Robert Scoble has a post today that covers so much interesting stuff, I’m not sure where to start.
First and most importantly, he has made some decisions designed to increase his personal happiness and his blogging experience.
He says:
Some things I’ve changed? 1) No more coffee. 2) No more soda. 3) Xercising. 4) No more unhappy people in my life. 5) Get balance back in my own life.
He also decided to start moderating the Comments on his blog:
This is a huge change for me. I wanted a free speech area, but after having a week off I realize that I need to make a change. That, I’m sure, will lead to attacks of “censorship” and all that hooey. Too bad. I’m instituting a “family room” rule here. If I don’t like it, it gets deleted and deleted without warning  just the same as if you said something abusive in my family room I’d kick you out of my house. If you don’t like that new rule, there are plenty of other places on the Internet to write your thoughts. Start a blog and link here. Etc. Etc.
I am totally down with that. Robert is in a bit of a unique situation since he blogs at least somewhat on behalf of his employer, Microsoft. But blogs absolutely should reflect the “family room” values of their owners. I booted Tagworld out of my Web 2.0 Wars for offending my values, and I encourage and applaud Robert for taking a similar approach to his Comments, which often end up either in an anonymous bash-fest or a conga line of mundane comments made in the name of a link.
Whoever decided that squelching static is somehow inconsistent with free speech got it backwards. Too many idiots hijacking a discussion thread will harm free speech a lot faster than moderated comments will.
Another interesting thing I found in Robert’s post is his reference to Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements. I have never heard of them before, but they are both logical and compelling.
Finally, in his now moderated Comments is a good discussion about the sin-tricity of Second Life, which I talked about the other day. In a Comment to my post, Pathfinder Linden, Second Life’s internet ambassador, addressed the issue as follows:
One thing about Second Life is that it is strictly for adults (18+). However, we have a separate “grid” called “Teen Second Life” (http://teen.secondlife.com/) that is exclusively for 13-17 yr olds. All content on the Teen Grid is PG, there is no gambling or casinos, and it is carefully monitored to keep it as teen-safe as possible.
While I wish there were more non-sex, non-gambling activities in Second Life, I generally buy that explanation.
If we wanted to really do something smart, the Memeorandum/tech blog crowd would find some place in Second Life and build our own little community. If anyone wants to kick start something like that, I’m game.
Newsome.Org 