Masoni Raves About Comment Policy

· 4 minute read

This comment regulation policy is an amendment to version 2.1, posted 31 May 2009 as Update 6.3. In light of new developments, specifically the recent implementation of the IntenseDebate™ system, the authors of Masoni Raves About felt it necessary to make some changes to this original policy.

  1. Those wishing to comment must provide an account username with either the IntenseDebate™ system itself, with their Facebook® profile through Facebook Connect™, with their Twitter® account, or with their personal domain name through the OpenID™ internet protocol. Anonymous postings are allowed, but their content is subject to increased scrutiny and held to standards higher than those outlined below, determined at the discretion of the blog administrator.
  2. Spam filters have been applied to weed out advertisements and inappropriate material. Occasionally, said filters will block frequent postersʼ comments and subject them to administrator review. In such an event, feel free to inform the blog administrator via email in order to have your comments more quickly approved and added to the thread.
  3. Comments should be pertinent to the discussed material, meaning that a comment at the beginning of a discussion must relate to the actual blog post, while comments below that must relate to the comments above them (this way, the conversations can still take any direction the commenters choose).1 Posts interrupting the flow of debate should either begin a new thread of dialogue or will be removed.
  4. Personal attacks, ad hominem arguments, and insults on other members will not be tolerated.2 Additionally, the posting of other members’ personal identifying information3 without their express permission will not be tolerated under any circumstances.

Consequences for Violation

  1. Comments violating the aforementioned rules will be deleted by the administrator, and the commenters responsible will be placed on probation within the commenting systems of Masoni Raves About. Continued violation of these rules can result in the membersʼ accounts or IP addresses being removed or blocked from the site at the administratorʼs discretion.
  2. The administrator reserves the right to remove any content he deems inappropriate or marginally in violation of any of the aforementioned rules.
  3. Should repeat and widespread violations of the aforementioned rules become out of control, the administrator reserves the right to suspend the commenting process or to include an additional step to moderate comments until further notice. Users will be alerted in through the updates system in such an event.
  4. Comments or users will never be censored or blocked due to criticism of ideas, especially those of the administrators; different political, philosophical or religious opinions; respectfully presented dissension or disagreement; or for polite or cordial debate.

Appeals Process

Should a user feel that he or she was censored, blocked, or otherwise punished unfairly or unnecessarily, the user has the right to appeal the administratorʼs decision via email.4 In this email, the user should present his or her case that the comment was within the bounds of this comment policy. If the administrator is convinced that no harm was intended, the original text of the comment may be reposted and added back into the threaded discussion.5

Thank you for reading and adhering to the revised commenting regulation policy. M.

  1. This rule is intended to weed out spam and intentionally-irrelevant comments, as well as unrelated at- tacks on oneʼs character or personal attributes. ↩︎

  2. Should the offending post not fall under rule number 2, this stipulation will cover it. What qualifies as a personal attack or insult is subject to the administratorʼs discretion. ↩︎

  3. e.g., real names, geographical locations, contact information, etc. This has been a problem in the past on other blogs, and almost became a problem in past threads on Masoni Raves About. ↩︎

  4. Granted, you are appealing to the same authority which originally made the decision, but the process is intended to allow users to present their case to the administrator. ↩︎

  5. The administrator maintains a record of all comments, deleted and current, left on every post on the blog. These comments are easy to restore, or, at the very least, their text is easily recoverable. ↩︎