Oz Politics Blog

Please, keep the comments civil, well argued and on topic.

If you want to make a general comment, do it in the forums.

And if you have not done it, read the comments policy for this blog.

I hate reading through pages of the same mindless diatribe and partisan bickering endlessly rehashed and regurgitated. It is boring to read. It detracts from the blog. It deters all but the sophomore pseudo-intellectuals who like the trust of debate without seriously engaging in any meaningful dialogue.

Consequently, I am announcing some changes to the comments policy at Oz Politics:

• Commentators on the blog are asked to abide by the new principle of “adding value” — say something that has not been said before; make it something others will want to read — avoid repeating yourself or others.
• Because I expect every comment to be considered and well argued, I have imposed a general daily comment limit on all commentators. You will only be able to post a maximum of 12 comments per day. The purpose of the general daily comment limit is to reduce the number of mindless, carping and ‘me too’ comments on any thread. By limiting the resource, I am seeking to encourage its wise use.
• If you have been issued a yellow or red card, your daily comment limit will have been further reduced. The first yellow card will impose a limit of six comments per day. The second yellow card will impose a limit of four comments per day. The third yellow card will impose a limit of two comment per day. Red cards prevent comments from being posted.
• A yellow card will impose its reduced daily comment limit for seven days. Red cards have a life of 28 days.

As always, I am happy to chat about the comments policy in general terms. However, I do not enter into correspondence on individual moderation decisions.

Update: I have created some general discussion forums to carry the traffic on the more heavily debated subjects. I will moderate these forums for the more egregious offences, but I will be less concerned with the quality of the arguments. However, with comments on the main blog, I will be stricter in moderating the quality and relevance of comments.

Update #2: I plan to deal with off-topic comments on the blog by moving them to an appropriate forum.

I am considering whther to introduce a comment rating system that would inform comment auto-moderation and daily comment limits.

My proposal is that any reader would be able to rate a comment between 1 and 5, on a categorical scale from ‘poor’ to ‘excellent’. These ratings (and the number of raters) would be displayed beside each comment. I have uploaded a very clunky version of the rating system — as a proof on concept. I will work on a more beautiful rating system over the weekend.

Once posters had received ten or more ratings across their comments, an average rating would also appear beside their name.

Auto-moderation

The proposed system would ‘auto-moderate’ any comment with ten or more ratings, and an average rating less than 1.5. Auto-moderated comments would not be visible - nor would further ratings on the comment be possible. The tribe has spoken.

Daily comment limits

I want to reward the better rated commentators with the capacity to post more comments. My proposal is to set a variable daily comment limits based on the average rating of each author. It could be something like that set out in the next table.

Safeguards

The system would not allow people to rate their own comments. They would not be able to rate a comment more than once. And they would not be able to rate older comments, (say) those older than seven days.

People who advocate grotting an individual with a series of low ratings will have their effective score set to zero, and as a consequence a limit of two comments a day.

Feedback

Anyway, it is just a proposal at the moment. Comments on the proposal and other suggestions welcome.

Update - 15 April 2007

Okay. So the auto-moderation idea was crap.

I have taken down the comment rating plugin. It was generating a bimodal distribution around 1 (poor) and 5 (excellent). While this distribution confirmed the disagreeable nature of politics, it was not particularly useful for assessing the quality of comments. It was an interesting experiment.

I have also taken down the current one-size-fits-all daily comment limit. I am working on a new yellow card system. Once a yellow card has been issued it heralds daily comment limits for the author of the yellow carded comment for the next 7 days. Three yellow cards and then a red card, with no capacity to comment for 7 days. I am working with comment limits of 8, 4 and 2 for the yellow cards. A second or third yellow card is only deemed to have been issued if a yellow card is currently in force.

Remember the movie Ground Hog Day, where the lead character wakes every day in the same small town to live the same day over and over again.

Well, this blog is beginning to feel like Ground Hog Day. It has the same boring commentators repeating the same boring assertions, engaged in the same boring conflict with the same boring people who hold the equally boring opposing points of view.

If you don’t get it, I am sick of reading the mindless partisan bickering. The funny thing is that I suspect half of you are sitting in Parliament House or party Headquarters engaged in viral marketing techniques for the next election against the other half. [Given his propensity for spelling errors, I am sure Glen is behind the Liberal Party’s new web site].

In an effort to bring back some value into your comments (or at least limit the number of repetitive comments you can post), I have introduced a daily limit of 6 (update: 5) comments per person. In the future, I may apply even tighter rations on those who are abusive or extra boring. I can relax the restriction on others who demonstrate a commitment to scintillating narrative and insightful analysis. Indeed, I might introduce a rating system that automates the task for me.

In the mean time, and because I cobbled together the daily limits plugin in a fit of pique in a hour or so before going to bed, there is no guarantee that it is working properly. Contact me if you spot a glitch, or if you want to make the case for extra daily posts.

Update At the suggestion of a number of commentators, I have reduced the daily comment limit to 5.

You can see the top daily commentators on the site stats page.

Download: the latest version of the plugin from here. It is version 0.0.3, released on 11 April 2007.

I have decided to emulate Lavartus Prodeo with a clearly articulated comments policy.

My policy draws on my previous posts on comments, as well as the text from LP.

Comments on the policy are welcome.