By Virginia L. Beach
As a member of the deaf blogosphere, I’ve observed how we interact with and treat one another in such an environment, and witnessed some of the debates and “heated discussions” that can occur. I’m not here to criticize the actions taken by any particular individuals or to state who is right and who is wrong. That’s beside the point. However, based upon the above-mentioned observations, I have come to think about the ethics of v/blogging. Hmm…this might get some of us thinking. Do we need a “Code of Ethics” within the deaf v/blogosphere?
Ahh…I can sense the outcry amongst the deaf community – “Rules? We don’t need no (bleeping) set of bloody rules! It’s my v/blog, and I will do as I dang well please!” Whoa…slow down. I’m not talking about establishing the “Ten Commandments of the deaf v/blogosphere.” I don’t like rules any better than most of us. I believe that if you are going to put your thoughts, opinions, and feelings on the Internet for the world to see, you are responsible for the outcome of such actions. Thus it is my humble opinion that those of us within the deaf v/blogosphere should have an inherent sense of ethics, and strive to maintain a high standard of morality. As we examine the definition and application of ethics to our v/blogging activities, not only must we examine our behaviors, but also how we define and implement our moral duties and obligations towards ourselves and towards others. Admittedly, this is no easy task. Morality and standards of behavior are very subjective by nature, and differ quite substantially from person to person.
I like to start with honesty, which as they say, is the best policy. And let’s face it – the deaf community is known for being brutally honest, which isn’t always a bad thing. I like such honesty. I always know exactly where I stand, because people will tell me that hard truth, no matter how difficult it may be for them to say it or for me to hear it. However, in most situations tactful honesty will serve you better. It generally gets you the same results, without pissing off a whole bunch of people. But honesty doesn’t just mean telling the truth, tactfully or otherwise. It also means being willing to look at things clearly and objectively, without prejudging, and coming to an understanding of it. That doesn’t mean you have to like it or agree with it, but at least you see it for what it truly is.
Next is to always try and remember: “Anyone else is just as important as I am. I am just as important as anyone else.” We are all individual people, with individual hopes and fears, dreams and goals…each of which matters, because each of us matters. When we come to understand this then we can achieve a balance, where all people on all sides of the equation are treated fairly and squarely. Keeping the above two concepts in mind, whenever I write a blog, or whenever I post a comment to someone else’s v/blog, I try to do so in an honest, respectful, and loving manner. Now, I want to clarify that that this doesn’t mean I can’t and don’t admit when so-and-so is being a total jerk. It doesn’t mean that I don’t see clearly when others are wrong and call them on it or that I make excuses for them. It doesn’t mean that I have to give someone endless chances — there are times when enough is enough. It simply means that I try hard to care about them all the same, and to recognize that their words reflect their thoughts, feelings and opinions…which in turn reflect their hopes, fears, dreams and goals.
And didn’t I say that anyone else is just as important as I am?
My own ethical framework tends to revolve around a belief in “harm none” - that as long as you harm no one, you’re free to follow your own will. Harm refers to interfering with another’s free will; lessening someone’s freedom of choice; causing unnecessary injury; damaging someone physically, mentally, or emotionally; or wantonly destroying something, whether that is a report, a relationship, or a reputation. Any time that you count your will (or your thoughts, or your opinions, or your feelings) as being more important than someone else’s will (or thoughts, opinions, and feelings), you are harming them. Any time you decide that what you want is what you will get, no matter what it takes, you are harming someone. Any time you attack with your words while v/blogging, without regard for what it may do to others, you are harming someone. Any time you go thoughtlessly about your own way, demanding your own say…and never stop to notice those around you, there’s a good chance you will harm someone before the sun sets.
This doesn’t mean that in the process of implementing my own free will, that there won’t be times that it clashes with someone else’s definition of free will. When this happens, I can end up in a “heated discussion” with others. But even then, it’s still important to treat everyone with honesty, respect, and love. Be calm and rational, but have reasons and objections ready. And most importantly, fight fair. One of my past teachers gave me her list of Rules of Fighting:
- Be rational.
