Dan

“Question: what if some members say yes and some disagree? Who will be the deciding panel?”

The following are my personal opinions and do not reflect the opinions of the HBCE:

Currently, Dr Rob makes the final decision on inclusion. This seems to be working pretty well, so far. He is being extremely fair and impartial and his efforts have been to include as many bloggers as possible.

Perhaps we will eventually need to form a panel for arbitration, but I think that’s something we can address as a community if a dispute ever arises.

My personal opinion is that the vote should be almost unanimous for a blog to be included. Most of the quality medblogs that we’re all familiar with will have no trouble achieving a unanimous vote.

For a blog to receive a large number of negative votes would mean there was a very real problem with that application.

Since the voting is done in the private members-only portion of the forum — dissenting votes can (and should) be accompanied with a forum post explaining why the blog should not be included. Additional discussion can then take place as an integral part of the voting process.

BTW, Roy (of Shrink Rap) has gone above and beyond the call and set up the forum and members can register and start voting now. Sign up and cast your votes for the applications currently under consideration. Only by trying it out and seeing how it works, can we determine what changes are needed.

This is a great question and one of many that will probably come up as we move forward with this community-building project. I’m sure Dr. Rob would agree, we’re sort of “learning as we go” with this thing. Any and all ideas are welcome as to how we should address these growing pains.

Let us know what you think concerning Kim’s (and all of the above) questions.

Dean

Question: what if some members say yes and some disagree? Who will be the deciding panel?

So, as others have stated, I feel strongly that our code is important and needed and serves a very different role than the HON.

I’m all for a google or yahoo community and like everyone else feel a community/group vote for new submissions makes the most sense, and is in the best spirit of what blogging is all about. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of policing but do like the idea of inclusion and acceptance.

Criticism always comes with treading into new waters which is what we have done. Sticking together and letting others know what this code is about is the only way to improve the blogsphere in the healthcare niche and keeping it clean and with the highest integrity possible, which is what we are all after.

Finally, I also like the idea that we are including all aspects of healthcare because that broadens our sense of community.

It’s good to encourage everyone to think a little before they post something — I believe that a patient, like a doctor, should post carefully and believe that the HBCE stands for not carelessly trashing someone’s reputation. I’d like to think that opting to post the HBCE will mean some thoughtful and quality material will be available for looking over, at least intermittently — that could be me being a little dreamy and naive though (flaw/gift of the Pisces).