A Proposed Social Media Deontology.

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Article 1. I shall take interest in the projects of others before my own. In this capacity, I will pay attention to what others are doing and see how I may help them bring those projects to fruition

Article 2. I shall Participate as actively as possible in as many discussions as possible. That is to say that I will make sure to get to know the audience that is listening to me. This may include answering any and all tweets, commenting on blog posts and more

Article3. Each person shall be treated equally. The more time I offer to an individual the more time I want it to be reciprocated. If I offer to help you with your projects then the least you can do is answer my tweets, comments, and more. That is to say that I shall demonstrate that I do respect the person whom I am conversing with

Article 4. I shall not promote my work at the detriment of being social. I shall promote what I have done once for every ten comments, tweets, or blog posts I have written. In so doing I make sure that the toxicity of repetition is not too severe for those following me. This takes into consideration that whilst some people may use the aforementioned social network for just ten minutes a day three times a week others may use it all day long. As a result, I will respect the more frequent users of the social websites.

Article 5. The rule of participation. This is the rule that if I go to an event for a certain website I must have spent a certain number of hours being active on the website. Social networks are to be thought of as skiing levels with degrees of achievement. If you are new to a social network realise that when used properly the social network may be thought of as a way of life. In particular, this means that if you go to a blogger event make sure that you have read a few blog posts before coming to the event. If you come to a Seesmeetup make sure that you are with someone who has been an active participant. If you come to a tweetup don’t sign up three days before with no understanding of what the site is about.

Article 6. The attention rule. Never post to a service you are not actively monitoring. If you post to Jaiku then make sure you keep an eye on what people are doing. If you use Ping.fm and other services make sure that you have a way of being alerted when someone comments. This is because social media is about sharing. If a person responds too frequently with no acknowledgment of what they are saying then the “social” aspect of social media is devalued. In those cases, you might as well be following an RSS feed in Google reader.

Article 7. The unfollow privilege. When a social media participant feels a decline in his enjoyment of service due to how newer members are using the site then he reserves and even has the obligation to unfollow the offending party. Attention in social media is a privilege, not a right, anytime you broadcast rather than participate we reserve the right to unfollow you. This is not un-doable. If your participation changes then we may follow you back.

This was written as a result of how disappointed I am with certain people and how they use twitter. If you feel that anything should be changed then let me know. It’s meant to be dynamic.