Aww! I should so get one of those for Fight the Cuteness! We run a very tight ship over there!

I agree completely -- saying "I run a tight ship here" doesn't need a little badge to say it. Nor does saying "I'm a decent guy, so I'll do the decent thing in most situations." A little snipe at clause 3 that also applies, in spirit, to the rest of the "code": don't want anonymous comments? Fine -- untick the little box that says "Allow anonymous comments"! And leave buzzwords like "Web 2.0" and "blogosphere" out of it.

Fight the Cuteness is the wildest craziest no-holds-barred party ship on the internet =P Also is the term "enforced civility" particularly horrific? I can't help but think that anything in which the one of the words is "enforced" can be a positive thing. I think people are going to have to accept if they tout the liberal line on freedom of speech that automatically includes freedom to speak offensively, immaturely and incorrectly.

I really, really wish bloggers would stop pretending they're important. And I really wish the mainstream media would stop feeding into the delusion. "The internet is more important than the mainstream media now! I know it is because I read it in a newspaper!"

The only use I can think of for the badges is to slap them on things like Fight the Cuteness so people get fooled into thinking they aren't going to be offended by what they see. Which is possibly the most damning criticism of them: the best use of an Internet Anti-Troll Sheriff badge is for trolling and pranks.

The latest: Tim O'Reilly, the man responsible for this abortion of a manifesto, is now backpedalling over the horizon as fast as he can.

Hehehe, I love it when people stumble over themselves trying to maintain some dignity while admitting "OK, I made an arse out of myself"...

Also: a little surprised you'd never heard of Tim O'Reilly to begin with.

I don't read blogs much because - and O'Reilly is a case in point here - far too many bloggers have a massively overinflated sense of their own importance. Part of the reason the Code of Conduct is so ridiculous is that it imagines that comments on someone's web diary have any more weight or meaning or influence than a wet fart.

Granted. I realised about 30 seconds after I posted my comment that the only reason I've heard of him is because he and his company have published a few good software books, which is admittedly a pretty small niche. I don't read blogs much either -- apart from those of friends and so on!