32 Responses to “Guidelines for Blog Comments”
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We value free expression. However, stuff that's off-topic, abusive, or otherwise busts the rules will be removed without comment. |
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Guidelines for Blog CommentsMonday, September 11th, 2006 at 3:43 PM by: Robin Linden32 Responses to “Guidelines for Blog Comments”
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September 11th, 2006 at 3:21 PM
Up to now, Linden followup responses to users’ replies to blog entries have been sparse to say the least. Will there be a commitment made on Linden’s part to improved responsiveness to users’ comments?
Since Linden employees are now the only ones who may dictate the topic of conversation for the community at large, it seems only fitting that they be encouraged (compelled?) to respond to comments arising from their entries…
September 11th, 2006 at 3:23 PM
Makes one wonder what would happen if no one read or responded to this blog at all, ever.
Hmmm…
September 11th, 2006 at 3:25 PM
Also, ostensibly the goal of removing the forums was to remove the time-consuming task of monitoring posts and responding to abuse reports. The existence of a moderation queue detracts considerably from that goal, particularly if you desire a level of participation from the community remotely close to that which the forums enjoyed.
September 11th, 2006 at 3:29 PM
Ricky: SURE IS! Just the other day, Brent replied multiple times to this own entry:
http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/09/07/exploit-bounty-revision/
I also commit to doing the same for mine, and also: the posts I make are directly in response to questions I get across multiple channels of communication. So I didn’t bring the topics up in the first place. Consider most of my blog entries to be replies–it didn’t start with me, it won’t end with me, and I’m grateful for the feedback.
September 11th, 2006 at 4:41 PM
I can’t help but feel that this is just another PR move. Forums = everyone complains publicly about anything they feel is important. Blog = Phillip Linden picks the topic and then deletes any negative feedback.
I honestly hope I’m wrong about SL being groomed for investors and eventually sold off to the highest bidder! Please prove me wrong, Linden Labs!
You guys may spill coffee on the persistance server about once a week, but I’d rather have an incompetent yet benevolent master like you guys, than a competent & evil one like Ares, or AzTechnology, or Sony.
September 11th, 2006 at 8:22 PM
If off topic comments won’t be posted could you please make sure to turn on comments for EVERY blog entry. Many people had to resort to posting off topic because comments were turned off for the security breach blog post.
Thanks
September 12th, 2006 at 1:08 AM
Ok - probably not the place to post this - but as this blog system is a clear as mud - this will have to do.
NON-CONFORMING html….. Ok - trying to get SOME use out of this blog, I try to look at the tag cloud… Hmmm really small text - cant read it. Increase the font size then…. nope. Font size hard coded - no AAA compliance badges for this site then, or AA, or probably not even A compliance. W3C? Who are they you might ask and I would not be surprised if you do because this blog doesnt comply.
In fact I normally have my font size set to medium and this is fine for 99.99% of websites I go to. Here, even to read the blogs themselves I have to have largest fint size and for the tags themselves - NO CHANCE of reading them.
So PLEASE LL listen and do something about this - its dificult enough to post here because everything has to be a reply - but at least make it READABLE.
September 12th, 2006 at 5:11 AM
What on-the-blog actions will be grounds for in-world disciplinary action?
September 12th, 2006 at 5:31 AM
I’ll put in my thoughts on 2 issues here. Yes if you don’t want people posting off topic you should turn comments on in EVERY blog. i.e Security breach blog comments, turned off. is this because LL. wants no negative feed back???? (I think so) i.e. Customer service over the phone was real bad for that issue monday. That leads to the next thing it might be better (when there are issues) if a bigger company was running things! Although I will agree with justy I would rather have a smaller company running things most of the time. It has been a thorn in my side though everytime I have had an issue that can’t be handled other then making a phone call to CS. It never gets handled properly and I mean NEVER!!!
