites (text, images, videos, audio files etc) and pass it as your own. In other words: thou shalt not plagiarize.
- Honor your mentors: those bloggers and professionals who helped you become the blogger you are. Honor your readers too. Give credit where due.
- Thou shalt not hide your source of information. If the source needs to stay anonymous, better don’t publish the story. Rumors have the tendency to lead to disasters. They also might throw a negative light upon you if your statements cannot be verified.
- Thou shall always correct your errors. And this doesn’t refer to grammar and spelling, but to misinformation. To correct your errors you can always write an update to the entry and/or strike the inaccurate statement.
- Thou shall love your fellow blogger as thyself.
Blogger’s Ten Commandments
June 25, 2007 by 8 Comments
Great list!
Thanks for a wonderful reminder to stay true and holy!
Sylvia C.
Excellent advice, Mig, from someone who advises best by example.
I’ve tagged you for a meme to share seven random things about yourself.
Talking of angles
This is a clever and innovative way to present your blogging philosophy/guidelines.
Wow, great commandments, Mig. Actually, I’ll link to them from my blog, this is really something all bloggers should read from time to time!
Very nice list! What a creative idea.
Thank you for your comments. I am sorry I didn’t have time to answer right away.