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Discussion of the eG Ethics code


Fat Guy

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This topic is for discussion of the eG Ethics code: questions, suggestions, elaboration . . .

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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I guess what's going through my mind when I read this stuff is - what's the point? The objective? Being a (retired) lawyer - the point of the Code of Ethics when it comes to lawyers is to prevent clients from being screwed by someone with whom they have a fiduciary relationship. To make sure the client doesn't have an incompetent lawyer - a lawyer who represents clients with conflicting interests - a lawyer who steals money - etc.

Here - the only objective I can think of is to maximize the chances that a reader will have a good meal - and I'm not sure that any of the rules here are designed to achieve that result. If there is another objective - perhaps someone can explain it to me. Robyn

I'm not sure either, Robyn, but as no one else has offered a satisfactory explanation, I'll try to share with you what I think is the objective.

And that is further name recognition of eGullet, and an attempt to position it as a sort of industry standard and final arbiter of all things online culinary.

The "badge" would be kind of like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

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Will eGullet maintain a public list of those subscribing to the code?

We hope to do so, subject to 1- enough people signing on to make for a not-too-embarrassingly-short list, and 2- our ability to develop an automated process for maintaining the list.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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We hope to do so, subject to 1- enough people signing on to make for a not-too-embarrassingly-short list, and 2- our ability to develop an automated process for maintaining the list.

Why should the number of people signing on influence whether the list is published or not? I would think it should be published regardless.

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How is one supposed to display the badge? I mean what is the best process for transferring the image to a blog and attaching a link to it? It is not as simple as cut and paste or dropping in a link.

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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In Blogger/Blogspot, you would add a new HTML widget and then paste one of the following lines of HTML in, depending on the size of the logo you wish.

Take your pick (they go from smallest to largest):

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_88x31.gif"/></a>

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_120x60.gif"/></a>

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_125x125.gif"/></a>

Edited for clarity and misspellings.

Edited by tino27 (log)

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How is one supposed to display the badge? I mean what is the best process for transferring the image to a blog and attaching a link to it? It is not as simple as cut and paste or dropping in a link.

I just have to say that if y'all can actually get other food sites, in effect, your "competition," to display the eG logo, it will be an utterly brilliant PR move. Have any of the others - say Chowhound, OA, NIAC, Mouthfulsfood, Dallasfood.org, etc., indicated any interest at all?

Marlene, how about cookskorner?

Edited by Jaymes (log)

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

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In Blogger/Blogspot, you would add a new HTML widget and then paste one of the following lines of HTML in, depending on the size of the logo you wish.

Take your pick (they go from smallest to largest):

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_88x31.gif"/></a>

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_120x60.gif"/></a>

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_125x125.gif"/></a>

Edited for clarity and misspellings.

Thanks! I got it to work on Typepad.

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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How is one supposed to display the badge? I mean what is the best process for transferring the image to a blog and attaching a link to it? It is not as simple as cut and paste or dropping in a link.

I just have to say that if y'all can actually get other food sites, in effect, your "competition," to display the eG logo, it will be an utterly brilliant PR move. Have any of the others - say Chowhound, OA, NIAC, Mouthfulsfood, Dallasfood.org, etc., indicated any interest at all?

Marlene, how about cookskorner?

Well, (a) we aren't a blog, and (b) we don't do restaurant reviews, we just stick to cooking, so I don't think this really applies to us.

Marlene

Practice. Do it over. Get it right.

Mostly, I want people to be as happy eating my food as I am cooking it.

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I just have to say that if y'all can actually get other food sites, in effect, your "competition," to display the eG logo, it will be an utterly brilliant PR move.  Have any of the others - say Chowhound, OA, NIAC, Mouthfulsfood, Dallasfood.org, etc., indicated any interest at all?

I think there's zero chance that sites like those will display the badge, because most of them are large enough to have their own terms of service. In some cases, those sites already have policies that are very different from those eG has proposed.

I imagine that some independent bloggers may adopt the code—people like me. For a variety of reasons, I have decided (for now) not to. For the most part, the code describes things that I believe I do anyway. But the argument (if there is one) should be "whether I have done the right thing," not "whether I have conformed to a code written by other people."

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In Blogger/Blogspot, you would add a new HTML widget and then paste one of the following lines of HTML in, depending on the size of the logo you wish.

Take your pick (they go from smallest to largest):

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_88x31.gif"/></a>

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_120x60.gif"/></a>

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_125x125.gif"/></a>

This will work, however as we state in the instructions "If possible, to conserve our bandwidth, please copy and upload the badge to your own image-hosting service." I'll try to see if there are some general instructions written up for that anywhere, however because there are so many combinations of software and platforms out there, I'm not sure we can give universal directions.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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In Blogger/Blogspot, you would add a new HTML widget and then paste one of the following lines of HTML in, depending on the size of the logo you wish.

