REDD-Monitor’s new comments policy

REDD-Monitor has a new comments policy. Please comply with these few guidelines when posting on REDD-Monitor.

When REDD-Monitor was set up in October 2008, there was no comments policy. I assumed that people commenting would be interested in debating the issues in a polite and reasonable manner.

The lack of policy worked more or less successfully for over two years (although occasionally things got a bit heated). But after one commenter attacked another on a post in early 2011, I decided that REDD-Monitor needed a comments policy, in the hope of preventing this sort of thing in future.

Since February 2011, REDD-Monitor has managed with the following comments policy:

REDD-Monitor welcomes debate, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the posts.

However, please try to avoid comments that:

• are abusive
• contain ad-hominem attacks
• are off-topic
• promote hate or violence
• use foul language

REDD-Monitor reserves the right to edit or delete comments that do not comply with these five points.

Most of the time this worked, with a few exceptions.

In November 2012, I posted “Open thread: Improving REDD-Monitor”, which asked for suggestions about improving REDD-Monitor’s comments policy, among other things.

Enter the sock puppets. Over the past couple of weeks a large number of comments have come from the same IP address, but using different identities.

The vast majority of the comments on REDD-Monitor are constructive and useful (whether or not the commenter agrees with my point of view). However, to filter out the sock puppets and trolls, all comments on REDD-Monitor currently go into a moderation queue. If a comment is in breach of the comments policy it may be deleted. This does not mean that I am under any obligation to moderate comments or that I am liable in any way for what other people say. Your comments are your own responsibility.

The new comments policy is not set in stone and it will almost certainly change over time. This post is intended to facilitate discussion of the comments policy. So if you want to comment on the comments policy, do so here. I look forward to the discussion, but please keep it constructive! And please comply with the new comments policy.

---

PHOTO Credit: xkcd.