I agree with Ronnie_Suburban.

I've addressed my issues with both the eGullet thing (on eGullet) and the FBCE (on my blog and theirs). Ultimately, any ethical code is going to be overbroad in some areas and too narrow in others. Both these codes are set up so that you can opt in, and it is your responsibility to opt out if you no longer agree with it. That would be fine but for the fact that both groups retain the option to alter the code at will. That, to me, is unethical. That isn't the only morally problematic provision that I've found in either. Also, they both call themselves codes of ethics for food bloggers, but they are specifically tied to certain types of food blogs.

Both are poorly-conceived projects.... and, yes, I wonder if they are just publicity stunts.

http://kitchenhacker.net/content/food-blog-code-ethics

I am a former sole proprietor of a blog, frequent message board poster, and now food blog "editor". I have a very rigorous and far-reaching code of ethics that I have been using for the full five years that I've been writing online:

Don't do anything unethical.

This code has served me well. I didn't have to run it by a community for approval. It requires no badge. It took me two seconds to write. I don't make any claims of ownership or insist that my name is put on it.

I hereby invite everyone to copy, re-print, and re-use my code as they see fit.

It works.

Best,
Michael

PS
There is a minor addenda to the code: If you think something might be unethical, it probably is. Don't do it.

eatchicago wrote:PS
There is a minor addenda to the code: If you think something might be unethical, it probably is. Don't do it.

Solid addition to your personal code, because some people don't always understand.

Regards,

Michael,

I'm pretty sure you were being at least somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I think that the answer really is for individual bloggers to come up with their own statement of ethics if they're concerned about it (see my post at: http://kitchenhacker.net/content/food-blogging-ethics). Adding your name to a list of signatories to someone else's self-serving code is not the answer.

kitchenhacker wrote:Michael,

I'm pretty sure you were being at least somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I think that the answer really is for individual bloggers to come up with their own statement of ethics if they're concerned about it (see my post at: http://kitchenhacker.net/content/food-blogging-ethics). Adding your name to a list of signatories to someone else's self-serving code is not the answer.

I agree and I wasn't being tongue-in-cheek at all. That is my statement of ethics. It works.

I don't support anyone adding their name to a list or using a badge, and I don't think I suggested that it was. In fact, I seek no credit or attribution for my code. I only offer it as a concise, useful code that others can adopt and label their own.

eatchicago wrote:I don't support anyone adding their name to a list or using a badge, and I don't think I suggested that it was. In fact, I seek no credit or attribution for my code. I only offer it as a concise, useful code that others can adopt and label their own.

Ah. I wasn't talking about you there... I was referring to eGullet and the Food Blog Code of Ethics people.

best retort ever: http://foodbloggercodeofethics.blogspot.com/

Sorta-facetious as that is, it kind of gets to the heart of it (as did Michael's even shorter code): institutions wind up spelling out lengthy codes in great detail one, because that's what large institutions do, and two, because they expect to be in court someday and have to be able to justify their actions. So they wind up creating rules that only hem themselves in (e.g., half of what Royko ever wrote would violate some rule about making up characters, palling around with sources, drinking on the job, whatever).

But really, it's a whole lot simpler for individuals. Or ought to be.

Further proof that reading a 'real' journalist doesn't necessarily guarantee the reader anything . . .

AP, via Chicago Tribune wrote:New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has admitted to using a paragraph virtually word-for-word from a prominent liberal blogger without attribution.

Dowd acknowledged the error in an e-mail to the Huffington Post on Sunday, the Web site reported. The Times corrected her column online to give proper credit for the material to Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall.

The newspaper is expected to issue a formal correction Monday. A request for comment from The Associated Press was not immediately returned by the Times late Sunday.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd admits inadvertently using blogger's words as her own

=R=

Or, if you went to the U of I, on the weekend that Illinois plays Wisconsin, it's:

"Badgers??!!?? We don't need no stinking badgers!!!

Hey go easy there. My son the Badger graduated yesterday.

interesting....

Savvy consumers often go online for independent consumer reviews of products and services, scouring through comments from everyday Joes and Janes to help them find a gem or shun a lemon.

What some fail to realize, though, is that such reviews can be tainted: Many bloggers have accepted perks such as free laptops, trips to Europe, $500 gift cards or even thousands of dollars for a 200-word post. Bloggers vary in how they disclose such freebies, if they do so at all.

The practice has grown to the degree that the Federal Trade Commission is paying attention. New guidelines, expected to be approved late this summer with possible modifications, would clarify that the agency can go after bloggers — as well as the companies that compensate them — for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts of interest.

More here: Can you trust that online review? FTC prepares to crack down on bloggers compensated for posts

Darren72 wrote:interesting....

Savvy consumers often go online for independent consumer reviews of products and services, scouring through comments from everyday Joes and Janes to help them find a gem or shun a lemon.

