Nearly ten percent of companies have fired an employee for violating corporate blogging or message board policies, and 19 percent have disciplined an employee for the same infractions, according to a new survey from Proofpoint, a messaging security company.

Almost a third of companies "employ staff to read or otherwise analyze outbound email," while more than fifteen percent have hired people whose primary function is to spy on outgoing corporate email. A quarter have fired an employee for violating corporate email policies. Twenty percent of the companies and almost thirty percent of companies with more than 20,000 employees had been ordered by a court or a regulator to turn over employee emails.

We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation. But frankness does not have to mean lack of civility. We present this Blogger Code of Conduct in hopes that it helps create a culture that encourages both personal expression and constructive conversation.

We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog.

We are committed to the "Civility Enforced" standard: we will not post unacceptable content, and we'll delete comments that contain it.

We define unacceptable content as anything included or linked to that: - is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others
- is libelous, knowingly false, ad-hominem, or misrepresents another person,
- infringes upon a copyright or trademark
- violates an obligation of confidentiality
- violates the privacy of others

We define and determine what is "unacceptable content" on a case-by-case basis, and our definitions are not limited to this list. If we delete a comment or link, we will say so and explain why. [We reserve the right to change these standards at any time with no notice.]

We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person.

We connect privately before we respond publicly.

When we encounter conflicts and misrepresentation in the blogosphere, we make every effort to talk privately and directly to the person(s) involved--or find an intermediary who can do so--before we publish any posts or comments about the issue.

When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.

When someone who is publishing comments or blog postings that are offensive, we'll tell them so (privately, if possible--see above) and ask them to publicly make amends. If those published comments could be construed as a threat, and the perpetrator doesn't withdraw them and apologize, we will cooperate with law enforcement to protect the target of the threat.

We do not allow anonymous comments.

We require commenters to supply a valid email address before they can post, though we allow commenters to identify themselves with an alias, rather than their real name.

We ignore the trolls.

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--"Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it." Ignoring public attacks is often the best way to contain them.

NoFollow = NoWorky. Using NoFollow in blog comments, the original intent of the tag, does nothing to discourage comment spammers. Using other anti-spamming tools such as question, math and plugins such as Akismet and SpamKarma for Wordpress is much more effective.

Since the use of NoFollow in comments on Wordpress blogs is default, many bloggers do not even realize they are using NoFollow.

Sometimes, I feel a little lonely on my Oscar blog. The solution: I take a rhetorical baseball bat to a fan favorite, "Borat," and hundreds of rabid commentators appear. Hey, I've got readers.

Independent bloggers can laugh all they want about the imperious posture of the mainstream media, but I and others at The Times have never been more in touch with readers' every robustly communicated whim than we are today. Not only do I hear what people are saying, but I also care.

Sometimes I wonder whether I care to the point that I neglect other things, like, oh, my job. Tweaking the blog is seductive in a way that a print deadline never is. By the time I am done posting entries, moderating comments and making links, my, has the time flown. I probably should have made some phone calls about next week's column, but maybe I'll write about, ah, blogging instead.

There has always been a feedback loop in journalism - letters to the editor, the phone and more recently e-mail messages. But a blog provides feedback through a fire hose. The nice thing about putting out a newspaper was that, at some point, the story was set and the writer got to go home. Now I have become a day trader, jacked in to my computer and trading by the second in my most precious commodity: me. How do they like me now? What about ... now? Hmmmm ... Now?

The wait for Gravatar 2.0 is almost over. The new site will be released in early February with an all new interface and some great new functionality.

When the new site goes live, I'll send a one time email notification to all account holders. If you don't currently have an account, then leave a comment here (with your correct email address) and I will send you the notice as well.

Over the coming weeks I'll be posting screenshots and other tidbits to keep you updated during the final phases of testing and deployment. Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed to make sure you don't miss anything!

I get that you have opinions you want to share. That's great. You're the Person of the Year. I just don't have any interest in them. First of all, I did a tiny bit of research for my column, so I'm already familiar with your brilliant argument. Second, I've already written my column, so I can't even steal your ideas and get paid for them.

There is no practical reason to send your rants to me. If you want to counter my opinion publicly, write a letter to the editor. If you want me fired, write a letter to the publisher. If you want a note back, write a letter in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. Or you could just write mean things about my column on some blog. Don't worry, I'll see them. I have a "Joel Stein" RSS feed that goes straight into my arteries.

But don't make me feel like you expect a return e-mail. Because this takes my assistant four to five hours every week. I know this because my assistant is me.

That address on the bottom of this column? That is the pathetic, confused death knell of the once-proud newspaper industry, and I want nothing to do with it. Sending an e-mail to that address is about as useful as sending your study group report about Iraq to the president.

