First, a shout-out to Jay Miklovic for raising a question we hadn't really dealt with here, but that probably at least I should have talked about long ago.
Why is comments moderation turned on?
There are two reasons for this. One is to avoid spam comments. And yes, we have gotten some. And some of those we get from time to time aren't exactly "Christian" in content-- I think you get the point.
The second is because of General Board of Discipleship web practices policies, which were developed in part in response to what became the destruction of the Worship Discussion Room on the GBOD worship website by spammers hawking drugs and posting not just links but pictures that were highly inappropriate. Putting it under captcha didn't stop that. The only thing that did was the exercise of comments moderation. But by that time that damage had been done. The Worship Discussion Room is dead.
So... GBOD web staff decided that if we're going to have staff involved in a public web presence, particularly on blogs, they need to be able to moderate what gets posted.
Now, the way I've got this set up, I'm notified instantly via email whenever someone sends in a post to the blog. And I'm on email much of the time-- either on my computer at work or home or via my phone. So in reality, there usually isn't (or generally wouldn't be) much of a time lag between when a comment is entered and when it's posted.
For Facebook groups we operate, that policy so far doesn't apply. I suppose the reasoning is that folks who sign up for Facebook groups are generally folks who have some relationship with us already, and so wouldn't likely post inappropriate things. And if they did one of us could easily yank it. Blogs, however, are potentially far more public and more "anonymous"-- so there's more caution there.
So... that's where we are for now.
But I'm absolutely open to discussing this further among ourselves here (comments moderated of course, but I only delete things that really aren't appropriate!) and, if it seems good to the group, to seeing what sort of "exception" or even "new rule" I might be able to work out on the GBOD side to allow comments moderation to be turned off.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
4 comments:
very good - thanks for the update, makes sense
Thank you, Jay, for asking the question!
after thinking just a little more on this...
the way you moderate comments quickly (via work, phone, and home), should also allow you to destroy comments quickly.
my concern with comment moderation is that it gives the perception (though likely false in most cases) that comments are filtered in order to make a point or bolster a position. Again, I do not see that as the practice of this site, nonetheless it leaves room for doubt about transparency.
a well read Calvinist site, PyroManiacs (http://teampyro.blogspot.com/), regularly gets over 100 comments on posts yet is not moderated. Often we see comments removed if inappropriate but the authors realize the value of their blog lies in the real time commenting that occurs. However the do not allow anonymous commenting. (which is possibly a solution)
They also regularly remind readers of the rules of their meta and strictly enforce them.
It makes sense what GBOD has done, but it also handcuffs the metas of their staff bloggers, and gives those who desire to doubt about their transparency an excuse to do so.
your explanation makes sense. Thanks for info. Stay blessed...john
P.S. My word verification for this comment was SEWOOTA--my new favorite word.
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