Posted by Zo on April 25, 2003, at 23:23:41
In reply to A Collection of Moderating Guidelines, posted by Zo on April 25, 2003, at 23:19:43
"The present policy of intervention as rarely as possible is still the correct one and possibly the only one."Everyone who participates in these conversations should be aware of Guardian Unlimited's talk policy. It is as much an appeal as a warning. "We want the Talk to be the place on the net where you will always find lively, entertaining and, above all, intelligent discussions. The last thing the net needs is yet another site where any attempt at conversation is drowned out by a few people hurling mindless abuse at each other."
It goes on to say that sometimes, and reluctantly, some postings have to be removed, and indicates the reasons why this might be done. "We discourage obscenity and mindless abuse... We will not tolerate racism, sexism or homophobia. We will remove any content that may put us in legal jeopardy... We will consider removing any content that other users might find extremely offensive or threatening. If you act with maturity and consideration for other users, you should have no problems on our boards."And so we come to the space between theory and practice. More bans are being imposed than at any time since the talk boards started, although we are still speaking of a tiny number. Where it was once extremely rare to ban a user, there are now on average two bannings or banishments a week. Because of the ease with which some email addresses and user names can be changed, however, it is possible that a few individuals are being repeatedly banned under different names.
More postings than before are being removed, and users warned that they risk banning by breaches of the few guidelines. Some have been warned because of racist remarks in the context of the Middle East conflict.
Although vigilance is exercised, it is impossible to watch all the talk boards all the time. Users themselves will usually draw attention to something that seems to abuse and therefore threaten the freedom that they enjoy.The present policy of intervention as rarely as possible is still the correct one and possibly the only one.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4397576,00.html
poster:Zo
thread:222479
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20030404/msgs/222482.html