Of course, the crucial point here is not what he wants to do, it what his readers want him to do. If they're happy just reading him and not maintaining any sort of dialogue, Stein, and journalists like him, will still have a job in five years. if the audience decides that dialogue is something they want, he's in trouble.

Traditionally, the way that writers get feedback on their books is through sales. If sales start slipping, it means his readership is slipping. Actors have the same process: if people decide they hate Tom Hanks' last performance (or him) they just don't go to his movies (Note: this is not a problem Hanks is having, by the way. He was voted as one of American's most likeable movie stars).

But you know what? It took a column like this to get Jeff Hess and many of the rest of us to read Joel Stein. He got our attention. I enjoyed the article, because while there's plenty of good conversation in blogs, there's also lots of empty and pious bleating about conversations. The conversation has grown at super speed into an article of faith, an orthodoxy. It's good to have someone give it a good kick--even if he's not going to benefit from or respond to our insightful, passionate and provocative responses.

Do comments make it a blog? Do the lack of comments make it not a blog? Well actually, my opinion is different from many, but it still is my opinion that it does not follow that a blog must have comments, in fact, to the extent that comments interfere with the natural expression of the unedited voice of an individual, comments may act to make something not a blog.

We already had mail lists before we had blogs. The whole notion that blogs should evolve to become mail lists seems to waste the blogs. Comments are very much mail-list-like things. A few voices can drown out all others. The cool thing about blogs is that while they may be quiet, and it may be hard to find what you're looking for, at least you can say what you think without being shouted down. This makes it possible for unpopular ideas to be expressed. And if you know history, the most important ideas often are the unpopular ones.

Yesterday Google posted the yearly stats for the Official Google Blog. Not bad - 294 posts, 7.6 million unique visitors and 15 million page views. Technorati ranks the Google Blog as the 16th largest among all blogs, and it is by far the most popular official company blog. Just one accidental deletion and a couple of hacks added a bit of spice and drama.

But today bloggers are starting to ask if the Official Google Blog is even an actual blog. The reason? It doesn't allow readers to leave comments. The Official Google blog does list links to other sites referencing any given post (a sort of trackback), but that's it. The conversation ends there.

The NBA is at an interesting crossroads. There are unique situations today that can enable it to lever up and thrive and push its media customers to new heights, or that could destabilize it.

Its all in the data. And I wish I could tell you about it. But i would get fined for it.

And for the record, I have nothing to say about the finals. That was last season.
For the record, Im not turning on comments, they have devolved to the point where they add no value.

I think comments are terrific, and they are the key attraction for some blogs and some bloggers. Not for me, though. First, I feel compelled to clarify or to answer every objection or to point out every flaw in reasoning. Second, it takes way too much of my time to even think about them, never mind curate them. And finally, and most important for you, it permanently changes the way I write. Instead of writing for everyone, I find myself writing in anticipation of the commenters. I'm already itching to rewrite my traffic post below. So, given a choice between a blog with comments or no blog at all, I think I'd have to choose the latter.

So, bloggers who like comments, blog on. Commenters, feel free. But not here. Sorry.

Seth says that it takes too much of his time to think about or weed out comments on his blog, and that he finds himself changing the way he writes because of what people say. This, apparently, is a bad thing. And yet, in a previous post - one which did have comments, for some unknown reason - Seth talks about how to have a successful blog, and number 27 is "Include comments so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself." Good advice. But not for Seth Godin, it seems.

I've managed to save up roughly $16804 in my bank account, but I'm not sure if I should buy a house or not. Do you think the market is stable or do you think that home prices will decrease by a lot?

Note that there's no URL, so how can this be profitable for the spammer? Is it part of a larger scheme? The number (in this case, $16804) is different each time. Is it a code number used by spies?

I googled "Do you think the market is stable or do you think that home prices will decrease by a lot?" and it returned 13,300 results. Most of them were from sites that allowed these weird comments to go through (example). I also found that Peter Kaminski has been getting the same type of comments and is just as mystified as I am. What's going on?

The number of comments in the entire blogosphere is comparable to the number of posts in active, non-spam blogs. Therefore comments constitute up to 30% (150,000) of the daily volume of blog posts (700,000), according to BlogPulse data

Less than 2% of all blog comments are syndicated in feeds

The textual size of the commentsphere is 10 to 20% of the blogosphere

Use of comments is beneficial for ranking blog posts in useful ways

They demonstrate with data that comments are an indicator of the popularity of a weblog

They also do the same for controversy; high comments = high controversy

Clearly comments are undiscovered country and Nielsen BuzzMetrics is working hard to figure out how to search this critical data pool and use it to measure influence. Here here. This data is essential and it's underutilized, yet difficult to mine.