Take your pick (they go from smallest to largest):

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_88x31.gif"/></a>

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_120x60.gif"/></a>

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_125x125.gif"/></a>

This will work, however as we state in the instructions "If possible, to conserve our bandwidth, please copy and upload the badge to your own image-hosting service." I'll try to see if there are some general instructions written up for that anywhere, however because there are so many combinations of software and platforms out there, I'm not sure we can give universal directions.

There may be many platforms but only a few major ones. Frankly, this will not be adopted by more than a few unless it is user friendly. It is decidedly not at this time.

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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The general outline is something like this:

1 - Copy the badge graphic to your computer. This is accomplished differently in different browsers but, for example, in Firefox you right click on the image and select "Save Image As..."

2 - Upload the image from your computer to whatever service you already use to host images. This might be Flickr, it might be a direct upload to Wordpress.com . . . it could be a lot of different things, each of which handles it a slightly different way. However, if you presently have photos on your website, this should be a familiar process.

3 - Add that image to your website. That may mean getting the HTML from Flickr and adding it as a sidebar text widget in Wordpress. Or it may mean following whatever the procedure is for Blogger, Typepad, Movable Type, Lyceum, Greymatter, a bulletin board software package, a custom solution, etc.

4. Link from the image to egullet.org/ethics -- again various instructions per platform. In some cases you highlight it and use a tool to add the link, in other cases you have to work at the code level.

As long as the number of new signatories per day remains manageable, I and others familiar with these technologies are happy to work one-on-one with people who need help with badge downloading, uploading and placement. It's also not the end of the world if people link to the banner image on our server, which for some may be a little easier, although at some point if the whole world does it then we'll feel the load and we're not Google.

(edited to add step 4)

Edited by Fat Guy (log)

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Steven, it is doable with a lot of steps, however, unless the process is easier, I think it unlikely that there will be widespread adoption of this code. The easiest thing for bloggers would be if there were widgets designed and available for the major hosts. If there were, I think that more widespread adoption would be more likely.

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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I totally understand your point, however we are not able to control the user-friendliness of, for example, Wordpress.com. It's a mystery to me why there isn't simply a tool on Wordpress.com that says "add an image to my sidebar and link it to X." You need to take a bunch of steps and use the "Text" widget in a non-user-friendly way. No matter how dishearetning it is, no matter how much it impacts the willingness of people to display the badge, there's nothing we can do about that except offer personal support within our abilities. Even if we had the resources to do it, we simply couldn't design a widget for Wordpress.com blogs. Only the included widgets are allowed, and plugins are not allowed at all. For privately hosted Wordpress blogs, we could in theory create a plugin, but for people with privately hosted blogs posting an image with a link may already be second nature. And I'm just using Wordpress.com, one of the most popular services, as an example. There are quite a few, each with its own challenges.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Share on other sites

In Blogger/Blogspot, you would add a new HTML widget and then paste one of the following lines of HTML in, depending on the size of the logo you wish.

Take your pick (they go from smallest to largest):

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_88x31.gif"/></a>

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_120x60.gif"/></a>

<a href="http://egullet.org/ethics"><img src="http://egullet.org/egethics/eGethics_125x125.gif"/></a>

This will work, however as we state in the instructions "If possible, to conserve our bandwidth, please copy and upload the badge to your own image-hosting service." I'll try to see if there are some general instructions written up for that anywhere, however because there are so many combinations of software and platforms out there, I'm not sure we can give universal directions.

Oops, sorry Steven, I missed that directive. Wherever you end up putting the image (eGullet, your webserver, or a hosted service), the only thing that needs to change is the "src" value (src = source) in the <img> tag. Just change it to point to the URL where the image is actually located.

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I think there's zero chance that sites like those will display the badge, because most of them are large enough to have their own terms of service. In some cases, those sites already have policies that are very different from those eG has proposed.

I imagine that some independent bloggers may adopt the code—people like me. For a variety of reasons, I have decided (for now) not to. For the most part, the code describes things that I believe I do anyway. But the argument (if there is one) should be "whether I have done the right thing," not "whether I have conformed to a code written by other people."

I've been thinking about this a lot. I honestly hope that people do not accept this code, and instead take its presentation as an opportunity to think about ethical issues in their blogging and write their own ethics statement.

