In case you haven't noticed, comments on blogs can get pretty fiery. That's a nice way of saying they can get downright nasty, mean, and on really bad days, abusive. Many would say that's the good and bad of a truly democratic web. Take it or leave it. But some big blogosphere names are challenging that premise, saying it's time to embrace a code of civility for online discourse.

This New York Times piece by Brad Stone takes a look at the campaign by Tim O'Reilly, a conference promoter and book publisher credited with coining the phrase Web 2.0, and Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, to create a set of guidelines to steer comment threads down the road to civility. You can find the proposed guidelines on O'Reilly's web site, and Wales opens the Blogger's Code of Conduct for discussion on this Blogging Wikia page.

The Times piece delves into specific cases of harassment of bloggers, including death threats leveled at Kathy Sierra, a high-tech book author, during an online discussion over whether it's okay to remove comments deemed inappropriate on personal web sites.

The suggestions proposed by O'Reilly and Wales borrow from the BlogHer community guidelines, which begin with the promise that BlogHer "embraces the spirit of civil disagreement" but that the blog community "declines to publish unacceptable content." What is unacceptable? The first two are anything included or linked to that is...

... Being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten a person or persons

... Libelous, defamatory, knowingly false, or misprepresents another person

The expanded code up for discussion includes, We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person and If tensions escalate, we will connect privately before responding publicly online.

Nasty comments can just be ignored, as Wales says: We prefer not to respond to nasty comments about us or our blog, as long as they don't veer into abuse or libel. We believe that feeding the trolls only encourages them—"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it." (George Bernard Shaw) Ignoring public attacks is often the best way to contain them.

Having a forum to say what you want when you're not looking the person you're saying it to in the eye or hearing them on the other end of the phone line is powerful. The effect is often ridiculous, nasty, and un-thought-ful in the true sense of the word.

I think over time a community where readers return to participate in an ongoing conversation, like we have on Yahoo! Tech, regulates itself. Sure, there will still be inappropriate comments. I can probably count the number I've deleted on my posts, and they have been removed because of outright profanity, usually totally unrelated to what was said in the post. Is that censorship? Yes. But if someone were to walk into a room in which a discussion was going on and interrupt it with a string of profane words, I'd ask him to leave the room.

So, can we encourage civility without censorship? Check out the recommendations, and pipe up in the comments below over whether free speech should be guarded at all costs, or if online communication can take place with some very basic manners in mind.

LINKS: A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs (NYT)
Blogger's Code of Conduct