- Stick to the point.
- If you aren’t sure what the point is, ask for clarification or definition.
- Don’t bring up a third party.
- Don’t make personal remarks.
- If you realize you were wrong, admit it. Everyone is wrong sometimes.
Remember — everything that we say and do has consequences that ripple through the world like a pebble dropped into a pond, and we are responsible for those consequences. Thus, the key is — before you publish that post or put up that comment, to think…to consider honestly and lovingly, and then to act consciously with full knowledge and forethought.
Hopefully by sharing a bit of my own sense of ethics, I’ve given you some food for thought in creating yours. I don’t expect them to be the same as mine — while they may contain the same basic framework, the finished system will be a little different. When it comes to how we would deal with specific moral problems, my answers are not necessarily your answers. That’s why we have ethics in the first place, and not just a code of laws. And don’t expect it to always be perfect, all the time. None of us are perfect, we all make mistakes. The important thing is to own up to those mistakes, learn from them, try to fix the damage, and then move on. That is the root of our ethical system, personal responsibility.
Virginia L. Beach has been studying ethics for the past 25+ years, and teaches a course on such for others. While admitting her own sense of ethics is far from perfect, she sees it as a valuable tool for helping her to grow and become the person she desires to be. Virginia gives special thanks to her family, friends and colleagues for their assistance, and especially to Robin Wood, whose writings and teachings have played a significant role in developing that ethical framework.
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45 Comments
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Interesting post, Virginia. That is certainly something that all v/bloggers should be open to discussing… because our words do have a lot of power and cause things to happen, both good and bad.
My code of ethics are very similar to yours, Virginia. I have two main ethical principles, however. One is from Kant’s Categorical Imperative. It’s sorta hard to wrap your brain around, I admit. It took me a while before I understood it completely, but when I understood it, I loved it. It’s basically about the universalism principle. It’s very similar to the Golden Rule, but it’s not quite the Golden Rule. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....imperative
I’ve found it to be a very good guiding philosophy for me.
The other main ethical principle of mine is John Rawl’s Veil of Ignorance, or alternatively known as the Original Position.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position
With Rawl’s Original Position, I admit, it’s hard to see how it’s applicable to everyday things, but I often use it when I’m trying to figure out whether this X or Y battle is worth fighting or not. I also use that principle to argue my points. It’s basically, ‘Put yourself in my shoes here, would ya?’ or the reverse. I think it’s a very good way of viewing things for many situations.
With those two main ethical principles, I can use those anywhere, including the v/blogosphere, and I have to say that ever since I’ve adopted those two principles, my troubles have decreased mightily!
Virginia:
This is a great piece! Perhaps one of the finest ones since the inception of DeafDC! Deaf Pundit’s response to yours also is excellent! (Few v/bloggers like DP in DeafRead while most bloggers and commenters cast unethical, uncivil, offensive insults ever imaginable!)
Ethics, including civility, compassion, the Golden Rule, started at home * where my parents deeply instilled into me. A smooth transition when I entered a private oral school at St. Francis Xavier’s which offered classical education, including ethics, that is not offered at all state residential schools for the deaf.
* Jean’s note: 90% of education at home and 10% at school (Garretson, 1976). Meaning? Parents have to be signers prior to enrolling childrend to school.
I must salut to DeafDC’s Shane Feldman for having a
good command of respect for DeafDC — respect not seen in other blogs.
Jean Boutcher
Thank you, Jean!
I appreciate your kind words.
I do hope that people will read these words and start to develop their own personal sense of ethics, which can be applied to how we interact with others…both on-line and in-person.
