Original Opinion

New Commenting Policy at The Daily Banter

By Ben Cohen · January 11,2013

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vadertrolldeterrent

In response to the serious trolling and spam we’ve been subjected to at The Daily Banter and multiple requests from readers, we’re changing our commenting system and policy going forward. At the bottom of each article posted, you can sign into our new commenting system (the brilliantly easy to use ‘Disqus’) and join in the conversation. With Disqus, you can sign in with your twitter/facebook account, or simply enter your email and create a user name and get commenting straight away. Disqus makes it much easier for us and our readers to monitor comments – you can flag offensive comments easily and we can review them to make sure they aren’t coming from trolls or spammers.

The general rules for commenting on articles are as follows:

1. Please be civil. Don’t harass anyone, threaten, or use foul/offensive language when addressing fellow commenters. Anyone doing this will be blocked immediately.

2. No multiple identities. Please use one, and one only when engaging in discussion.

3. Keep it relevant. While discussions obviously go off track, please don’t use the forum to discuss private issues. Anyone trolling will be blocked and banned from posting on the site.

4. Please do not post irrelevant material or links in the commenting section.

5. Please help us moderate discussion. Flag anything you believe to be inappropriate and someone here at The Daily Banter will review the comment and commenter.

That’s pretty much it. We’d like The Daily Banter to be a safe space for discussion, and we’ll be keeping and eye on chat threads going forward to make sure everyone is respectful and engaging in civilized debate.

Please email us at TheDailyBanter@gmail.com should you have any questions.

Thanks!

Ben (Editor in Chief)

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1655290390 Steven Skelton

Trolling…..a verb meaning to disagree with the host of a site.
- Christopher Foxx
  
  No. A troll is not just anyone who disagrees.
  
  A troll is, as the article very clearly notes, someone who posts comments for the sole purpose of making trouble. It is clear they are not at all interested in civil discussion or reasoned discourse. They simply want to take advantage of the anonymity the Internet provides to be assholes because they believe they can do so with no consequences to themselves.
  
  To try to make the rejection of these people somehow a fault of the host, to claim that the host is just getting rid of anyone who disagrees with them, is totally unfounded and simply not true.
  
  Rather trollish of you, actually, to claim it is.
  - Dennis
    
    Then explain what Oliver was trying to do with his “Where All My Trolls At?” blog post, Christopher? Was Oliver trolling? I have hundred questions about what you guys consider trolling I’d like to ask you that you’d have no answer for, but let’s start with those two simple ones.
    - Christopher Foxx
      
      First, Oliver is quite capable of explaining for himself, Dennis.
      
      Second, Ben gave clear examples of the recent behavior that is considered trolling in the “Psychological Profile…” posting that he linked to above and I’ve provided a brief description in the comment you responded to. In addition there are numerous places one can look online to get a description and examples of the type of behavior that is considered “trolling”.
      
      Your stubborn insistence that what trolling in hasn’t been adequately explained is itself another example of the type of behavior we’ve come to expect from trolls. To wit, they aren’t really interested in answers or learning anything. They just want to insist, no matter what you do, that you haven’t done enough or are wrong.
Benthedailybanter

Hi Christopher, we’ll send users a warning first if it isn’t too bad. Anything outrageous will be taken down immediately with no second chances though. We’re not going to interfere with debate, we just want to encourage intelligent and civilized discourse.
- Christopher Foxx
  
  Sounds good. Looking forward to seeing how it works out.
Christopher Foxx

I also see comments are now being posted with the most recent at the top. To the extent feedback is welcome, I find it much easier to follow discussions when new items are added at the bottom as they have been. With threading turned on, messages now go both down (replies post below an existing comment) and up (new comments post above an existing comment), meaning you have to read from the middle out and it’s very easy to miss part of the discussion.
- Benthedailybanter
  
  We’ll look into this Christopher. Thanks.
  - Christopher Foxx
    
    Danke. Appreciate your considering it.

Original Opinion

New Commenting Policy at The Daily Banter

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