Policy
Rules
We encourage robust debate and we’re tolerant of dissenting views. But this site run for reasonably rational debate between dissenting viewpoints and we intend to keep it operating that way.
What we’re not prepared to accept are pointless personal attacks, or tone or language that has the effect of excluding others. We are intolerant of people starting or continuing flamewars where there is little discussion or debate. This includes making assertions that you are unable to substantiate with some proof (and that doesn’t mean endless links to unsubstantial authorities) or even argue when requested to do so. Such comments may be deleted without warning or one of the alternatives below may be employed. The action taken is completely up to the moderator who takes it.
Attacking the blog site, or attributing a mind to a machine (ie talking about The Standard as if it had an opinion), or trying to imply that the computer that runs the site has some kind of mind control over authors and commentators is not allowed. See here for an explanation of who writes for the blog. The commentators write for themselves. Making such assertions will often get the sysop answering you, because he considers that those are comments directed at him personally. As a computer programmer he knows exactly how dumb machines are. If you’re lucky he will merely give you an educational ban. But sometimes when time is available, he does like to point out in a humiliating manner that machines are not intelligent – and neither is the person expressing that fallacy. .
Similarly if you act like a machine (ie a troll) you will be treated as one – a form of spambot. A troll is generally defined on this site as someone who clearly isn’t bothering to engage their brain when commenting. The standard is that the troll could be replaced with a dictionary of lines and phrases, and no-one would know the difference. Typically trolls do not interact with other commentators as they either ignore what others say in reply or write a reply that ignores what they said. In either case it is ignorant, anti-social, annoying to read, and will often result in a banning so that others don’t have to read the comments of someone living with their sense organs turned off.
The bar is high but there is a bar.
Banning
We don’t really want to ban anyone. If you’re borderline we’ll probably warn you first. If you’re a consistent repeat offender we will ask you to ban yourself for a period.
If polite banning by the moderators is ineffective, then you may come to the sysop’s attention and get a permanent ban. Since he is a programmer, has a lot of tools and is very very persistent about killing bugs, it is inadvisable to go that far if you wish to continue writing comments here..
There are a number of topics that are viewed as being self-evident attempts at martyrdom. Making comments on those topics will typically result in immediate and sometimes a permanent ban.
A partial list of these self-martyrdom offenses include:-
- Abusing the sysop or post writers on their own site – including telling us how to run our site or what we should write. This is viewed as self-evident stupidity, and should be added as a category to the Darwin Awards.
- Describing the site as having ulterior motivations. When visiting a blog site it always pays to read the About pages before making a fool of yourself. Then you will know what the site is about. Failure to do so is just bad bad manners.
- Link-whoring when not in the context of the comment thread. We have advertisers who pay to hire our space to pay for the servers. Link-whores do not contribute, so why should we allow you to advertise here? You can link to your own site provided it isn’t excessive, explains why you think it should be read (so people can decide not to go there without clicking into it), is short, and you either do it in OpenMike or within the context of the post or surrounding comments.
- Being banned and arguing that we have no ‘right’ to ban you. Arguing with moderation is a darwinian trait that usually results in a rapid education about who runs the site (regardless which of your many pseudonym’s you use).
Moderation
Moderation is mainly used to control spam comments that do not get caught by the anti-spam tools. This means that you might get caught in it if you use some words, have an IP range that overlaps a spam source, or your IP comes from certain geographical regions.
Moderation may also be used if you get banned on a temporary basis (ie the moderators or sysop see some hope that you may have the capability to comment here) and don’t do it voluntarily. The moderators will put you there as a reminder that you aren’t welcome. It usually pays to ask the moderators to get you out of it if you do make it in there and when you have served your time. We usually forget otherwise.
Finally, the moderators may put you into moderation for what they consider is bad behaviour, while they get around to having a look at your patterns of behaviour. This is often used on people who just seem to be trying to start flamewars.
If you get moderated and don’t have a good reason why, don’t get too alarmed. It is probably the spam trap. Usually your message will get approved shortly, but sometimes during weekends and overnight it may take a while.
Of course people with permanent bans or who leave comments whilst on a ban tend to live in the automatic spam trap. We will keep feeding your comments to the wordpress and others anti-spam until it starts to refuse you at any site covered by them and we don’t see your comments any more.
Privacy
We do not disclose any information to third parties. This includes what you add to your profile that is not public on the blog. In particular your real name and e-mail. Similarly if you are not logged in and enter a comment, we do not disclose the e-mail you enter on your message.
E-mail addresses are only used by the sysop or moderators if they need to contact you. This will usually be because of your behavior or other peoples behavior to you on the blog. Sometimes it will be used if we’re really interested in something you wrote.
IP’s are only used when looking at moderation and banning. We will often look to see other pseudonyms have been used by the same person on this site. Very useful when dealing with repeat offenders.
What you write in comments, your name/pseudonym and website is public and will be visible to anyone who reads the site. That is far more than the number of people who comment. Don’t write something that you’d be ashamed of in 20 years because it will probably still be visible. Better yet, don’t use your real name – use a pseudonym.
In addition for the benefit of the government and other organisations.
Implied or explicit consent about privacy
Reproduced from Kiwipolitico for the likes of Paula Bennett
On this blog it is likely that, from time to time, the authors and commenters will criticise government policy, speeches, and political tactics.
We would like to reassert that this is neither explicit nor implicit consent to release any private information about the authors or commenters that is held by any government agency, minister’s office, local government organisation, political party, or any other person, organisation or agency.
For the purposes of clarification this non-consent includes, but is not limited to, the following information:
- benefit status or history;
- family status or history;
- ACC status or history;
- health status or history including information held by DHBs, PHOs, central government agencies and private providers whether directly or indirectly contracted by the state;
- interactions with justice or law enforcement including complaints, interviews, interactions, documents supplied;
- employment status or history;
- any grants applied for or received; and
- tax payments, status or history.
In addition we would like to restate that posting or commenting here does not give implicit or explicit consent for any private information held about any author or commenter to be used for a purpose other than the purpose for which is was supplied. This non-consent includes, but is not limited to, the reuse of personal information for political purposes.
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