Virginia - What a thoughtful post! The replies have been fascinating reading as well - so much so that I’m thinking of assigning this to my Moral Philosophy course at Gallaudet this Fall. :) Kudos to Deaf Pundit especially for bringing in more ethical theory. As an academic philosopher, I know it is not easy to capture difficult philosophical concepts in simple language, and I appreciate Deaf Pundit’s attempt to distill the essence of two great deontological philosophers, Kant and Rawls, into some brief comments. Having said that, I want to offer a few more comments and philosophical resources below…
As a academic philosopher working in ethics and bioethics (I teach philosophy at Gallaudet University, and have taught at 2 other universities prior to coming to Gallaudet) I’d like to offer clarification to Deaf Pundit’s remarks above:
1. Kant’s Categorical Imperative is indeed difficult, and it comes in (at least) three formulations - the most commonly cited version involves universalizing the maxim, which isn’t exactly the same thing as universalism. You are right in saying that it isn’t the Golden Rule, but the Golden Rule is a good place to start, I think. When I teach philosophy to grade school kids, I often ask them to evaluate their ethical decision by asking them, ‘what would happen if everyone did that?’ For those who want more meat on the bone - try the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It is a great website for academic philosophy that bypasses the weakness of Wikipedia entries - which is that you can’t be certain at any given point in time that you are getting high quality information. In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, articles are written with a minimum of jargon (that’s the ideal, not always the reality) by academic philosophers with expertise in the subject matter. http://plato.stanford.edu/entr.....#CatHypImp
2. Strictly speaking, Rawls’s Original Position (OP) is not an ethical principle, but a hypothetical situation. Additionally, the Veil of Ignorance is not synonymous with the OP, but reflects the knowledge (of lack thereof) of the participants in the OP. Again check of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Rawls at http://plato.stanford.edu/entr.....-position/
For what it is worth, Deaf Pundit is expressing a strong lean toward deontological thinking, which weights intention and duty more heavily than consequences. Not everyone will buy into deontological reasoning; it is my experience as a working bioethicist that the kind of ethical reasoning employed often has a strong relationship to the circumstances at hand. So one question to ask (from this philosopher’s view) is whether there might be ethical approaches that best fit the deaf blogosphere/vlogosphere.
philosophically yours,
Teresa
I appreciate the clarification, Teresa. I’m just an amateur philosopher. :)
I did find it interesting it appears to you that my leanings is towards deontological thinking. I do weigh intent and duty pretty heavily, and definitely more so against short-term consequences. As for long-term consequences, I am not so sure. To me, the long-term consequences have great importance to me.
Hmm. I’ll have to think on this some more. :)
Deaf Pundit - Aren’t we all just amateur philosophers? Some of us just hang up a shingle with more letters after our name…
Long term consequences versus short term consequences - another great topic to ponder! Philosophers often refer to this as the issue of prudence, yet another topic you can also check out in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This excerpt briefly discusses that value of the virtue of prudence as viewed by Thomas Aquinas - check out section 3. http://plato.stanford.edu/entr.....-medieval/
Most ethical theories that use consequences as the measuring stick emphasize long term consequences over short term consequences; your philosophical intuition serves you well here. To illustrate with a simple example from medicine: the short term consequence of pain (harm) in setting a broken arm is outweighed by the long term benefits of having an arm with full functionality (or something close to it). Applying prudence here is fairly straightforward in a simple case like this since you are weighing the short term harm (pain in setting the broken arm) over the long term harm (having an arm that does not function well, perhaps having chronic pain as a result of the way the broken bone healed, and so forth).
The problem with consequentialist ethics is that it can get really complicated in a hurry once you start incorporating the consequences on all parties who are involved (including the possibility of future generations) and all of the variables therein. FWIW, I think that ethics of the blogosphere/vlogosphere is complicated enough without having to deal with the problem of future generations, but that’s just me. We COULD expand our discussion to include the effects of harm on future generations, say, the amount of resources (human capital, electricity, and so forth) expended on this discussion might be put to better use elsewhere for future and current generations. This is otherwise known as a variation on the “no-rest” objection to consequentialist thinking; in other words, there is a better use of your time - in terms of working toward consequences that result in more benefit/less harm than what you are doing now. :)
As someone remarked to me yesterday, “I took a philosophy class once; it made my head hurt!”
