Been reading for a while but rarely post a comment.

I think that’s generally fair although, as with every ‘law’, it’s not the wording but how it’s used that really matters.

The only problem I’d personally have is I don’t think you should be banning high sarcasm – I think you should positively encourage it.

We’ll allow some sarcasm obviously – but when a person is only posting sarcastic comments with an attempt to undermine the author without any constructive engagement – it will be deleted.

I post too many sarcastic comments too, admittedly. Will have to tone myself down

Highly sensible. So long as comments are left largely free I think we’ll be okay.

You’re still going to be called a fascist though. Expect Old Holborn along any minute to say something inane about censorship.

I like that you’ve left the exception for moderate levels of sarcasm. Otherwise Flying Rodent and I would have very little to say.

OMG! An example where a woman is shown in a bad light? And that too on a liberal site?? Call the SWAT team, this is serious shit!

You’re barred!!!!

I’m happy for blogs to edit comments as they see fit. My own preference is that where a comment is snipped or deleted, that the snip is “visible” – that is, the commenter’s header is visible but there is a comment saying “Deleted – in breach of editorial policy” or similar. That way the commenter knows that they have been snipped.

However, I’m not sure that your policy is internally consistent, in claiming to support freedom of speech whilst retaining the right to editorialise in the name of civility. (Point 5 notes that laws restrict freedom of speech; point 6 sets out rules which seem to do exactly that).

It’s not clear whether you are referring to the idea expressed in the comment, or the tone of the comment itself. Would an offensive idea expressed in civil language be tolerated? (I’m taking the historical perspective that many of our current freedoms were once considered highly offensive, however eloquently argued).

I think we all go over the top sometimes.
If you feel we go too far, it is reasonable to delete the comment.

Hi John, you’re right in that sometimes the rules are not applies consistently. That is because there’s a grey area around sarcasm and what may constitute as offensive. And we’re human. So it’s difficult to lay out a clear line.

On the second point: there’s no contradiction between advocating for free speech in public life and advocating a general level of civility in your own space.

Do you have any complaints about the comments policy?

Will my complaints be deleted?

Will the above comment of mine be deleted because it is highly sarcastic?

“3. This is a private not a public space. We have the right to set our own rules and codes of conduct.”

Oooh, excellent, now all we have to do is decide what is private space and what is public and we know where people are allowed to discriminate!

Is a public house (which despite the name, is private property) public or private? Is a house which rents out a room or two to paying guests public or private?

Gosh, wouldn’t it make so many of LC’s comment threads easier if we could just come up with some simple rule about what is private, where we may discriminate, and what is public, where we may not?

Would an offensive idea expressed in civil language be tolerated?

Good question. As long as the person is not saying advocating anything illegal or making a libellous comment and isn’t bigoted, I’d be very reluctant to delete it

If LC is a public house could I have a pint of boddies

What kind of illegal do you mean? I assume that advocating to change the law to make currently illegal things legal would be ok.

All good stuff, agree with someone above saying it would be good if rather than just delete you could put in “comment deleted by eds” or somesuch, for one thing it would make replying to @ numbers easier!

@9 Hold on. Is a private business, let’s say a B&B, exempt from laws about freedom of speech or expression, purely by dint of being private?

6. Therefore: abusive, highly sarcastic and xenophobic comments will be deleted without notification.

Oh, sure they will. Fuck you all, you bunch of…foreign…rotters…

You know its not that simple Tim, what about the principle of common carriage? Private enterprises that are not allowed to discriminate. Look! A grey area!

“Good question. As long as the person is not saying advocating anything illegal or making a libellous comment and isn’t bigoted, I’d be very reluctant to delete it”

I fully agree with the suppression of libellous comments, as this could cause no end of trouble.

On the subject of legality it gets a bit more murky I think, e.g. where would your policy stand with a commenter who advocated direct action (which is often illegal whatever the principles being defended)?

You don’t seem to have a policy on trolls.

Seeing as most of the Conservatives on here have come straight from troll central I think you should get a policy on trolls.

@ Sunny (10)
Would an offensive idea expressed in civil language be tolerated?

Good question. As long as the person is not saying advocating anything illegal or making a libellous comment and isn’t bigoted, I’d be very reluctant to delete it

Erm, aren’t most offensive ideas rooted in bigotry? Oh, and isn’t bigotry rather subjective. For example quite a lot of people seemed to find Ed Balls’ piece in the Observer today bigoted, at least in the way Gordon Brown used the term about Mrs Duffy. It was expressed in civil language,mind, so where would LC stand with that,say? In some ways, I think you more you try and codify this, the more knots you’ll end up tying yourself into. Why not just say gratuitously offensive postings without any merit or argument other than causing offence are out, as it’s your site, and the editors’ word is final?

