We're implementing a sea change in our commenting policy here at openDemocracy. For a long time, we've allowed anybody to comment on our articles, and while this has brought a very high level of debate to the site on some issues, it has failed to really provide conversation between you, our readers, and the authors and editorial staff who comprise openDemocracy as a publisher.
We'd love to change that, and we hope that our new commenting system is going to achieve that goal. We'll be moving all comments posted on articles over to be completely moderated, initially by our editorial team here in the office, as well as some authors, but increasingly by the community itself.
Why do we think that moderating all comments is going to help create a conversation? Sure, there might be a bit of a delay in seeing your comment posted, or we might shorten one of your links with tinyurl to make sure it looks OK, but we'll only edit a comment if we're sure that we're just making a point clearer, or sorting out some HTML, spelling or grammar. We might not publish a comment though, and if that's the case, we may get in touch with you and explain why we haven't published the comment, and we'll give you the chance to edit it and have it published.
We want to be completely transparent about our moderation policies; the worst case scenario here is for our community to lose trust in what we stand for, so even our comment moderation policy, here, can be commented on and we will update it as the needs of the community and the site evolve. Here's the reasons we might take down a comment:
- Your comment is unjustifiably long: openDemocracy is not a clearing house for academic articles, nor is it a place for cross-posted blog posts, articles or comments from elsewhere. If you've written something you think is relevant to an oD article, please write a short comment linking to the piece and explaining why it is relevant. We'll take a look if we get the chance, and if it's a good piece, there's a chance we'll put it in our 'Go Read' section, or even get in touch with you to discuss publishing it as a full article on openDemocracy.
- Your comment is not part of a conversation. This is a little more nebulous, but if we feel that your comment is just a dismissal of the articles premise without adding substantive thoughts, or that you're just 'flame-baiting' to irritate liberals/conservatives/religious groups etc. If we think there is potential, we might back to you and ask you to reword the comment with more links, relevant content or citations.
- Your comment is offensive without any reason. We don't just ignore trolls on openDemocracy, we will actively remove comments on articles that are clearly only posted to offend others. You can try this in our forums, but you'll find that community doesn't suffer fools gladly (and our forum moderators, who are drawn from our community, will be able to remove or edit your comment as well).
- Making ad hominem (personally insulting or demeaning remarks) comments about other commenters or the author of an article. Unless you can provide clear citations of a conflict of interest, we are not interested in publishing comments that attack any individual or institution without relevance.
- Interjecting in the middle of an ongoing comment conversation with
- a canned rant that brings nothing new to the debate
- a point that someone else has already made (even if you think you can make it better)
- jeering, condescending, juvenile messages that do not respond to comments others have made (see ad hominem atacks above)
- Bringing up an irrelevant subject that is guaranteed to inflame other commenters, such as, The Iraq War, Climate Change, Wearing Hijabs, Science vs Religion, Falun Gong etc. Obviously, if these are relvant to the article, you are welcome to discuss, but do not attempt to take over a comment thread by posting on an unrelated, but inflammatory subject.
- Sometimes we'll need to remove a comment, but it won't be easily obvious why under this policy; we are not trying to give an exhaustive list of the reasons we might moderate your comment. We imagine that the vast majority of openDemocracy readers will understand the spirit of these rules, and will relish the opportunity to hold reasoned, intelligent and active discussions around the articles we publish. We just want to make sure that any unnecessarily negative, offensive or vacuous comments don't obstruct the conversation, and we hope that our readers understand.
We will make changes to this policy based on feedback from the community and how comment moderation works on the site. The ideal end result of this experiment is for us to have a committed group of openDemocracy readers who are trusted by our greater community, editorial staff and authors to be able to moderate and contribute to our comments. If you think that could be you, please don't hesitate to contact us.