Comments Policy

This is the Comments Policy that I have on my other blog - which has proved to be effective in practice.

Let me explain. Before I set up my first journal I did some research about blogging practice and policies. This seemed to suggest that:

• It’s helpful to have a comments policy up front so that this enables those who might be shy at posting to ‘know the rules’ and therefore feel more confident about posting.


• There’s a general consensus that it’s better to publish a comments policy before rather than after you have been visited by a troll or received an abusive post which needs to be removed.

So here goes………….

General Principles

This policy is an amalgam of the best practice that I am sympathetic to that I can find on the net and my own personal experience of what can happen if comments are not moderated. Essentially I want to run with a policy which is derived from and based on what has been referred to by Lisa Williams as the “Living Room Doctrine” and the principles of the the “Friendly Stranger” and Rana’s “Benefit of the Doubt” . I’ll amend this policy as required in the light of experience and the development of even better practice on the net.
In essence then:

1. I hope you will read this journal because you get something out of it and that you want to comment and/or interact with other people who comment on what I post
2. I will write about things relating to the purposes of this art journal and how they: (a) relate to me personally and certain aspects of my life; (b) relate to the interests of people who are also travelling and sketching
   
3. Learning is a good thing to pursue. Sharing information for mutual benefit is encouraged as are comments which expand our wealth of information.
4. My journal is a virtual extension of my living space. Consequently, in this journal we will discuss things as if we were speaking face to face in my living space. Comments will always try to be on-topic, informative and polite. Discussions should always be thoughtful and respectful of others – this is not a debating forum.
5. Private lives and privacy concerns are to be respected. When writing about personal lives and individuals both you and I will only share what has already been made public on the internet by the individual concerned or what we would share if standing in a queue chatting to a friendly stranger.
6. Comments about specific individuals will generally relate to sharing information about positive experiences and innovation.
7. Any references to something on another site should have proper attribution and a link.
8. I will assume you to be a reasonable, thinking person (unless you provide evidence to the contrary) and I expect you to treat me as a reasonable, thoughtful person as well.
9. My aim is run this site with comments enabled and without active policing on my part. However, comments will be moderated to start with and I will decide whether or not comments are enabled.
10. If you have a lot to say do please consider setting up your own blog to share your views with others.

Comments that will be removed

This is my blog and, while I welcome comments, all comments will be moderated initially. Please note that using Blogger means that I can only delete a comment rather than edit.

1. All abusive comments will be removed – and I determine what is abusive in my eyes as this is my living space. So any comments that I personally consider to be threatening or offensive if said to me in person in my own living space will be deleted. It is not OK to bristle with hostility or to call either me or other people who comment “names”. Those who indulge in what I regard as anti-social behaviours (e.g. behave like trolls and/or conspire and/or practice deceit such as engineering double acts for false debate or creating conflict) will be banned and their comments will be deleted.
   
2. All wildly off-topic comments will be removed.
   
3. Any inflammatory statements, allegations or statement likely to generate legal interest and/or action by others will be removed.
4. Posts may be deleted if they are inappropriate (eg breach privacy considerations) or are very disruptive to the flow (eg they would have been better sent as e-mails or are excessive in length.)
   
5. Spam (i.e. comments containing irrelevant links to commercial sites) will always be removed. I suggest anybody who wants to post a link to a commercial site but isn’t sure whether I will regard it as spam checks with me first via e-mail.

Where I have deleted a post I will indicate the reason why – at the highest level only (e.g. off-topic; spam; abusive). I won’t enter into any sort of debate about what I consider to be appropriate comment in my journal after the event.