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Re: [LUG] OT: Banning comments - might interest some of you

 

On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 10:27 AM, Jaan Jänesmäe wrote:
> Anyway, I just wondered, has anyone had
> problems with user comments on their website? And if yes, what were
> the results?

My experience is that no matter how serious the subject is and no
matter how grown up the site's visitors are (supposed to be), when
they are able to use the (semi-)anonymity of the internet, people are
going to use abusive language, start childish flame-wars and write
insults based on nothing. Moderating comments isn't really something
that gives you a positive picture of mankind.

As for lawsuits about websites' comments: the problem is that in most
countries legislation is based on the pre-internet days, when it was
reasonable to ask publishers to 'moderate' readers' letters before
they published them in their magazine. Do you think the businessman
will have any chance of winning though?

I do think that if you have a website that allows users' comments than
you should somehow moderate them to help keeping the internet tidy,
free of spam etc. But it should all happen within reason and yes, that
does allow for a time window during which abusive/spammy comments are
online.

Martijn.

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