(Un)fortunately, there’s no panacea for headaches of the philosophical sort…
*chuckles* That definitely made my head spin!
I would have to agree with you - generally, consequentialist ethics aren’t very good to use in the v/blogosphere. There are just way too many factors, like you said.
I think for people to have an ethical framework with the v/blogosphere, it is a good idea to have an eclectic one. I haven’t found a set of ethics that works perfectly for every situation, and that is probably why philosophers are debating things ad infinitum! :)
A good example of an ethical quandary within the v/blogosphere is how do you handle trolls?
In some cases, ignoring the trolls does not succeed. In some other cases it does.
And for some, you just have to be harsh to make them stop trolling. For me, I weigh the long-term consequences on that. But I guess you are right about my strong lean towards deontological thinking, because I also have a sense of duty to stop something bad, if I can.
Great discussion here! :)
Something tells me that Teresa, Deaf Pundit and I could spend ALLLLL night discussing the topic of ethics, while keeping the poor bartender busy refilling our wine glasses!
Yea, we probably could! Would be a great night, too! :)
I’ll toast to that! Maybe one of these days at DPHH???
Definitely - when Virginia and I happen to be in D.C. at the same time, we will have to do that. :)
Can I join you lovely ladies? (bats eyelashes)
(puppy dog eyes)
*grins at Punky* Sure… why not? I think seeing some people’s reaction to that would be priceless. ;)
Moi aussi. I am awwwwwwafffffffully
thirsty and hungry for something to entertain my mind. Yes, let us do it. I am a resident of D.C. Let me know when.
Thank you for your kind words, Teresa!
I am both honored and humbled that you enjoyed my post, and are considering it as reading for your students.
I’ve always considered Ethics to be a major part of my own lifestyle and training, and do enjoy studying about it. I appreciate the resources you have provided, and will certainly be taking a good look at them. Hmmm…maybe I should have majored in Philosophy!
I agree with you totally - I think we have to take a good look at what ethical approaches might best fit the deaf v/blogosphere.
Again, my thanks.
It’ll never work, you’re still suggesting ‘rules’. The only way to approach online responses is to say it how you feel it is, that’s being true to yourself. If you are trying to please the majority or even the minority, it won’t happen, you will always upset someone, a certain amount of ‘collateral damage’ is unavoidable.
The arguments that go on, just reveal publicly what you feel in private, but felt peer pressure prevented it, it says, look I know I have the same loss/culture/language as you have, but here is how I really feel about some of your and others views. It also suggests the old deaf community ethos stifled this, and/or you risked ostracism for dissenting the popular held view. There were many deaf within the old community that totally depended on the inner circle of deaf friends, and dared not offer dissent as a result. The net has freed the individual to say what he or she really feels and in the tone, they want to express that view, without perhaps their peers being aware of it, the views that get heated ? which is a combination of anger or frustrations perhaps buried for years. It was always a myth the deaf/Deaf community were a united body of people, a lot just had nowhere else, and the net offers them now the world. The net shows us, we aren’t just deaf/Deaf we aren’t just cultural or not, and we ARE going to make that point how we can. Freedom of expression was always going to do this, did the cultural community expect a whole deaf.read or blogosphere filled with ‘yes’ people ? that ISN’T life as we know it ! We all own our own blogs, if we don’t like something we can ignore it.
You make some good, valid, and thought-provoking statements, MM.
One of the interesting things that I notice when teaching my Ethics course is how most of the discussion (and some of the “debates”) tend to revolve around two major topics - honesty and harm. This is one of the reasons I focused mostly on these two in writing this particular post.
(By the way, for those who are curious, the seven main topics we focus on in the course are Honesty, Self, Love, Help, Harm, Sex, and Will.)
You are correct, there is no way to totally avoid harm, and it becomes even harder to do at times when we combine it with the concept of honesty. How can we be honest without doing harm? You are right - that’s rather difficult, and in many cases someone is going to get hurt.
