Re: Hippocratic Oath for Webmasters

Thanks all for the comments. I agree with keeping the Hippocratic Oath 
label out of the public branding. FWIW, my original idea for labelling 
these guidelines was "The Webmaster's Craft", which has similar 
connotations to "Art of..." but also connotes making something 
functional, like a potter making a bowl you can eat out of. I was asked 
to codify them because the group wanted a "Statement of Best Practice".

I mention commandments and precepts to search for a *model*- I agree 
that religion should play no part in the branding.

One religious model is that you are given rules that you must obey, and 
your conformity to these rules is monitored by someone with perfect 
knowledge of what you do, and this being administers penalties if you 
do not conform. That's not a relevant model for what we're trying to do.

Another religious model is the Buddhist one: you undertake to obey a 
list of precepts. It's not implied that you will achieve them all 
immediately (they have to be difficult), but you make a commitment to 
working towards them. If you fail to follow those precepts, you lose 
out because you don't get the benefits of those precepts (contented 
users, in our analogy), not because extra punishments are imposed. 
That's how I would hope this would be seen.

Karl, you're right in saying that framing it as a "pledge" is to show 
that someone is taking responsibility for achieving those goals. They 
could be listed "good principles," and framed neutrally without using 
first person, but then the user coming across the list on our sites is 
entitled to ask "so what?"


On Tue, 22 Nov 2005, Douglas Clifton wrote:

> On 11/22/05, Karl Dubost <karl@w3.org> wrote:
>
> Le 05-11-22 à 12:03, Anthony Ettinger a écrit :
> > Starting from the ground up, this list should be a
> > guideline. I'm not sure I like the "pledge" and
> > "hippocratic oath" spin on it, as it's a nice goal,
> > but will not always be able to live up to those
> > standards in real life.
>
> I think that the idea for the initial authors were to show the
> engagement and the responsibility. But it can sound indeed a bit too
> much for certain people.
>
> 10 commandments of? will be too religious
> The Zen of?
> Art and the zen of?
> Guidelines? might be perceived to scholar.
> Etc.
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22ten+commandments+of%22
> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22zen+of%22
> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22art+and+the+zen+of%22
>
> The Art of?

Art and Science of?

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Douglas Clifton
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Dr Martin L Poulter    Senior Technical Researcher, ILRT, Bristol, UK
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