Comment policies are a tricky thing. Once we start moderating blog or forum comments, folks cry “censorship!” and accuse us of not allowing them the freedom to disagree. Because of this, many bloggers or forum moderators allow their commentators to basically say what they want until anarchy ensues and their communities become a verbal free-for-all.
In the last few years I’ve managed a couple of succesful communities and I’ve learned some essential truths:
- My blogs and forums are not the government, and therefore, censorship doesn’t exist.
- People should show the same respect in an online community as they do when visiting someone’s home.
- There’s no shame in asking folks to be respectful and remember their manners.
- There are ways to disagree without resorting to name calling and abuse.
- Comment policies rock.
My writing community, Freelance Writing Jobs, is generally a helpful community of writers networking with and assisting other writers. However, when they begin to disagree about things such as rates it can get kind of ugly. So I posted a comment policy. It reads as follows:
We don’t like to have too many rules here at FWJ. Rules and regulations tend to scare people away, and we enjoy a crowded sandbox. Without rules we would have anarchy, and we’re not really into that either. So here it is in a nutshell: Be nice and be respectful. Easy, right?
Here’s the deal. When commenting, be nice and be respectful. Before you start yelling censorship and first amendment, let me clarify that you are more than welcome to disagree. We love spirited discussion and debate. Just be nice and be respectful.
Personal attacks, rudeness, vulgarity, spam and all around bad manners in comments will find said comment quietly and unceremoniously removed. If you would like to discuss removal of said comment, take it to email. We will no longer have public discussions and arguments about why certain comments are removed.If your comment is removed, it’s safe to say you weren’t nice or respectful. If you post a comment to announce to everyone we’re evil and removed your comment, we’ll remove that one as well. You’re welcome to talk it over with us in private.
Thank you for your understanding and for being nice and respectful.
You know what? It worked.
As a blogger, there’s nothing I enjoy more than a spirited discussion underneath something I wrote. It amazes me however, that certain grownups can’t play nice. In addition to the aforementioned comment policy, I have my blog network set up so that a new visitor’s first comment automatically is held in moderation. This serves two purposes
- It allows me to personally welcome a new member to the community.
- It allows me to remove an offensive comment from a troll.
Two years about FWJ had a reputation for being a writer’s battleground, today it’s the number one online community for freelance writers. Having a clear comment policy, and being firm about enforcing that policy helped to create a thriving, helpful community. It’s not censorship to ask people to behave.
Do you have a comment policy? What does it say?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
No, I don’t have a comment policy. If I need one in the near future I’ll be using this as my frame-work. Thanks Deb
Greg
It’s always interesting to hear the deafening silence when I inform users exactly what free speech is, and why it isn’t something they should “expect” on a privately run website. I’ve created lots of policies for comments on news stories on WRAL.com and my team of moderators work hard to uphold those policies. One of the biggest is no personal attacks. When you can curb some of that, the level of dialogue soars.
Sites that have no comment policy or don’t moderate comments really turn me off. YouTube is one example. I think they have way more indecent comments than indecent videos. The website of a local newspaper in my area has the same problem. I enjoy reading their news articles but I stop visiting the site because of the comments.
On the other hand, do online comments reflect our true nature? While we may never invent a machine that reads minds, online comments are practically exposing our thoughts. I would be interested to see behavioral scientists analyze the comments and tell us how we behave differently online versus in real life.
We don’t have one yet, but if we decided to implement one…I know where to go!