But notice that I am talking about UNNECESSARY injury. Is injury sometimes necessary? Of course it is. The point is - as I say in my post - to think, and to consider carefully and honestly the possible consequences of your actions. You want to balance injury against injury, and to try and find those actions which will do the least amount of harm to the least amount of people.
For example…suppose someone comes to you asking for your advice on a problem, and in order to be totally honest with that person, you have to tell him/her things that could cause quite a bit of pain. So what do you do?
You have a couple of options - you could say that you can’t help, and thus avoid hurting that person’s feelings. Or you could try tactfully pointing out some of the issues that the person might not be looking at. Or you could choose to just bluntly and harshly tell the person the truth as you see it, with little regard for his/her feelings…taking the attitude that if it upsets this individual, too bad - that’s not your problem. Or you could decide to simply ignore the person and the request for help.
What you do is entirely up to you - it is not up to me or anyone else to tell you. You have to weigh all the possibilities and all the possible outcomes and decide for yourself.
Ethics are not rules. They are values, beliefs, and standards which we each create for ourselves that define how we are going to behave. And as I say, they are very subjective and thus differ from person to person.
I don’t have any problems with saying it as it is - but I do have a problem with saying it with little regard for how it might impact on others. I don’t have any problem with freedom of expression, but I don’t believe it should give us the right to go up and hit someone just to show that we’re angry.
No such thing as rules for deaf blogs, unless we want to be Stalinists. I would never moderate commentary, chill speech, restrain expression, whatever equivalents we can coin up.
I am for civility and lawful conduct, though. These are my overarching principles for any interaction, online and otherwise. Blogs are, to me, personal expressions on par with face-to-face interactions (save for the obvious differences), and any “guidelines” we impose on them might as well be universally applicable etiquette, which seems to be all Virginia has proposed and is therefore bigger than v/blogging.
If the blogger is serious about being part of a community in the long term, then we might see ethics along a Kantian principle, that of general applicability (Deaf Pundit beat me to that); if it wouldn’t be beneficial when everyone does it, then it should be flatly disallowed.
However, if we allow for clear-cut standards, what about the blogger who writes under extenuating circumstances? Do we go for moral relativism? A blogger flaming a business is, after all, different from a blogger who flames a private individual. Speaking to design rather than content, do we draw up different guidelines for blogs that are moderated and for those that aren’t? For blogs that allow anonymous comments and those that don’t? The wrinkles are numerous but I think these two are the major ones.
Rules might serve great for the blogger who chronicles misadventures in home improvement and is aghast when someone calls his mother names, but not for all others. Depends on the intention of the blog, the end very well might justify the means. That’s teleology versus de–, I can’t remember its counterpart. That is a tactical decision, and to regulate that is to codify speech… Patrick Henry, anyone?
Virginia, our dear Aristotle, wants a Golden Mean, no? I’m with her, as is 98% of the world. I just don’t want guidelines on that. Blogging conventions should, and will emerge with or without collective inquiry.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m for a Wild, Wild West. It’s just the liberal me, and my faith in the people to come to tacit understandings on behavior.
Hmm. I think there’s a very fine line between flaming and exposing people, and it can easily cross over into the other territory, and we need to make the distinction between those two things.
Exposing something such as businesses or persons’ misdeeds can and does serve a greater good. I think all of us would want to know if something bad was happening and sometimes exposing the situation is the only way to put a halt to it. It can certainly be brutal, and very easily slip into flaming territory if not handled properly. It’s definitely a tough call to make.
My two long cents. :P
Hi g l ~
I agree, I don’t think it’s possible to establish any rules for deaf blogs, and I would be against such anyway.
I don’t see ethics as being rules, or a “do and don’t list.” I don’t see them as being carved in stone for everyone to memorize and obey, and all will be fine.
You are right…I see ethics as being “guidelines” that each of us develop and adopt for ourselves, that define our own personal behaviors and etiquette, and that certainly goes far beyond merely v/blogging into all aspects of our lives.
