Why do we need weblog ethics? I'm not questioning the need for ethics per se, but why do we need to separate out the rules that govern blogging from those that guide us during the rest of our lives?
This highly cited piece on the subject — which is well-written and thoughtful — lists rules such as the following (to which I have appended the same rules more generally stated):
Lighten up! Medicine needs ethics because it determines whether people live or die. By comparison, blogging is insignificant[inconsequential, so it's OK to take a more laissez faire approach]. [Otherwise] what next, a moral philosophy [for making phone calls? A code of conduct ]for brushing our teeth? Your blog is your own so write it as you would lead the rest of your life. And if people don't like your approach then they won't read you.
BTW, while we're on the subject, I found it hilariously ironic that this even-tempered and thoughtful post on blogging ethics should elicit as its very first comment a thoroughly different response from a leading light of the blogosphere. Don't you sometimes get the feeling that a few people live in a parallel universe to the rest of us? I guess that some people's personal rules don't include "Thou shalt not take offence where none is intended, and neither shall thou needlessly flame". But that's cool: we can always exercise our fundamental human right to ignore.