Ethics has been a hot topic in the world of blogging lately, and after a recent discussion in the comment section on a post, I thought it was time for me to put things in writing.

See, I’ve always had what I consider to be a strong code of ethics when it comes to the blog (and in life as well, but that’s a different story), but I’ve never bothered to put it out there in writing. Why? No reason. I just didn’t do it. But now that I’ve seen more interest in this subject, and the feds have started to regulate disclosures, I thought it was a good to put this out there. I’ve also decided to strengthen it a bit, so if you’re looking to get me to write about your product, I’d recommend reading this first.

But before I put it up, I want to discuss it with you guys, my readers. Take a look at what I have so far, and please share your ideas in the comments section. I’d like to have this up with a link from the homepage within the next week. So here’s what I have:

For the purpose of this code, “free and/or discounted products and services” refers to anything offered to me for free or for a discount simply because of my status as a blogger.

• I will never trade favorable press for free and/or discounted products and services. I will always write the truth, and that may or may not be good for your product/service.
• I will only accept free and/or discounted products and services if they come from someone with whom I have an existing relationship. I can only feel comfortable accepting free and/or discounted products and services from organizations which I know understand the rules that I’ve set. If they haven’t spent time building a relationship, then there isn’t enough trust built up for me to accept anything.
• Providing me with free and/or discounted products and services doesn’t mean I will write about them. If you ask before giving anything, I will do my best to let you know if I think I will write about it or not, but that’s still not a guarantee.
• Please do not provide unsolicited free and/or discounted products and services. Contact me first to avoid wasting your time.
• I will not accept free or discounted transportation for a personal trip.
• When I write about free and/or discounted products and services, I will always disclose who gave them to me, what the discount was, and when they were given to me.

That’s what I have so far. Now let’s hear what you have to say.

Please keep in mind that I am going for something realistic here. Would I like to turn away every offer of something free and/or discounted? Absolutely, but nobody is paying to read this site, and the ad revenue hardly covers the cost of a ticket. Without these opportunities, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to cover things that I want to cover for you.

So, let’s try and create a good, solid code of ethics that is also realistic. Leave your comments below.

For those of you who subscribe to Cranky via email (1,500 strong and growing), I’ve made some changes starting today that should be for the good.

There have been reports recently that my emails are ending up in some of your spam folders, and that’s obviously not a good thing. To combat this, I’ve made some changes on the back-end that should help your email clients understand it’s not spam. I’ve also changed the email address that will be sending the emails from cf@crankyflier.com to dailycranky@crankyflier.com.

If you’re an email subscriber, please add dailycranky@crankyflier.com as a contact or whitelist the email address to help make sure emails end up in your inbox.

If you’re not an email subscriber, well, why not? It’s free, so you really don’t have a good excuse. Head to this link to sign up. You can always cancel any time:
http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=1392450&loc=en_US

Thanks. Now back to airlines.

If you’re an airline dork, you love timetables. It’s just the way it’s always been. And with Southwest finally issuing its last timetable this year, the era of printed timetables in the US has come to a close. I asked Southwest for a copy of the last timetable, and Southwest spokesperson Paula Berg did better than that. She sent me one signed by none other than Southwest legends Herb Kelleher and Colleen Barrett. Even better, she sent me two signed copies, and now one could be yours.

So how do you get this magical book of joy? Send me your best tribute to timetables. Video? Sounds good to me. Music? Excellent. Pictures? That’ll work. How about a poem? Delightful. Just get creative and submit your best. Got pictures of you as a pudgy pre-teen? That’ll work as well . . .

Just put your masterpiece together and send it to me at cf@crankyflier.com by 1159p Pacific Time on November 15. That’ll give you two weekends to work on this. I’ll go through the entries and pick the winner within a week of the end of the contest. I’m the only judge, so this is rather informal.

Oh, and if you have a file that’s too big to send, feel free to upload to your favorite file sharing site and send me a link. Or, I can pull it down from your site (if you have one) using FTP if that’s better.

I realize this seems like a big task, so I’m curious to see how many, if any, entries I get. We’ll see how much you guys really do love timetables.

I mentioned yesterday that I am attending the ARAC FFP Mega Event this week and that I’d be speaking tomorrow. Well, it turns out that I could use your help.

This event is attended by industry people – the same people who are responsible for making changes to their frequent flier programs. Most of the events so far have been about how companies have successfully extracted more money from customers while “improving the customer experience” or something like that. But tomorrow, I will be joining up with Nicholas Kralev from the Washington Times for this discussion:

Listening to your customers- what are customers saying about loyalty programs?

So we’ll have the ears of many decision makers tomorrow on the subject that I know you all love to talk about. Let’s have it. What would you like me to say to them?

I’ll be at the FFP ARAC Mega Event here in sunny Southern California tomorrow and Friday. We love our acronyms in this industry, but basically this is all about frequent flier programs and ancillary revenue. For the most part, I’ll be wandering around, but I actually will be speaking on the FFP side at 1025a on Friday.

I see some familiar needs on the speaking roster, and I imagine some other readers will be attending as well. If anyone is interested in meeting up, just shoot me an email at cf@crankyflier.com.