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I've been thinking about this a lot. I honestly hope that people do not accept this code, and instead take its presentation as an opportunity to think about ethical issues in their blogging and write their own ethics statement.

My own view is that I do not see a pressing need to declare up-front how I would handle every contingency. My site accepts comments (which I do not delete, unless they are uncivil), and my private e-mail address is also on the site. If someone contacts me via either medium, and says, “You’ve done the wrong thing,” I will make changes if I think they have a valid point (this has happened).

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I'm not a blogger, I'm just a reader: coming at this as a reader, however, I'd really love to see some kind of indication of what ethical code a random blogger on the internet considers themselves bound to. Whether it's the eG code, the Journalist's Code, or a self-written code as KitchenHacker suggests, I'd like to know as a reader that whoever is writing the article I just stumbled across has given at least cursory thought to the issue. How many times do you come across some post on the internet and think to yourself "hmm, I wonder how much they got paid to say this?" I personally think it's one thing to have no code at all and to shill, but that it's taking sleaziness to the next level if you claim you're following some code and then you post something you were paid to. I know it's not a panacea, but it's one small thing that will make at least this reader more comfortable taking your opinion at face value.

Let's face it: every single one of us believes ourselves to be an ethical person. And we probably all have slightly different versions in our heads of what that means. If you want a random reader who stumbled across your site using Google to appreciate that, however, just state upfront what code you're following.

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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As a "random reader" I couldn't care less if a blog I chose to read has decided to sign on to a "code" or not. A blog becomes credible to me over a period of time. If I like it, I continue reading it. If I sense that the blogger is a shill or is acting in some other unethical way, I'll stop reading it.

I guess I treat blogs the same was as I treat posters here. If a poster has a large number of posts and if I've gained a respect for that poster's opinion through their posts then that means a lot. Far more than signing onto a code. I mean, I put a lot more stock into oakapple's posts than I would someone with 10 posts but who has decided to sign the eG code.

Only time will tell how much of an impact this will really have.

-Josh

Now blogging at http://jesteinf.wordpress.com/

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A blog becomes credible to me over a period of time.  If I like it, I continue reading it.  If I sense that the blogger is a shill or is acting in some other unethical way, I'll stop reading it.

Agreed. My point is that as I drift around the internet following links, I hit many random blogs that I have never been to before and will probably never visit again. As someone who visits a website for the first time, I do care what standard the writer is holding themselves to. If it's a random blog for family and friends with no comp disclosures, etc. that's fine, but I'd like to know that before I give their opinion any thought. The way news snowballs on the internet, it doesn't take much for a less-than-credible source to gain traction in the internet food media.

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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I'd consider a code of ethics more important as a public statement of common mores. By publishing, and holding open discussion, such a document acts as a reference point for the community.

Put another way, while the vast majority of people will function to (what I consider) the decent norm of "do no harm", publishing a code of ethics gives everyone the chance to check to see if there's something they hadn't thought of, or been aware of, but see as common sense, and don't have an issue with implementation.

Whether people want badges or affidavits or whatever is another matter.

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I've been thinking about this a lot. I honestly hope that people do not accept this code, and instead take its presentation as an opportunity to think about ethical issues in their blogging and write their own ethics statement.

My own view is that I do not see a pressing need to declare up-front how I would handle every contingency. My site accepts comments (which I do not delete, unless they are uncivil), and my private e-mail address is also on the site. If someone contacts me via either medium, and says, “You’ve done the wrong thing,” I will make changes if I think they have a valid point (this has happened).

That's perfectly reasonable. On my blog, I noted that a personal ethics statement could be very in-depth... or it could just be a statement along the lines of "I try to be conscientious, honest, and considerate in my posting. If you have concerns, contact me and I will address them."

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I'm sorry to say that I find most of the code to be pretty self evident stuff. Motherhood & apple pie type statements. Who could possibly disagree?

I do, however, feel very uncomfortable with the several paragraphs dealing with 'comps'. My strong opinion is that one should not write about or express an opinion about any meal, event or product where one has been comp'd.

The moment a 'comp' occurs any vestige of objectivity goes out the window. No matter how hard the author tries to avoid it there has been an influence upon his or her opinion. Disclosing the comp does not really help. After all what is a comp other than a form of payment?

I suppose in the eGullet context we could have a topic titled "Paid advertisements" where members could post write ups about those things they've been comped on. Or in the blog context one could have a separate category of posts called "Paid Opinions".

The above is not meant to question the motives of those who wrote and commented upon this aspect of the code. I'm confident that all participated in good faith and with all due seriousness. I just can't agree that 'outing' a comp is enough.

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