@Alisdair

“Aren’t most offensive ideas noted in bigotry?”

Not necessarily. Many of the figures of the Enlightenment had views on topics like the power of religion and royalty which were considered highly offensive at the time (hence the number of books published posthumously), but that doesn’t necessarily make them bigoted.

Darwin’s theory of natural selection would be another example.

I assume that advocating to change the law to make currently illegal things legal would be ok.

Depends. I wouldn’t publish comments by people advocating child pornography or paedophilia. There’s no hard and fast rules here unfortunately because life isn’t that simple. But of course I’m not against articles advocating a change in the law.

You don’t seem to have a policy on trolls.

Sally the policy on trolls is clearly stated above: abusive, highly sarcastic etc comments will be deleted. That applies to Tories as well as lefties. I’m happy to host civil comments by right-wingers here.

if rather than just delete you could put in “comment deleted by eds” or somesuch, for one thing it would make replying to @ numbers easier!

I usually try and do that. But if there’s too many to be deleted then it’s faster to just quickly zap them.

@ John. Yes, but I did say most and furthermore, I’m pretty sure these days, some would construe Enlightenment views on religion,certainly (not royalty) as bigoted: witness all those poxy complaints about the atheist (though strictly it was more agnostic) bus posters.Bigotry today comes in as many forms as the many ways in which people can take offence, and has become pretty much synonymous with offensive, losing touch with its roots in irrational intolerance and contravention of Enlightenment rationality

‘Highly sarcastic’? Yeah, right

Oh, and how about a policy on people who constantly make spurious references to Nazis? I don’t mean deleting the comments but just reminding the poster they’re a fuckwit?

totally support it.

@John and Tim – I don’t think there’s a major inconsistency in being pro free speech but wanting to restrict some speech on a particular forum – such as this one. If people want to be highly abusive/offensive they can always use their own blogs – but one person can derail a good debate by being repeatedly abusive/offensive on this kind of site.

Perhaps add a middle ground? OK, this would some coding, but is at least theoretically possible: allow editors to mark any comment as ‘off topic’. To the general user, such comments are hidden unless they ‘hit ‘ the ‘OT switch’ to display these additional items. This would still allow you to delete outright dodgy posts, but also allow your viewers the choice to either follow a fully relevant discussion or a more full blooded expanded version in the same page.

“Oh, and how about a policy on people who constantly make spurious references to Nazis?”

I do empathise. The Friendship Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, signed on 28 September 1939, is a perennial embarrassment for many avowed “leftists”:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/gsbound.asp

Seems about right, the way I see it this is your gaff do what the fuck you like with it. There’s plenty of room on the net for everybody if they don’t like it here…

[user is banned]

You may wish to add something bout what sort of comments you want, as well as about what sort of comments you don’t want. I’m thinking of something along the lines of How to disagree.

Tim’s got a point about the private space/freedom of association thing. Here, we reserve the right to allow or disallow behaviour that we disapprove of.

However, other private places aren’t allowed to do the same. But, y’know, grey areas.

Tim, my answer is to look at it as a point of market failure. Online, there’re plenty of places you can always go to to say whatever you like, and setting your own place up is easy. Getting readers, not so much.

Renting a room in the only B&B in a village, for example, isn’t the same, as the market has failed in many cases in that area, the state has stepped in to regulate the market. In a way that we acknowledge isn’t perfect, but given market regulation is the states job, according to Adam Smith, anyway…

(and oyu know I agree with you on the smoking ban, but that’s another story again).

Sunny, broadly agree. My only problem with the policy is generally lack of active enforcement; I know I can always email you to get something dealt with, but sometimes there’re obviuous problems on a thread, and sometimes I just don’t have the time.

Definitely prefer it when comments are blanked out instead of fully removed. Maybe there’s a plugin that’ll make that slightly easier to do?

Looks like you’ve forgotten to list one of the rules, Sunny. Allow me to type it for you so you can add it to the list. Public service and all that.

8. The editor, Sunny Hundal, is quite prone to deleting comments across the site that he doesn’t agree with, especially if they are slightly critical of him personally in any way. Comments stating “I agree with Iain Dale” or “Guido Fawkes has a point when he says that” will almost certainly be deleted as well.