Most of us obey the law as it pertains to econtent—or at least try to. Most writers follow some set of policies (possibly implicit). Yet online, a great deal of content lies in the ambiguous middle ground, governed by amorphous rules. Call it ethics, call it mores: These are the rules of good behavior that fall between law and policy.

That’s nonsense. Most bloggers are not journalists in any sense. They don’t see their job as reporting the news and shouldn’t be held to journalistic standards. Most bloggers are diarists, essayists, or topical commentators. So what set of ethical standards covers all these (and other) categories? I think there are three basic standards: human decency/fairness, transparency, and what I’ll call The Prime Ethical Standard (treat other people at least as well as you’d have them treat you).

As for decency (human, not verbal), I think that boils down to a small set of guidelines. Don’t tell secrets. Don’t blog about "private people" by name without advance permission. Avoid personal attacks—disagree with people’s statements rather than taking on the people as people.

Then there’s transparency. Consider blogging for money (without disclosure) or because of other hidden influences. Here, I think, it’s clear. I believe it’s unethical to blog about a subject in return for money or other rewards, unless that quid pro quo is transparent or obvious. Sometimes it’s direct—groups that explicitly pay-per-post about certain topics and suggest that the payment needn’t be mentioned. That may not be illegal, but I regard it as unethical.

That’s not the same as explicitly sponsored blogging, the fact that books and software offered for review are usually gifts or the reality that we write about the people and firms that we like or that support us. Those three cases only raise ethical questions when they become opaque.

There’s nothing wrong with sponsored blogging. One blogger I respect had an explicit, transparent situation: She would write posts about X but always made it clear that X had paid her to do so. As for review freebies, that’s always been true for mainstream media, and it’s no particular secret. Book and software reviewers rarely buy what they review.

The third case is real life. Don’t most of us write favorably about the places we work (at least in signed blogs) and the groups we believe in? The ethical lapse comes when you post about something only because you’re being paid to do so—and write the post as though it arises from genuine interest.

How much should you disclose? How transparent should you be? There’s been discussion about that among bloggers, some going so far as to say you shouldn’t even accept meals or drinks from people you’re writing about. I wrote a few thousand words about that last summer ("Perspective: On Ethics and Transparency," Cites & Insights, Vol. 7, No. 9, August 2007, available at http://citesandinsights.info/v7i9d.htm), noting some extremes and where I stood for my own writing. Here’s a bit of what I concluded:

"I attempt to operate transparently, to provide full disclosure where I believe there’s any question of possible bias or influence. I may not always succeed in the latter: I’m not about to provide lengthy disclosure statements before each essay or column or book or speech. I’ve been paid to write or speak for commercial enterprises and nonprofits that make money by selling products to libraries. I’ve made most of my living designing and writing software that, directly or indirectly, supports such paid services. I have friends among vendors and among librarians in libraries. I have no qualms about sharing meals with such friends, regardless of who’s paying. I don’t believe it’s difficult to distinguish between normal social occasions and attempts to bribe, but I’ve never really been in a position where someone would wish to bribe me. I avoid writing in areas where there’s likely to be a perceived conflict of interest with my employer, unless I’m writing as part of my job (and that’s always obvious in the result). I try to maintain some level of fairness (which isn’t the same as objectivity) and I try to disclose my biases. I believe in transparency more than I believe in objectivity."

Can one reasonably expect more than that in a field as varied as blogging? Most blogs are not citizen journalism. They mostly require the ethics of civilized conversation, not the ethics of journalism.