Genteel Blogs Offer 'Civility Offsets' to Vitriolic Bloggers
(2007-04-09) — A draft proposal circulating in the so-called blogosphere would allow family-friendly blogs to sell “civility offsets” to vitriolic bloggers who prefer to pay for “nastiness indulgences” rather than to tame their bitter tirades.
Advocates say that unlike a proposed “blogger code of conduct,” the new civility offsets will not slash the number of blatant death threats or reduce comparisons between President George Bush and the common chimpanzee, but they may reduce the momentary twinges of guilt experienced by some vicious, vindictive and vitriolic bloggers.
ScrappleFace.com, the family-friendly daily news satire site, has already become a kind of clearing house for civility offsets, by allowing readers to make donations through PayPal.com “to assuage the guilt brought on by indelicate words posted on blogs like The Huffington Post and The Daily Kos,” according to ScrappleFace editor Scott Ott.
One problem is that most bloggers feel no guilt at all about what they are saying and how they are expressing themselves. Unlike, say certain politicians whose private lives may not jibe with their publicly stated philosophies.
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