September 12th, 2006 at 5:39 AM
“Comments will be edited or deleted if they meet the following definitions of flaming, trolling, or personal attacks.
flaming: messages which are emotional”
Messages which are EMOTIONAL?? That’s pretty broad.
September 12th, 2006 at 7:38 AM
Are you going to mark comments that have been edited with the appropriate <ins cite="http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/09/11/guidelines-for-blog-comments/" datetime="YYYYMMDD">This comment has been edited</ins> ?
September 12th, 2006 at 7:43 AM
eep. I missed the ; from the " there.
You get the idea though.
But shouldn’t this policy have been written up before the blog was launched ?
September 12th, 2006 at 10:27 AM
Justy: No, thankfully that’s not how it works. When I blog on here, my topics are picked by Residents–for example, my recent Burning Life post was in response to those who asked me why Lindens aren’t doing more about it. Also, my CommUpdates (Community Updates) are replies to questions I get a lot. I’m sure some things I do out of my own initiative, but that’s dialogue.
musicteacher: Some entries may not need commentary so we’ll still allow for that, but on the whole, yes, most will allow for comments.
Timmins: We’re going to look around at more blogs to learn from their example. On my Firefox, Ctrl++ works to increase font size.
Mark: We hope it doesn’t lead to that but (tentatively) it’s entirely possible the discipline here may parallel how the forums currently work. However, that may be too complicated, and we may simply remove comment privileges from an abusive poster. I just really hate seeing anyone get in trouble.
Dan: We’re very much learning from these experiences–I give negative feedback myself, but the crux here is to have thoughtful discussions. Lots of people asking for support help here instead of contacting Support will be terribly disappointed not getting a reply, because it’s the wrong place. Should we communicate this better in the future? I’m sure we can do better.
Zonax: That should be taken in context of the bigger sentence. So if you’re whoopin’ with excitement because of another great idea suggested here, that’s totally cool. But if you’re heated and upset–”emotional + hostile”, no, that’s not allowed.
Marv: Like SL itself, we’re shaped by actual emergence of behavior and practices. Some of the policy actually was in the embryonic phases early on; we want to keep it simple yet adaptable for the future.
I love you guys, thanx for the comments.
September 12th, 2006 at 11:45 AM
Thanks, Torl!
September 12th, 2006 at 11:51 AM
You’re welcome, Mark!
September 12th, 2006 at 2:35 PM
Emotional responses are considered flaming? Well that pretty much eliminates 95% of the people in SL from every being able to post a comment without being punished for it.
September 12th, 2006 at 3:05 PM
Who decides if the blogs need commentary? The blog that I referred to, the one announcing the recent database theft had comments turned off. Many people had questions…Is the blog not the appropriate place to ask questions or should we still use SL answers in the forums for questions that need a LL reply?
September 12th, 2006 at 11:14 PM
I do not believe that tying in blog post removal with account discipline is a good idea.
Lewis
September 13th, 2006 at 7:56 AM
I have had one constructive and useful feedback post deleted off-hand from this blog. After it was initially accepted by the person whose blog it was. About 18 hours after that, it was decided by somebody that it shouldn’t be on the blog even though it was: A) on topic, and B) not emotional. Was it “hostile”? That’s a matter of very subjective perception–most critical feedback can be deemed “hostile”, can’t it? I’m sorry but these fuzzy guidelines that LL is trying to apply to blog responses are just that: too fuzzy and too subjective. I for one am now combatting this trend towards over-censorship by posting the following standard signature in every comment I bother to make on this blog site. If this non-hostile, non-emotional signature is deemed inappropriate and censored off the blog, I’d say that’s a pretty telling indicator of where LL is going with their community dialog and I probably will stop reading this blog site altogether. Which would kinda defeat the purpose of your move to the blog in the first place, neh? I’d wager that a substantial percentage of the resident population already avoid this blog site because of the perception that it hinders, rather than helps LL-community dialog.
