Content and Image Policy Review
submitted 3 months 3 days 12 hours ago by: Admin : 26 commentsDear Members
This is with reference to our latest discussion on Content policy for BuzzVines. A lot of our members have criticized the current practice of Flagging a particular comment/ buzz/ blog to be removed from the main site. Which later is reviewed by the Moderators for final approval or removal from the BuzzVines website, forever.
After having received much critcism/comments/suggestions, we have internally come to the conclusion that it's time we change our policy and make it more adaptable to our members, which are the most important ingredient of BuzzVines.com.
There have been various suggestions by Khalifah, Dr. Irfan Zafar, PostMan and many others, few of which I am going to iterate below for your quick reference.
QUOTE - Khalifah
Objectionable material will be TAGGED (not Flagged) for removal with a warning:
"Admin has tagged this post for removal because (specify reason), the poster is advised to modify comments"
A 24 hour period should be allowed for the buzzer to edit his/her comments
UNQUOTE - Khalifah
QUOTE - Khalifah
"No buzz shall be deleted in its entirety without due consent from the top ten buzzers which will be obtained via a private message"
UNQUOTE - Khalifah
QUOTE - Dr. Irfan Zafar
special section dedicated to the "stuff" which is found offensive be introduced and the offensive buzzes be placed there. It will then be upto the readers to make a choice to go to that section or not.
UNQUOTE - Dr. Irfan Zafar
QUOTE - PostMan
You could have placed a warning for buzzers to 'behave'.
You could have stopped further 'comments' on it.
You could have removed the offending comments.
UNQUOTE - PostMan
And then there is a rather strict (may be a bit vague) and as Khalifah said "Musharrafesque" policy already defined in the Terms and Condition of this website. , which goes...
QUOTE - BuzzVines Terms and Conditions
Image/ Content Upload Policy
All users are encouraged to take advantage of our image upload facility and upload pictures and images of self and others, places, events, happenings etc. We recommend that users maintain the modesty standards of the community.
Posting vulgar, obscene or offensive material or information deemed explicit by admin and/ any images containing nudity, obscenity is strictly prohibited. If you want to report abuse of any of our policy or term, please click on Flag as Offensive.
Any objectionable materials or images will be removed instantly and permanently without any prior notification to users. Membership of such users may also be cancelled.
UNQUOTE - BuzzVines Terms and Conditions
So I, as Admin of BuzzVines start this Buzz and open the floor for discussion and suggestions from all our members for what practice may or may not be adopted to handle content on BuzzVines.com. After a good brainstorming session of discussions and a final verdict, the policy for future content (including text, image and video) will be revised and will hopefully be implemented soon afterwards.
As I had said earlier, Change is the only permanent thing, so I guess we might as well change the tag-line of this website to...
"A community, of the People, by the People, for the People"
All your suggestions are welcome. Please do HAVE YOUR SAY.
Happy Buzzing to all of you !
Admin @ BuzzVines
Comments
Please also consider only allowing verified users the opportunity to post on this forum. Quite a few senseless and sometimes abusive posts have recently started appearing from members whose accounts are not verified
Thanks for the initiative
Q: How does that assure that once verified, they won't use the same langauge?
Q: Does after verification it become easier to control the content?
Answer 1)
It may not assure that, but putting whatever would still not be as easy. Whoever is going to post it would atleast have to go through the process of getting registered first.
Answer 2)
Since the user HAS To provide his own original e-mail address, he/she will be a bit more careful in making loose comments. The very least, the BuzzVines admin will have the e-mail address and can Publish it on the BuzzVines website to let the world know of this horrible crime :)
That's funny! :)
The first answer says registration is a difficult and maybe time-consuming thing to do so that makes writing something stupid equally difficult if you don't register.
The second answer threatens or discourages ppl to register with the website. Odd marketing strategy,no? :)
Nope I ain't saying anything!
Dear admin,
This is my very first submission here and i don't think i can contribute any better than those who have been posting here for quite sometime but YES i would endorse some out of what thers have already suggested
No buzz shall be deleted in its entirety unless it's too much asking for!
You can place a warning for the buzzers to 'behave'!
In acute cases you can tag the post for removal because of that specify reason and advise the poster to modify comments, material etc giving them a 24 hour period for it before surgically removing it urself ! :)
"A community, of the People, by the People, for the People"
I would love to see that tag line too. Let people rule!
Hello Admin & All
Let me tell you a very interesting thing. I have been involved in the policy making for the IT sector (web content policy) for some time now. We generally put in all the clauses in the policy which restricts freedom of expression and speech. The reason is that the site owners should protect themselves from any litigations or government actions. So try to put in all the "unreasonable" clauses which will be the de-juro thing. However adopt a Defecto policy which should be very liberal and should accomodate freedom of expression to a decent liberal level. Please do write a comprehensive content policy because in case government asks you about the content, you can always say that the views expressed on this site are solely of the users and the admin has got nothing to do with it.
This all might look strange but to tell you the truth, by following the defacto trend (remember this is Pakistan and you can expect anything from..) we can always promote lots of freedom. Do send me the final draft before finalizing it and you need to get this vetted from legal person. This is for your own safety Admin.
Now as far as the users are concerned, please speak, keep kicking but do not cross certain barriers of morality (Being Manto's deciple, I personally do not agree to this
:-))...)
Love you all.
Take Care
Dr.Irfan Zafar
Well, there you got some handy tips from the Doc. while charting out the 'Defecto policy' kindly make sure that no insane,illitrate,sychophant adventurer babbles out any unsuitable remarks against religion or holy places. plz remember that we are duty bound to curb any such menace.