What some fail to realize, though, is that such reviews can be tainted: Many bloggers have accepted perks such as free laptops, trips to Europe, $500 gift cards or even thousands of dollars for a 200-word post. Bloggers vary in how they disclose such freebies, if they do so at all.

The practice has grown to the degree that the Federal Trade Commission is paying attention. New guidelines, expected to be approved late this summer with possible modifications, would clarify that the agency can go after bloggers — as well as the companies that compensate them — for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts of interest.

More here: Can you trust that online review? FTC prepares to crack down on bloggers compensated for posts

For the detail-oriented among us, here is the document that has the actual modifications to the FTC guidelines. The relevant pages for bloggers, discussion board users, etc. are 61-62 and 84-85. Note that these are not actually new guidelines at all, just new examples provided to explain how the existing guidelines could be applied. This is all part of a regular review of regulatory guides. The title in the Tribune seems like quite an exaggeration, as there is no evidence provided that the FTC is indeed preparing any kind of crackdown. Personally, I find the examples on pages 84-85 quite helpful for folks who might be moderating discussion boards or creating a blog. Of course, LTHForum does all of this quite well already. Rather than preparing for a crackdown, it seems to me that the FTC is offering useful guidance to those who might benefit from it.

or even thousands of dollars for a 200-word post

I would love to see an actual link to an actual post on an actual blog meeting those oddly specific conditions. (Of course, we all know journalists, unlike bloggers, would never pull something like that out of their behinds.)

Then I'd like an introduction to the sucker, excuse me, the savvy Internet 2.0 marketer, willing to pay that for that...

This entire thread implies that there is rampant corruption in internet amatuer food writing (called food blogging by some in spite of the fact that much of it, as on LTH, is not blogging at all but message boarding).

I have been a lurker here for years, and occasional poster. I have met a handful of people in the LTH community at one event, and from time to time at restuarants we all tend to frequent. When visiting a GNR, I have never been steered to a restaurant that I found was anything short of a great example of it's genre, often "revelatory". I have never thought that anything written here by regular posters has been anything less than honest opinion.

That said, in links upthread and in other blog communities (parenting), there has been quite a bit written about viral marketing through offering compensation to influential internet personalities. To clear the air, and out of general curiosity, I ask the question:

Have any of the Moderators or Charter Members of LTH Forum ever been approached with an offer to or accepted anything of value given with the intention of influencing the opinions they write about?

Like I said, part of me wants to clear the air. . . the other part has a curiosity as to how and if these deals go down.

In Memory Of Steven Shaw | We Are All Community Ben Kaufman QUIRKY TEAM 04/09/2014 09:31 AM

“We Are All Community”

… but this week, i’m sad to report that we’ve lost our head of community- Steven Shaw.

Steven was a man you were all familiar with— an internet pioneer (he practically invented blogging), culinary genius, father of the most brilliant kid on the face of the planet (PJ), and of course husband to the wonderful Ellen.

Steven passed away suddenly on Tuesday. It’s hard to imagine a Quirky without him.

Fucking brutal. He was my friend. He was 45 years old and leaves behind a wife and 8 year old son.

=R=

My condolences, Ron.

Wow, Ronnie that's really tough.
Sorry.

So sad to hear. I was an early fan of his Fat Guy reviews. I gobbled them up when I lived in the NY/NJ area. He wrote a great article on Zagat (critical, of course) in Commentary Magazine back when none of this was on-line. On a whim, I emailed him to ask if he could send me a copy of the article and I was surprised and honored to get a faxed copy from him later that day. Seems so quaint now. What a great, early voice in the internet food discussion community. I would never had made it to eGullet, and thus not here, without him.

I was just thinking of him this morning when I read the thread on Old Favorites vs. New Explorations?. Steven wrote about this in his book Turning the Tables. He advocated building relationships with certain restaurants that you return to over and over again.

Steven's influence is very true. Steven was an important voice, and eGullet at its height really mattered. Progressive food wouldn't be what it is without Steven (and his inspired colleagues such as Ronnie). The excitement of cuisine is both a cause and an effect of Steven's commitment. I am very sorry to learn that he left us at such a young age. But whoever is cooking in heaven had better watch out!

Damn. So glad I got to meet him, so awful that it will never happen again. What a terrible loss.

Terribly sad. I saw a Twitter post by Grant Achatz that said "Thank you Steven Shaw" and that's how I got the news. Ronnie, I was Tess in the heyday of eGullet and we talked back and forth a little bit. One time you offered to meet me and bring me-- I don't know, a taped television episode or something. We didn't meet as it turned out, but that was typical of the interactions at eGullet for me. I used to mail stuff back and forth with people in Japan and Canada. That was the kind of site Shaw created.

Obit from the NY Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/11/nyreg ... .html?_r=0

Oh my goodness. Sad news. I first met him here in Chicago at the eG gathering, then again in KC. My condolences to family and friends.