A mooted "blogging code" which has attracted broad media attention in the last week, is set to be ditched by its author, tech conference magnate and web 2.0 investor Tim O'Reilly.

In an interview with Wired on Friday to promote his latest web 2.0 conference, O'Reilly said: "I've come to think the call for a code of conduct was a bit misguided."

The admission came two days after a post on his Radar blog entitled "Code of Conduct: Lessons Learned So Far". In it he wrote: "I was proposing a modular set of terms of service, so somebody could say, 'I don't want this kind of behaviour.' Now, a lot of people already do that, so it's really much ado about nothing."

Quite. O'Reilly now says he just wants the best comments to rise to the top by voting, à la Slashdot. Or something equally sociotastic...he's just not sure yet. The Sheriff (code enforced) and dynamite (anything goes) symbols he proposed were definitiely not a call for a MPAA-style rating system, he maintained to Wired's reporter.

Despite O'Reilly's backtracking, many a mainstream outlet ran a tedious think piece about manners in the blogosphere over the weekend. See here. And here.

Aside from the resounding failure of the code itself, the act of proposing it was a huge success for O'Reilly, winning him coverage in such venerable forums of public debate as The New York Times and Metro.

Excellent work. Now let us never speak of it again. ®

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