My standard BSC signature: This blog is too heavily censored. LL tends to delete any comment that is too critical, even if it is objectively phrased and not “hostile+emotional”. This hinders community feedback, which LL needs. Please don’t pretend that trends in community perception of your product or level of service do not exist.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:30 AM
musicteacher, I turned comments off because it was a critical announcement, and not really a matter for debate. Many people asked their questions at SL Answers, and we had several people working that board to respond and get the information out that people needed. I hope that’s not too confusing, but it seemed like the best thing to do at the time.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:12 AM
Fushichou: Not sure which comment you’re referring to? Your most recent comments sure made it through, if you have a copy please email it to me: torley@lindenlab.com
I’d like to make sure there’s no miscommunication.
And your signature isn’t accurate either, we already have a variety of comments on previous entries with critical comments suggesting how we improve our service. Such as the talk about cryptography in:
http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/09/09/update-resetting-passwords/#comments
That number, will of course, continue to grow as our blog does.
September 13th, 2006 at 12:49 PM
Is moderation of comments on this blog really going to solve anything apart from limiting the community outreach approach that LL used to have with residents?
Instead of having shut down the forums…you could have easily kept them alive…but used this blog as an official platform for addressing those issues… but having shut down the selected forums in addition to the moderation of blog comments… you’re on your way to killing the residential sl community spirit.
Secondly, how does LL aim to be transparent in terms of second life development and the like? Or is accountability and transparency just not LL’s concern at the moment?
Thank you.
September 13th, 2006 at 12:53 PM
angelo: It’s not just moderating comments, it’s stopping spam–our spam filter hasn’t been trained well enough yet. And there will be more changes, hopefully in the future we don’t have to moderate each and every comments because I can’t see how that’s scalable, nor convenient. So, consider it just baby steps for the now.
Also there are other avenues, Resis have blogs of their own too, which trackback (which is underrated) here. And the Second Life experience itself. We can do a lot to improve inworld communication!
September 13th, 2006 at 3:48 PM
I’ve take out the word ‘emotion’ from the definition of “flaming”, since many people find it too broad to be a useful guideline.
Often discussions about “flaming” on the Internet revolve around the idea that flames result from posting impulsively because of a strong reaction to someone else’s post, i.e. an emotional reaction. The common wisdom is to take a deep breath, maybe write the post and then come back to it later, and see if you don’t want to edit it to be less inflamatory. Hence the use of the word ‘emotion’ in the guidelines. But I certainly understand your concern, so we’ve taken it out.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:46 PM
Thank you Torley, appreciate the feedback. Just wondering why LL wouldn’t be interested in a balance of improving in-world and online communication…Am interested in learning more about the transparency/accountability approach that LL plans to approach in dealing with second life issues with residents and operations, any pointers on that will be most helpful.
Thank you.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:00 PM
angelo, we are actually interested in that—better inworld communication tools, as well as further SLweb integration.
November 3rd, 2006 at 3:27 PM
[...] [...]
November 28th, 2006 at 5:50 PM
[...] We’ve wanted this for a really long time ‘cuz it’ll help us communicate with you better. So first things first, I’m going to re-add our email subscription form, then investigate putting in notification of future Linden events, makin’ our Guideline for Blog Comments more accessible, better search, etc. [...]
November 29th, 2006 at 3:58 AM
[...] We’ve wanted this for a really long time ‘cuz it’ll help us communicate with you better. So first things first, I’m going to re-add our email subscription form, then investigate putting in notification of future Linden events, makin’ our Guideline for Blog Comments more accessible, better search, etc. [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 10:31 AM
Even badly worded ‘critical’ comments, are valuable. Most people are sensible enough to realize that a few bad comments and or bad language (within a large body of remarks) are not a indicative of the population’s view.
There may also be a basis in truth for emotional criticisms. These problems once ‘out in the open’ allow the whole community to address them.
Also allowing for these remarks gives an appreance of being ‘broad-shouldered’ enough to take them.
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