Legal Commentary

Another Tweak to the Comments Policy

By Professor University of Miami School of Law

It’s time to update the comments policy again. The old version, 1.2, said:

1. Participants in the comments are kindly requested to be civil, and at least vaguely on-topic.
2. I will delete (or disemvowel) comments that are duplicative, commercial, needlessly foul or mean or otherwise inappropriately offensive.
3. Instead of deleting a post, I may disemvowel the URL to commercial sites even if a post is arguably on-topic when I believe the poster is engaged in a pattern of linking to different commercial sites under false names.
4. I will use blocking software to block links to sites using words or strings commonly associated with commercially oriented blog posts or references
5. I will ban the IP number of any poster who serially violates this policy.
6. My decisions are final. I’m happy to discuss them by email.
7. I’ll amend this policy as I gain experience.
8. In the long run, it remains to be seen if comments is a workable commons or not. I will not have my work be used as billboard for your ads (at least, not without a cut, and this is a resolutely non-commercial activity). I’m prepared to turn off comments if vigilance proves too time-consuming.

Version 1.3 adds a new prohibition which is italicized below:

1. Participants in the comments are kindly requested to be civil, and at least vaguely on-topic.
2. I will delete (or disemvowel) comments that are duplicative, commercial, needlessly foul or mean or otherwise inappropriately offensive.
3. Instead of deleting a post, I may disemvowel the URL to commercial sites even if a post is arguably on-topic when I believe the poster is engaged in a pattern of linking to different commercial sites under false names, or even to a single site under multiple names or linked terms.
4. I will use blocking software to block links to sites using words or strings commonly associated with commercially oriented blog posts or references
5. I will ban the IP number of any poster who serially violates this policy.
6. My decisions are final. I’m happy to discuss them by email.
7. I’ll amend this policy as I gain experience.
8. In the long run, it remains to be seen if comments is a workable commons or not. I will not have my work be used as billboard for your ads (at least, not without a cut, and this is a resolutely non-commercial activity). I’m prepared to turn off comments if vigilance proves too time-consuming.

You know who you are and why I am doing it.

Full post as published by Discourse.net on April 29, 2009 (boomark / email).