He's rapped the knuckles of sites such as Fark, Paid Content and, yes, us at Gawker. It's annoying, sure. But it's also important that someone stands up, calls people out, and keeps the blogosphere honest. And maybe it's time that we rely, not on a volunteer watchdog, but on some sort of permanent institution.

So I'm going to grit my teeth, and make a proposal: that a blog ethics committee be established, led initially by Jason Calacanis, with Jeff Jarvis and one other person that they both agree on. One can work out the permanent membership at a later date. I'm not putting myself forward.

This is not, at this stage, a blog publishers association, though it could be the first step towards one. The idea would be to start an open discussion -- at blogethics.org, for instance -- and then come up with some guidelines.

The guidelines would cover questions such as photo copyright, freebies, pay-to-post deals, editorial tie-ins, paid text links. They would be voluntary. But sites that adhered to them would be able to indicate that they met certain blog ethics standards. Over to Jason.