Slashdot Mirror
When Should a Website Edit Its Users?
rw2 asks: "Can a weblog edit users comments without opening itself up to liability in case of a slander suit? I run a political weblog and have a policy similar to slashdots in terms of the comments posted belonging to their owners. I'm worried about instituting something like lameness filters as it seems like as soon as you start regulating what your users post you have agreed to edit them for other reasons as well. Can someone point me to a good resource on issues like this. Those of us who aren't owned by publically traded companies are better off avoiding potential problems rather than hire lawyers to help us wiggle out later." Honestly, this greatly depends on the type of weblog you run and the community behind it. I don't think a one-answer-suits-all-sites solution exists, particularly for the reason that what may be inappropriate for one site may be more than appropriate for others. What say you?
Freedom of speech is mostly guaranteed in the US Constitution. However, I do not have to supply the forum for you to practice that speech. If I run a website or any other media forum (newspaper, etc), then I have the right to say what goes into that forum.
If I write a book, I'd probably have to go through dozens of publishers before being accepted. Certainly they're not forced to publish your work. Why should any other medium be any different?
Stifle is an anagram for itself.
If a post contains irrelevant/offensive content the proper course is to delete it. Do not attempt to edit it.
Editing someone else's words without their express permission will highly annoy a significant fraction of those who get edited.
It also could open you up to a civil suit on libel charges if the edited post changes the sense of the post in a way that defames or injures the reputation of the poster.
Newspapers do edit letters and opinions before publishing them without express consent but they (1) use professional editors (2) have lawyers (3) have limited page space. Even so, they often annoy opinion writers and risk lawsuits by changing the writers' original statements.
If you are running a bulletin board your best practice is to let people speak for themselves.
We do mod comments, yes, but we're fair about it.
I can say this with some certainty because, like all moderations, ours get metamoderated -- so if we start unfairly modding people up or down, we get email a couple of days later letting us know we screwed up!
I can't speak for the other Slashdot editors, but as for me -- of all my mods in the last several months, only two have gotten Unfair judgements. Both were trolls that had posted links that looked like they went somewhere informative but didn't. Apparently the metamoderators didn't bother to check the links, oh well. So I stand by my record of massive Fairness.
Basically I spend mod points where I see that I can save our regular moderators some time. Slashdot gets a lot of crap posted anonymously that is obvious trolling, flamebaiting, or offtopickism, and it would get itself modded down to -1 anyway if we flooded the system with mod points. My taking care of it lets our users focus a little more on picking out what they consider to be the good stuff to mod up, rather than just having a troll cost them a point (and the opportunity to participate in the discussion).
In short, I do a little bit of grunt-work, so that our users can be more choosy and careful, genuinely improving the quality and controlling the tenor of the site. And the built-in feedback of our M2 system will let me know if I ever stray too far from how the users think the site should be run.
Also, for the record, "bitchslap" refers to a specific script in the codebase which retroactively sets all of a user's comments to score:-1. Important point: it's only ever been used on user accounts that posted using scripts. And it hasn't been used in months, AFAIK, since the existing moderation/metamod system has been working so well.
There is no need for moderation/censorship/editing on a message board. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
As a participant in a forum or message board, if you see something "offensive" - IGNORE IT - DO NOT REPLY. If you are the owner of a message board and you are not willing to accept posts that you don't like, then DO NOT RUN A PUBLICLY ACCESABLE MESSAGE BOARD.
It's that simple. Period.
If your ego is so big that you really MUST be in control of what people say, then draw up a bunch of rules and institute a registration process requiring a valid e-mail address. Then, when someone says something you don't like, or violates one of your silly rules, you can play dictator and revoke their posting ability.
The real problem here is ego. Trolls, flamers, assholes, etc. post crap in order to get a reaction and get attention. 99% of them do not have the patience and/or attention spam to conduct a long term campaign. Ignore them and they will go away. IGNORE THEM AND THEY WILL GO AWAY. Unfortunately, too many people are unable/unwilling to follow this simple advice.
I've seen it a million times in usenet newsgroups and various message boards. As soon as people see an "offensive" post their ego immediately kicks into high gear and they launch a retaliatory attack. The whole place becomes mired in attacks and responses to attacks. In the end, the "regulars" blame the trolls and flamers and cite this as another good reason for moderation, conveniently ignoring the fact that all they had to do was ignore the idiots and they would go away.
Jamie, my former colleague, you may be most sincere, but there is a logical flaw in your argument. To wit: I doubt there is anyone who would ever post:
This is the classic "Who watches the watchers?" question. In one's own mind, almost certainly, everything one does is fair. This is not to criticize you personally. However, I think you miss the fact that your statement doesn't establish anything objectively.Again, the logical flaw is that, suppose you didn't care what those e-mails said? Supposed you believed you were RIGHT, and any email simply failed to recognize your obvious correctness?
"For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men,"(Marcus Antonius meant that sarcastically, the idea being that even if Jamie, err, Brutus, was an honorable man, it didn't necessarily mean that the other editors, err, Romans, were honorable men).
Suppose a skeptical person doubted your philosopher-king status? For example, we know that Michael Sims had a very different view of the "fairness" of his actions with regard to slamming down comments about his destruction of the censorware.org website. He would undoubtably argue that all his actions where justified, that every comment he slammed as a troll was a troll, and so on. This is the essence of the conflict of interest. I know some of the anti-spam activist have doubts about comments of theirs criticizing your coverage, which got marked down. Can you blame them for their doubts? (even if you are in fact an honorable man).
Y'know, you may not realize it, but Slashdot looks a lot different from "down here". Especially when one thinks an editor is abusive about an issue which affects one personally.
I have suggested that editorial moderations be clearly marked. And I agree with other (anonymous) writers here that the fact that editors have infinite moderation points (of course only use them morally, justly, and with great wisdom ...), deserves mention in the FAQ. These changes
would alleviate some understandable distrust.
Well, I've rambled, perhaps way too much here. Too many topic which stirred a chord in me. and perhaps not worth the effort. But definitely, I suggest again making clear where editorial moderations have been done.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)