We in the UK 'almost' banished all unions to the scrap-heap in the 80's. A few remain, and are constantly causing headaches for the public AND their members.

I'm not saying ALL unions behave this way, as many don't. But PLeeeeease let's keep the internet out of their 'grabbing' little hands.

They are a communist ideology.

Reason enough I think.

Pete.

The proper world would be Guild :D

I appreciate you coming over to respond.

When I said I was against the idea of other members blogging about a company who was giving a union member a hard time, what I meant was it was overall a risky thing to do, because you can't write about a situation in which you don't have all the facts.

You made it sound as if everyone would be getting together and writing lots of negative press about the other side to get back at them. But would you give the other side a fair hearing and a chance to give their side of the story? Would the resulting blog post be balanced and fair?

To quote your own blog post :

"I would think twice before messing around with such large group of bloggers. Combined we could reach millions of people on a matter of days, and probably hurt the reputation of some small businesses for good."

OUCH!

I think your idea of a union is a great idea but I would lay off the idea of business bashing. If I were you, I'd stick to general support and advice for bloggers.

Then you said: "Scocco also suggests that a union could gang up on people who are scamming another union member by blogging about the offender, and hurting their reputation in the process. I am strongly against that one. For a start, there are the legal implications (libel), and secondly, you don’t risk damaging someone’s reputation without knowing all of the facts first and without getting both sides of the story. What Daniel is suggesting is NOT responsible journalism!"

Well, for one thing, as long as the bloggers just report the facts, there is no case of libel or slander. Here is the definition:

"In law, defamation (also called vilification, slander, and libel) is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressively stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government or nation a negative image."

On my post I also said:

"Obviously all matters would need to be taken seriously and not lightly. Each problem would need to be evaluated by a board before actions were to be taken."

There would be lawyers involved to regulate. It would not be like some blogger got a bad deal from a hosting company and we would all spring to bash that company.

All said I appreciate you mentioning the issue though, we will see how this will evolve :) .

If they wanted to create a trade organization so individuals can pool their resources to handle DRMCA issues, that's one thing. But making the Internet a "closed shop" where one has to be a member of a union to be allowed to work is a different thing.

As for who will run it, since unions are a collectivist socialist organization, the policy leader will be a Marxist and the Mafia will handle the finances. Just like every other union.