Do I want a “Golden Mean?” I suppose in a way I do. I think what prompted me to write this post wasn’t so much that I wanted to create one, per se… but more that I wanted to get people thinking about how we do behave on-line, and how our behavior reflects on ourselves and our own standards, morals, values, character, etc.
There already seems to be or have been a lot of discussions along these lines going on - the Gally-Net situation, Dr. Davila’s recent letter, people talking about negative comments left on v/blogs and the impact they have on others, etc. etc.
I too wish to put my faith in the people to come to those tacit understandings. I do agree that blogging conventions should and will emerge.
But I also believe that a little “intelligent discourse” on the subject never hurts.
Ethical standards for deaf blogging? What you kidding me? The deaf blogsphere is as good as a societal gulag, a wasteland, where anarchy rules.
Richard
Look up complicity.
So this is a gulag? May I ask why you’re still here, then, Roehm? Just curious. And by the way, it’s blogosphere, with 2 “o”s, not blogsphere.
I got thick skin thats why I’m still here and the blogsphere sounds a lot bigger than blogosphere which sounds pretty much like the failed project in Arizona.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. I can see your integrity and your desire for a better world. I would like to see this information broken down in another way for readers of different learning styles so that they too may access your suggestions. Whether anyone follows them or not is up to each individual, but they are nice thoughts to share none-the-less.
Continue to be true to yourself, Gin. Be the change you want to see in the world. Others may follow.
~ LaRonda
To sum up your article - “Treat those how you would like to be treated.” I am all for this idealism and this is something I make a conscious effort with and encourage. Realistically, you cannot moderate blogs so all we can do is to stick to your ethics, with hope that it will rub off onto someone somehow. If more people adopt your principles then we may, just maybe, be able to see an emergence of respect culture. I will definitely bear in mind with your words of wisdom.
A nice way of summing it up, indeed.
Thanks for the kind words of support.
yes lets all decuss said topickes,with out getting all hot a d bothered about it.every boddy is intidled to state there opeion, every boddys view is important.no need to hurt some one ealceses feelings.after all we are sapose to be having fun
Ah, wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if everyone played nice and was respectful?
Wouldn’t it be nice, indeed?
It’s a shame in a way that ethical guidelines have to be stated explicitly - one would have thought it was bleeping obvious - but alas, sometimes people forget when they’re online that it’s a person they’re talking to and not a computer. This is why, the stronger your online identity, the less likely you are to get flaming, because people start to build up a picture of you as a real person. I always try to remember it’s a real person I’m talking to. There’s another set of commenting guidelines here which are worth a look: Thank you for sharing - some guidelines
Good points, Yvonne. I agree with you.
Interestingly, the BBC deaf message board at SEE HEAR has just closed (Apparently for the first time ever), a topic there after very personal insults were thrown at people, they’re were not strangers to each other either !
The old deaf guards only represent the last 2% of the entire deaf society. They have brought scourge upon deaf people. Theyre not worth your time anymore. Theyre not worth occupying Gallaudet University space any more either. It’s time to sweep the old deaf guards off the Gallaudet campus, off the face of the deaf society.
Excellent examples of the scourge from the old deaf guards can be found in one of Tom Bertling’s published books.
Looking at this particular book, American Sign Language: Shattering the Myth, http://www.addall.com/detail/0963781359.html
You can see stories of scourge casted upon prominent deaf leaders and inspirational deaf people by the old deaf guards. Even some of the scourge took place on Gallaudet University.
Let’s all pay good homage to deaf leaders who lives have been catastrophically altered after becoming victims of cyber-bullying, rumor attacks either via email, newsgroups, blogs, postings, websites, falsified restraining orders, vandalism, and through many other undue intimidating actions.
And let’s work together at eliminating these sources of scourge within the deaf communities. And we can begin this at the Gallaudet University Campus. Lets sweep the old deaf guards off the campus this moment. See my video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmR-iDa1yyQ and think about joining this war against indiscipline by the old deaf guards.
