User Guidelines

PARTICIPATION GUIDELINES

1. We welcome debate and dissent, but personal attacks (on authors, other users or any individual), harassment and mindless abuse will not be tolerated. We urge everyone to focus on intelligent discussion of topics.

2. Criticism of the blogs is certainly allowed, but we will not allow persistent misrepresentation of the authors to be published on BtL. For the sake of robust debate, we will distinguish between constructive, focused argument and smear tactics.

3. We understand that people feel strongly about some issues raised on BtL, but we will consider removing any content that others might find extremely offensive or threatening. Please consider your impact on others when making your comments or contribution.

4. We don’t want to stop people discussing topics they are enthusiastic or feel strongly about, however we reserve the right to redirect or curtail discussions which descend into useless tit-for-tat.

5. We will remove any content that may put us in legal jeopardy, such as potentially libellous or defamatory postings, or material posted in potential breach of copyright.

7. We will remove any posts that are obviously commercial or otherwise spam-like. This may also apply to people or organisations who post external links which do not add to the quality of the discussion.

8. Keep it relevant. We know that some conversations can be wide-ranging, but if you post something which is unrelated to the original topic then it may be removed, in order to keep the thread on track. This also applies to queries or comments about moderation, which should not be posted as comments.

9. Be aware that you may be misunderstood, so try to be clear about what you are saying, and expect that people may understand your contribution differently than you intended. You can help the quality of the discussion on BtL by maintaining a reasonable tone, even in unreasonable circumstances.

Acknowledgements: Why reinvent the wheel? The basis and core of these guidelines is from the Guardian’s Comment is Free section, which has been adopted with minor alterations to suit our Muslim focus.
 

MODERATION APPROACH

All comments are now moderated. This is a change from the previous policy of post-moderating comments, due to the persistent, abusive and slanderous comments left by some readers.

Participants who seriously, persistently or wilfully ignore the participation guidelines will be barred. This is not an action that we take lightly or arbitrarily. However, we are aiming to create a platform conducive for mature discussion and debate.

We will, when necessary, remove user postings or comments. If a comment or contribution is perceived as breaching the participation guidelines set out above, then it will be removed, in the interests of keeping BtL appropriate for the vast majority of the people who visit.

 NB: We will not edit posts to change the meaning, spelling, or anything else intended by the user.

Even if only part of a comment or posting is perceived as breaching the participation guidelines, the whole thing may be removed. Also, when a comment or post is removed for any of the reasons above, it is sometimes necessary to delete subsequent messages which refer to explicitly or quote from the original (removed) comment, in order to preserve some notion of conversational thread. This may also happen because a later comment quotes directly the problematic bits of the original comment, which just perpetuates the problem. In such cases not every deletion will be marked individually.

The Editorial Team and Moderators cannot enter into correspondence or discussion regarding specific moderation activity, or provide a running commentary on editorial decisions. Any concerns or complaints should be emailed to: editor@blog.islamicforumeurope.com