There has been a lot of discussion about free speech and civil behavior amongst blogs. This is born from the Kathy Sierra experience and the subsequent response and then plan from Jimmy Wales and Tim O'Reilly to establish a variable code.
You can get up to speed on their plan at Tim's very thoughtful (and lengthy) response to plan feedback.
Now, Kathy's situation is very distrubing - threats made, etc... I cannot comment on someone else's sense of danger. I respect that she felt physically threatened. People who make threats should be taken at their word. There is no room for second-guessing whether they mean it or not.
Personally, I believe anonymous bloggers should have less credibility than others but doing away with it across the board isn't practical either. Anonymous blogging actually helps in some cases (e.g. China). Anyhow, lots of folks are trying to figure out if there is a blogger-wide approach that might help. Now there is lots of argument about what, if anything should be done.
On a side issue, I re-found David Maister's commenting policy which I found very useful. This clearly states what he will tolerate on his own site. All you need to do is add-in something that describes what would be considered a personal physical threat (e.g. anyone who threatens anyone's life or safety will be taken at their word and the proper authorities will be notified...)
I realize this doesn't keep people - those with real or not real intent - from posting threats, but at least our policy (if we use one) is clear and we can remove posts, notify authorities, etc.. without the additional backlash of the larger blogging community.
On a lighter note, I have always been a big fan of David's as his book Trusted Advisor has been a huge influence (easily one of my top 3 business books).
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