I’ll be dealing with advertisers who buy ad spaces on the old deaf guard websites. They dont really support just the websites. They really support the terrorism and scourge the old deaf guards have brought upon many people. Time to nip this old deaf guard problem and the scourge they bring on people today!
Richard
I’ll gladly sign up for your brave war against indiscipline by the old deaf guards! Excellent vlog. They’re indeed scourges- they won’t stop bothering me. E-mail me for more info and I’ll be at the doorsteps of your ‘2 x ‘2 office at EZ storage before you know it.
Wir kämpfen die Schädlinge zum Tod. Wir wischen sie weg vom Gesicht von Masse ab. Wir sind siegreich. Heil zum großen Führer!
Tom Bertling doesn’t represent the “old guard” or even Deaf Culture at all. He’s an angry and bitter man who lashes out at Deaf Culture.
You’re railing against the wrong guy. He’s so far from being in the picture. Those who know better don’t bother to read his books or to give him the time of the day.
Wow. Perfect example of what NOT to do in the blogosphere. Thank you, Roehm, for providing that crystal-clear example. Good points, all, about being thoughtful and remembering there are humans on the other end. So true.
I must admit, it is easy to forget that people are on the other end of your comments, and feelings can still get hurt. Also, if a thought isn’t well typed out, it can be misunderstood just as easily as a thought that is blurted out in person. I understand what Virginia is saying.
Yup, it is so easy for something that is typed to be misunderstood, and that misunderstanding to create problems. That’s what I always try to think carefully about how I put things into words.
Not that it always works - I’ve ended up making some bloopers from time to time that I’ve regretted, and had to take the necessary steps to fix the damage!
right..you go tell it to george bush and his crew..go on..
I second ya, Virginia Beach. I somewhat agree with GL and Jean Boutcher what we really could engage in more civil deaf blogsphere, instead resorting to flamings, public shamings and falsehoods in smearing and discrediting someone else.
Richard Roehem, FYI, Tom Bertling’s books really have no credibility without providing material sources and biliography.
There is increasingly partianship in our national, state and local political arena. Whose fault for electing polarizing figures, not moderates and real problem solvers? The American electrotate!!!
Same thing applied to the D/deaf blogsphere for patronizing some mean-spirited deaf blogs. Please think hard before embracing certain deaf blogs which will encourage flambayont showmanship and attack dogs.
RLM
[…] Jun 25th, 2007 by ocean1025 Recently, I wrote a post for DeafDC.com in which I discussed the concept of ethics as it might apply to the deaf v/blogosphere. You can read this post here. […]
I guess I’m the worse person to even suggest anything regarding ethics. I’m sort of bitter and cruel, but I don’t try to make anyone stop posting, I’ll call em idiots if I feel they are being so. I know it’s not nice and I know it’s brutally honest. But hey someone’s gotta do it.
the only thing, not ethical of myself is that I hold back on is my identity, for personal and career reasons. A great example that would make me want to have an anonymous persona is the recently deleted posting by another poster who hinted harassment outside of the blogosphere (aka Real Life.) I don’t need some imbecile to come into my work place or my home simply because he/she didn’t like my thoughts or comments. It would be like, me going to erick Ketchams house and throwing eggs at him and calling him names because I disagree with his “racist” comments. that’s just not something I do….. but there’s kook’s out there who will. =)
in any case, Good blog Virginia. =)
I’d like to use one example for the need for ethics… check out Lois’ vlog (http://www.lois4.com/PetPeeve.html) and after seeing the vlog, click on “sign my guestbook”. I see the need for ethics… respect. Age has to do with it, yeah, but wow… also Ridor’s latest blog, an attack on Lois and he bluntly said he was looking forward to the day Lois’ voice became “silenced”… not very ethical. We all have our opinions and we need to listen and realize whatever we say, come from ourselves and we cannot try to manipulate other people… failing, trying to bash and make examples of them.