Blogger: Bayosphere plans to ask authors to declare their roles

Bayosphere.com, which last week stirred up the blogosphere with its citizen journalist pledge, now is planning to ask contributors to describe themselves with something called "honor tags," according to a post by BL Ochman of whatsnextblog.com.

Ochman says the honor tags were outlined in an email Bayosphere's Dan Gillmor sent to Media Bloggers Association members. The soon-to-be-launched honortags.com, according to Ochman's post, will ask contributors to describe themselves either as Journalist-news, Journalist-POV, Pro-Marketing, Pro-Employee, Advocate/Enthusiast/Fan, Personal, or Fiction. Or if they choose not to declare, they can select UnTag.

As with the CJ pledge, bloggers probably will debate the merits of this system. But what really matters is not what the blogosphere thinks, but how Bayosphere (a) solicits user feedback to help improve the honor tags system (one blogger built a wiki for the Bayosphere pledge, but it hasn't evolved much from the original) and (b) gives readers a tool to dispute or vouch for an author's honor tag.