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Comment Moderation Policies

Page history last edited by jeffrey levy 13 years, 11 months ago

Please share your comment moderation policies on this wiki. If you have any questions or comments about legal or process issues surrounding comment moderation, please share them in the comments section.

 


 

USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov Facebook Comment Policies

 

We monitor the USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov Facebook pages several times each day to look for comments that may be offensive enough to delete. By and large, user comments on Facebook are respectful.

 

To date (Aug 4 2009), we have been prompted on two occasions to report Facebook users and block them from posting further comments on our page due to spamming. We have never had multiple offensive or abusive comments from a single user on our pages.

 

USA.gov

 

We welcome your comments and hope that our conversations here will be courteous. You are fully responsible for the content of your comments.

 

We do not discriminate against any views, but we reserve the right to delete any of the following:

 

  • violent, obscene, profane, hateful, or racist comments

  • comments that threaten or defame any person or organization

  • solicitations, advertisements, or endorsements of any financial, commercial or non-governmental agency

  • comments that suggest or encourage illegal activity

  • multiple successive off-topic posts by a single user

  • repetitive posts copied and pasted by multiple users

 

In short: be nice. If you have any questions or comments about this policy, please email us.

 

GobiernoUSA.gov

 

Agradecemos sus comentarios y pedimos que las conversaciones en esta página sean respetuosas. Eres completamente responsable por el contenido de tus comentarios.

 

No discriminamos en contra de cualquier punto de vista, pero nos reservamos el derecho de eliminar comentarios de la página si:

 

  • son violentos, obscenos, ofensivos, racistas o de odio
  • amenazan o difaman a alguna persona u organización
  • sugieren o promueven alguna actividad ilegal
  • alguna entidad comercial o agencia no-gubernamental hace algún tipo de pedido, anuncio o promoción
  • un mismo usuario realiza múltiples comentarios sucesivos que no sean relevantes a las discusiones en la página
  • diferentes usuarios copian y pegan un mismo comentario de manera repetida

 

En pocas palabras, sé amable. Si tienes alguna pregunta o comentario sobre esta política, envíanos un e-mail.

 


 

Gov Gab Blog Comment policy

 

Gov Gab comments are moderated before being approved. Gov Gab has multiple authors and each author is responsible for moderation of the comments on his or her posts.

 

We welcome your comments and expect that our conversation will follow the general rules of respectful civil discourse. This is a moderated blog, and we will only post comments from bloggers 13 years or older that relate to topics on Gov Gab: Your U.S. Government Blog. We will review comments for posting within one business day. You are fully responsible for everything that you submit in your comments, and all posted comments are in the public domain. We do not discriminate against any views, but we reserve the right not to post comments.

 

Comment Policy for EPA's Blog, Greenversations

Comments are moderated before being approved.  A central blog team reviews the comments; individual authors are encouraged to respond to comments, but aren't required to.

 

As of April 2010, Greenversations has received approximately 11,000 comments.  About 20 weren't approved because of vulgar or attack language, and another 1100 weren't approved because they violated other aspects of the policy or were duplicates.

 

We use the same comment policy on our YouTube channel and Facebook fan page.

 

We encourage you to share your thoughts as they relate to the topic being discussed.  We review and post comments according to the policy below.  The views expressed in comments reflect those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or the federal government.

We want to publish your comments, but we expect comments generally to be courteous.  To that end, we have established the following policy.

We reserve the discretion not to post comments that:

  • contain obscene, indecent, or profane language;
  • contain threats or defamatory statements;
  • contain hate speech directed at race, color, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, age, religion, or disability; or
  • promote or endorse services or products. (Note that non-commercial links that are relevant to the topic or another comment are acceptable.)

Do not submit copyrighted or other proprietary material in any form unless you clearly indicate that you have permission to do so.  By posting your comments or other work, you grant EPA and anyone viewing the EPA Web site irrevocable permission to copy, distribute, make derivatives, display or perform the commenter’s work publicly and free-of-charge.

 

If you are a reporter, please send questions to the EPA Newsroom through normal channels rather than by submitting questions here as comments.  It is our policy not to post reporter questions.

 

We recognize that the Internet is a 24/7 medium and your comments are welcome at any time.  However, given the need to manage federal resources, we intend to review and post comments from 8:30 am – 5:30 pm Monday through Friday except for on federal holidays.  We intend to review and post comments submitted at other times as soon as possible on the next business day.

 

In some cases we ask you to provide your name and e-mail address, although providing either is optional.  We request your name to make it easier to carry on a conversation.  For this reason, we publish your name along with your comment.  We ask for your e-mail address so that we can contact you if necessary.  It is our policy not to publish your e-mail address.

 

To protect your privacy, please do not include information (e.g., an e-mail address or phone number) in the text of your comment that identifies you.

 

You can find additional guidance as to how EPA regards privacy issues within the privacy policy provided on EPA’s main Web site.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this comment policy.  We encourage your participation in our discussion and look forward to an active exchange of ideas.

 

If you have questions about this comment policy or how we apply it, please contact us.

Comments (4)

Jed Sundwall said

at 11:21 am on Aug 11, 2009

Who can tell me about 1st amendment rights surrounding comment moderation? My understanding is that deleting purely profane or malicious comments is probably legally defensible, but that we might run into trouble if we delete comments that include profanity AND useful feedback—e.g. "This program is ********—it's obviously been created to serve special interests. If we keep spending taxpayer money on ******** like this, we're all ******."

Facebook doesn't allow us to edit comments like this, and I'd be leery of deleting one.

John Able said

at 12:33 pm on Aug 11, 2009

I have the same concern as Jed Sundwall: Can a federal agency solicit comments, then accept some and reject others? Would this violate 1st Amedment rights?

Obviously, at first glance it seems to me, a non-lawyer, that this could constitute censorship. On the other hand, doesn't the FCC still regulate language and obscenity on publicly licensed airwaves? Would a server/website owned or operated by/for the government be given similar consideration? Isn't it (including the content) owned by the public?

Also, if someone has a post blocked, can't they easily post it somewhere else, say on one of the free blogging sites -- Blogger, Wordpress, etc? Doesn't this wide availability of free Internet options to publish anything allow the government to be selective within stated objective standards on its sites? How can I violate your 1st Amendment rights by blocking your comment if you can can, within minutues, just publish it on a Blogger site? I don't know, just wondering. . . . Is there an available legal opinion by the Justice Department on this issue? If not, perhaps there ought to be.

jeremyb said

at 10:17 am on Aug 12, 2009

Whenever we remove a vulgar comment we attempt to contact the person letting them know they are welcome to their opinion they just can't use profanity in doing so.

bryanwklein said

at 10:25 am on Aug 12, 2009

We have a similar policy for our Google Group... Although we do not moderate up front, we only remove after we have identified a violation of our Group Policies. The community knows that because we allow anything to be posted, that they may be exposed to objectionable material from time to time, but that we will remove it as soon as we become aware of it. We then monitor every post to ensure compliance. We have actually been accused of censorship, but because of our policies, and proof that we do not filter, we were able to reject the claims against us. I understand that all communities may not be able to apply this same approach, but it has worked well for us. Here is the URL to our Group Policy document. http://code.google.com/p/fds-smv/wiki/FDSSMV_Group_Policies and the URL to our Discussion Group http://groups.google.com/group/fds-smv

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