S. Worthen | Weblog

It's more feasible than the Blogger's Manifesto - which would make sense, wouldn't it, since it's usually rather difficult to live up to the "standards" of a parody. That doesn't make it feasible in any more absolute sense, no.

The point of a set of guidelines like this readme file isn't to control other's actions in the way a puppeteer would a puppet. It's to (ideally) make clear what the gamerules the author of the page in question would like his/her readers to follow. That doesn't mean it'll work. And hey, if they cared enough to follow their own file of that ilk, then, if enough people didn't follow it, they do have some recourse to action: take down their site entirely; or at least make their postings uncommentable. Of course, I presume there are plenty of people (such as its initial author) who really do try to use it seriously... when it comes down to it, though, it's a website. (aka the whole NPR debate recently).

I have a hard-to-believe example of this from yesterday's news readings: a newspaper writer discovered that many of his newspaper's readers had no clue that there was any difference whatsoever between the news articles and the columnists' opinions. Sure, you may argue there is no effective difference, but the intent is certainly different: one attempts fact, one is intended as opinion. How is this relevant? The newspaper intends (albeit without a readme file since it's generally considered unnecessary) that its readers read the columnists as one person's opinions and the news articles as fact, and tries to at least nominally mark the difference between them with bylines and contact-details for the former. The article is here.