Oz Politics Blog

The policy

If you want to post a comment on this site, I ask that you abide by these principles:

• be courteous and respectful: in your comments treat everyone as you would want to be treated
• add value: say something new that others would want to read
• keep your comments on-topic — general discussion belongs in the forums
• give accurate information in the spirit of being helpful
• if you disagree with me or another commentator, disagree respectfully
• admit the possibility of fault and respect different points of views
• if you screw up, take responsibility for your actions

If you cannot play by these rules, you should at least read my moderation policy.

Moderation policy

You do not have unlimited free speech rights when posting comments on this site. I delete those comments I judge to be offensive, aggressive, abusive, bullying, trolling, sexist, racist, slanderous, defamatory, lewd, illegal, repetitive, random or otherwise unacceptable. Unacceptable comments include but are not be limited to:

• insults, name-calling, abuse and vilification
• a pattern of commenting that harasses, stalks, or threatens others
• libelous or knowingly false comments
• comments that infringe upon any copyright, trademark or trade secret of any third party. (If you quote or excerpt someone’s content, it is your responsibility to provide proper attribution to the original author).
• violating an obligation of confidentiality or the privacy of others
• general political remarks (ie denunciations of political parties, ideologies or politicians) unrelated to the topic
• excessively frequent comments, where the effect of such comments is to discourage the participation of others or turn a debate around into one about themselves
• imputing ideas or motives to others or stereotyping them because of perceived group membership or ideological affiliation
• consistently repeated and/or aggressively stated opinions which fail to engage with others is regarded as a form of trolling
• comments which are designed to derail threads
• comments contesting earlier moderation decisions

If a comment is off-topic, I may move it to another thread rather than delete it.

I moderate the blog more strictly than the forums. I expect comments on the blog to add value. They should be on-topic and say something that has not been said before; something others will want to read. They should avoid repetition. While personal abuse will not be tolerated in either space, I am less concerned with off-topic and repetitive comments in the forums.

Some will argue that I am capricious and inconsistent in my approach. All I can say is: I am probably guilty as charged. While I seek to apply my comments policy fairly and consistently, there will be some days when it works out in practice differently to other days. That’s life. So there can be no mistake, I reserve the right to apply my comments policy in a capricious and inconsistent manner. I reserve the right to edit or delete comments from anyone. I reserve the right to turn off comments for any particular post, or to prevent individual readers (or everyone) from making further comments.

If I can paraphrase what my mum used to say, making a comment on this blog is not a right. It is a privilege. Use it wisely.

General daily comment limit

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 10 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.

Red and yellow cards

When I delete a comment for its content, I may issue a yellow card against the comment’s author. The yellow card will impose a daily comment limit for seven days. 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 comments per day.

A further breach of this comments policy will result in a red card. No comments can be posted while the red card is in force. Red cards have a life of 28 days.

The moderation cards currently in force can be seen on the site statistics page.

Dispute mechanism

There is no dispute mechanism. It is my blog, and it operates at my discretion.

No correspondence will be entered into regarding moderation decisions.

Comments complaining about moderation decisions may be subject to moderation.

If you don’t like my comments policy, don’t post any comments.

Legal notes

The opinions expressed in comments threads are entirely the responsibility of the various contributors. While I will do everything within reason to ensure that they are not defamatory, I accept no liability for them or the content of links included in them. If there is a comment that needs be sanitised or removed, please contact me.

I reserve the right to amend this comments policy without notice and without consultation.

Responsibility for electoral comment on the blog is taken by Bryan Palmer, Hughes, ACT.

This comments policy has been compiled using the policy at Larvatus Prodeo, the bloggers code of conduct, the Gentoo Linux code, and the past discussions on comments policy here.