Monday, February 12, 2007

Experimental New Policy on Comments on "Recording Industry vs. The People"

As an experiment, I'm going to change my policy on comments. It might be a short lived experiment, or it might work out. We'll see.

Initially I found that I was getting barraged with 'comment spam', so I switched to limiting comments to registered Blogger.com members. That greatly reduced the amount of comment spam, but it created the problem of requiring someone who wants to comment to join Blogger.com, when they might not feel like it.

I've decided to try a new format, where I will allow anyone to comment, but will invoke "comment moderation".

It's altogether possible that this will work out. It's also possible that "comment moderation" will be too big a burden for me, or too big a pain for my loyal readers who will have to wait for their comments to be posted, and I'll have to go back to a members-only format, but let's see.

My "moderation" policies, going into this, will be:
-no comment spam
-no profanity
-no RIAA trolls masquerading as something else (if RIAA PR flacks present themselves for who they are, they are welcome to participate)
-no unsupported accusations
-no defamation
-nothing to detract from the dignity of "Recording Industry vs. The People" as a forum for the discussion of very important issues.

I welcome your feedback.

Best regards
Ray




Keywords: digital copyright online download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs

11 comments:

Scott Ferguson said...

Do you get RIAA trolls on here?

Michael said...

Thank you Ray.

I'm writing this comment as a "layman".

I am not a lawyer nor am I a college graduate.

However,your blog provides an invaluable service to the concerned citizen.

Thank you and be well.

Mike Dallos
Newark,N.Y.

raybeckerman said...

Dear scott_ferguson,

I don't know. I just know that my opening up to a larger number of posters increases the possibility. I certainly have encountered RIAA trolls on Slashdot.org and in the Slyck.com forums.

Michael Sauers said...

If comment spam is the problem you're trying to solve, just turn on the "Show word verification for comments?" option. This will virtually eliminate all comment spam while not requiring users to register or you to moderate. (Though it seems like that option's on so give it a try. You can always turn moderation back on if you feel the need to.)

raybeckerman said...

Dear michael

"virtually all" of the comment spam but some slips through manually; i guess there are people paid to do that kind of stuff.

Scott Ferguson said...

Hi Ray,

I'm not sure why people would have problems with registration. I think it does keep the "hit and run" type of commenter out of the comments; but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I have seen pretty obvious RIAA shills posting anonymous comments on groklaw. It's pathetic and a bit sad. It must be hard to defend an industry that is such a lightning rod for passionate expressions of disgust from both the consumer and the artist side of the industry. Don't they have a clue?

raybeckerman said...

Dear scott

That was a softball question. The answer is easy.

No they don't have a clue.

StephenH said...

Ray,

I hope I have not been a troll or anything. I am just a concerned citizen about these kind of matters. I don't work for the RIAA nor any record company. I just follow this on my own time.

Stephen

raybeckerman said...

Dear stephenh

Of course, Stephen, I'm very familiar with your thoughtful and helpful comments. I haven't had much of that kind of thing here, and will be vigilant to see that I don't.

Best regards,

CodeWarrior said...

Ray:
I posted an article which is related to ISPs keeping data logs at Boycott-RIAA today.
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/21268

Do whatcha gotta do to keep the comment sections free of pests.

~Code

CodeWarrior said...

BTW, aren't the terms "RIAA" and trolls "synonymous"?
:)