1. Ease of publishing.
2. Discoverability. (Pings weblogs.com or technorati or another ping server).
3. Conversationality. (Trackbacks or as-they-happen referer logs, or now being part of Technorati and other blog search engines).
4. Linkability. (All posts should have permalinks).
5. Syndicatability. (All content should be available in RSS feeds).

I don't care. There is no need to define "blog." I doubt there ever was such a call to define "newspaper" or "television" or "radio" or "book" -- or, for that matter, "telephone" or "instant messenger." A blog is merely a tool that lets you do anything from change the world to share your shopping list. People will use it however they wish. And it is way too soon in the invention of uses for this tool to limit it with a set definition. That's why I resist even calling it a medium; it is a means of sharing information and also of interacting: It's more about conversation than content... so far. I think it is equally tiresome and useless to argue about whether blogs are journalism, for journalism is not limited by the tool or medium or person used in the act. Blogs are whatever they want to be. Blogs are whatever we make them. Defining "blog" is a fool's errand.

The audio comment window contains a Java applet which controls the audio recording and previewing capabilities. After your visitor has recorded their audio comments, they'll provide you with their name and email address and send it to our servers.

At first, my traditional side immediately thought, this is a very very bad idea. Honestly, all I could think of was being forced to listen to, not simply read spam. But is that overblown? Spammers probably wouldn't take the time to record messages?

Still, even without the spectre of spam floating greasily above the room, my traditional side still wins. I would still rather read comments on this blog. So it would have to be a specific kind of blog where you would want to hear them.

OR you can even use the entire system in "reverse" and send yourself audio comments, then mark them public, and let the rest of your site visitors listen to them - sort of like "Quick podcasting."

If you work in an office, think about the most annoying co-worker, subordinant, or boss you have at the moment. Then tell me the one thing that he/she did most recently to set you off. (No long background stories please, just the behavior that got you.)

I will be selecting one example from the comments today to make my Sunday comic that will run on 8/13. This is your chance for revenge. (I might use more ideas for other comics, but I'll guarantee that one date.)

I will be ignoring all stories involving food, beverages, bathroom humor and speaker phones. Those are overdone.

"It is like pollution," said Mark Frauenfelder, the founder and co-editor of Boing Boing, who also writes a personal blog at MadProfessor.net. "It reminds me of visible smog, because it obscures what you want to be looking at. You have to waste brain cycles to filter it out, or, if you own a blog, you have to go through extraordinary measures to keep it out."

But Robert Scoble, whose "Scobleizer--Microsoft Geek Blogger" is hosted on the WordPress.com service, said he is happy with the filtering there.

The Scobleizer blog gets around 10,000 visits a day, and about 400 comments are left on the blog daily. Of those, 100 are spam, Scoble said. Most of these are flagged correctly. However, there are also false positives, valid reader comments identified as unwanted postings, he said.

"We've built technology to solve the problem, we invest in updating it, and our 160-plus bloggers manage the few spams that get through," Weblogs CEO Jason Calacanis said. "The only spam that can really get through our defenses are the ones that are hand-rolled by a person, and we catch most of those."

You're making it into this major problem. If you have the right software and you put in simple rules it's not a major issue. The problem is the software makers, combined with blog owners, have not done a horrible good with their software. If you put in simple controls the problem goes away. Folks just don't install the tools to block comment spam.

While I love comments-and would never consider turning them off on this blog-I don't quite grasp the notion that the conversation is somehow inhibited without comments. Blogging godfather Dave Winer hasn't offered comments on his blog for a long time, and has publicly dismissed the notion that a blog without comments isn't a blog. In a 15-month-old article in the Online Journalism Review that dealt with blog spam, Winer suggested it's painfully easy to comment on blogs that don't support comments: Commenters should simply run their own blog if they want to comment.

To that end, Winer recently introduced a subtle new feature to his blog. The little green Technorati icon appears above the fold in the right-hand column. Click it; it takes you to the Technorati page showing all items that link to Winer's blog. In other words, it's just like reading the comments left on a comment-enabled blog. Today, Winer notes that the tag has been successful (aside from some "snarky" feedback).

According to estimates by the market research firm NetRatings Japan Inc., about 14.95 million Web users accessed blogs on sites provided by one of the 14 major Internet service providers, like Rakuten and Nifty, at least once in February from home computers.

We took comments off because it was getting to be ridiculous. I get great responses, but then you know it just takes one idiot, writing "you're fat, you're a dyke, you're a fat dyke, you're gay, and you're fat and you're gay, and you're also a dyke" and it gets out of control. There were no limits on how much they could post, so they could just post pages of that, or put links up to porno sites or whatever. Finally, we just decided to make it comment free.