This has been a fascinating discussion. I tend to agree with others here that anyone should be free to come up with whatever rules they want to use for their own blogs and that if they do a good job of it, others might want to follow suit.
As people have noted there are many different types of blogging (Journalism, Activism, Personal Diaries, etc.) and the rules adopted probably need to be reflect the type of blogging being done. >From the political world, the blog DailyKos imposes these rules on people wanting to post diaries there: 1. One diary daily maximum. 2. Substantive diaries only. If you don't have at least three solid, original paragraphs, you should probably post a comment in an Open Thread. 3. No repetitive diaries. Take a moment to ensure your topic hasn't been blogged (you can search for Stories and Diaries that already cover this topic), though fresh original analysis is always welcome. 4. Use the "Body" textbox if your diary entry is longer than three paragraphs. 5. Any images in your posts must be hosted by an approved image hosting service (one of: imageshack.us, photobucket.com, flickr.com, smugmug.com, allyoucanupload.com, picturetrail.com, mac.com, webshots.com, editgrid.com). 6. Copying and pasting entire copyrighted works is prohibited. If you do quote something, keep it brief, always provide a link to the original source, and use the <blockquote> tags to clearly identify the quoted material. Violations of this rule are grounds for immediate banning. 7. Be civil. Do not "call out" other users by name in diary titles. Think very carefully before using any profanity in a diary title. Don't write diaries whose main purpose is to deliberately inflame. At the other end of the spectrum, MyLeftNutmeg has a much simpler set of rules: RULES Don't be an asshole. Personally, I like the later code of conduct better. Aldon
