Tuesday 9 October 2012

Comments on Ochre Archives Posts

The Ochre Archives blogsite profile is set up in such a way that any comments on posts come through to us for moderating. We then categorise each comments as being one of the following:
1. Publish. The full text is then visible at the bottom of the post to all who access and read the article.
2. Delete. The comment is deleted and does not appear on the blogsite.
3. Report as spam. The comment does not appear on the blogsite and we assume the administrators of Blogger keep a record of the item and suspect that they would in time prevent users who are reported multiple times from making any further comments on posts created by bloggers.

By far and away the greatest number of comments we receive on Ochre Archives posts are generic comments (unrelated to the actual post they are commenting on) that contain a hyperlink to a website the person making the comment wants to promote. We moderate these and any other comments that are simply trying to encourage people to go to their preferred website as spam.

A couple of days ago a comment came through that was different. The comment (posted anonymously) was basically an attack on a business, its proprietor and an associated family member who were connected with one of the posts we made last year. The person making the comment had clearly had some unsatisfactory experience with the targets of the comment and we suppose might argue they were just trying to pre-warn others. After much deliberation we decided not to publish the comment for several reasons:
a) The comment was posted anonymously which makes it impossible for those who might read the comment to make further inquiries and seek clarification
b) Some parts of the comment were not sufficiently specific to be constructive.
c) Whilst the intent of Ochre Archives is to share information it is not our intent to post material that could be considered offensive.

Having said the above we do welcome comments and are open to constructive feedback