Now that's just why I wasn't saying anything! This is by PostMan's definition ( one that I almost always agree with ) a racist remark.
And just reminds me of Khalifah's comment above- it sure becomes more valid now!!!
Iola,
Just as the Americans deliberately mix up terrorism with a freedom movement and have never been able to clearly define its actual ambit (which is quite understandable) likewise you and khalifa are in an inordinate bid to label everthing that threatens your secular scope of vision as racist!
How do you call yourself a believer and a muslim when on one side khalifa talks of bombing the mosques and you constantly defending him either by tagging the one that calls for an appropriate check, a racist remark or by endorsing khalifa’s veiw? If your belief permits you to let khalifa or someone else talk all nonsense about it then let me make it clear our belief does not. He who calls him/her a muslim can no way stand any sacrilegious comment. You both are hypocrites of the highest rank, call yourself muslims while act foul-mouthed and blasphemous! What else is a hypocrite all about?
On one side when i call khalifa a loser, he can’t stand it and instantly seeks refuge in asking the admin for allowing only the verified members to post here, you stand with him . On the other side khalifa talks of bombing an equal number of mosques in retaliation, terms them as dens of terror planning and there when i can’t stand someone abusing the holy places and ask for a clear policy on it, you call it a racist remark? What a display of double standards, hypocrisy, moral and ethical deprivation it is by you, Iola?
I have a piece of advice for both of you. This is just a website and it could be your own and here things might end up your way but you guys can count on me that the day you made such an irresponsible and unscrupulous utterances of profanity in real public, you would regret your being.
Bravo! That's the spirit! Love it!! :)
We should pronbably have this conversation elsewhere. Would you kindly start a new buzz with the comments above? I would gladly explain myself and the efficacy of my proposed solution
Asian Nightmare...
Take it easy yar...we dont need to be harsh to encounter harsh comments..That was really not a good suggestion by khalifah and i think many users explained its invalid approach by examples which is appropriate way...If you think that comments were hurting you should have flagged it.
Admin took a positive step. Khalifah's suggestion should be considered about restriction on unauthorized users.
Admin - what you have stated above is a Image/ Content Upload policy. State something for comments moderations too - a policy in that regard.
Well I guess the core issue is not 'how to' remove objectionable/ offensive material rather 'what constitutes' as such - as is evident by the exchange of buzzers above. Definition of it is very subjective.
If the Buzz contains an image that "deemed explicit by admin and/ any images containing nudity, obscenity" - it should be deleted. Now my buzzer friends will say 'its all subjective'! which is understandable.
For that - you'll need a consensus of all buzzers. Khalifas suggestion of obtaining permission of Top 10 buzzers is not feasible. Instead what he states as 'tagging' the post would help but that would be Admins job - not of buzzers. So what would buzzers do? Flag the material/ comment of course. (whats the difference between the 2 anyways?! Tag would contain the reason for doing so?). In this regard, ensure that only registered memebrs can comment and flag.
For a post to be objectionable and be tagged/ flagged - Docs suggestion of a separate 'area' is fine. The buzz will not be deleted but will be posted in another area. Your choice of reading it or not.
Then comes the offensive Comments part.
A buzzer can flag the comment as indecent. (a) The more the flags that a comment recevies - it'll be removed. (b) Admin can moderate the comment (edit) (c) if the comments are going 'wayward' - give a warning that further comments will be disabled.
Now this requires functionality to be built in the system which we are told is neither in the system nor they are planning to build! so what the heck am I talking about?! :p
Another thought....Run the site without any Policy......Our country is running without one for the last 60 years :-)
Not a bad idea!
Atleast we will have a benchmark of how bad things can go :)
@Admin
Boss the follow-up notifications in our email accounts are not coming. Some software problem. Can you please look into it.
Dr. Irfan Zafar
You must have disabled the Follow-up Comment Notification from your account. You can access your account from My Account tab on the top right when you sign-in. There you will find an option of Edit, where you can see the check box for Follow-up E-mail Notifications. Enable that and you should start receiving the follow-up e-mails.
Alternatively, you can also check the box below every comment form for follow-up notifications exclusively for that Blog/Buzz.
Hope that helps.
Admin @ BuzzVines
Well boss tried that but no luck. May be some issue with my ISP. I hope they are not blocking any content.
Plus somehow my age changed from 41 to 40 automatically :-)........Well that's not that bad.
Will keep u updated.
Thanks
Not many suggestions here, and not enough of brain storming!
Here are my thoughts on consolidating the whole thing a bit now. First of all, I think there are two separate issues that need to be handles saparately. 1. Content Censorship Policy 2. Content Upload Policy. I'll take the Content Censorship policy first and we'll have another buzz for Content Upload policy.
Flagging
I am taking this thing as a given. One policy is clear that whatever is up there, unless a certain number of members (Member Only Option), say 5 members mark something as offensive, it should stay there. No deletion/ No moderation.
Content Censorship (Option 1)
Now once something is marked as offensive by 5 members, that comment/blog/buzz (whatever it is that is marked) can either go for
1) Moderation, and then it will be sole descretion of the moderator to Edit or Delete whatever is marked.
2) Sensitive Content, there should be a compartment where all such marked Buzzez/Blogs should be directed. In this case, even if a comment is marked the whole Blog/Buzz will go into that compartment, because the comment alone cannot go there. Or may be we can look into the possibilty that if a comment is marked, the main website should show the Buzz/Blog without the content and the Sensitive Compartment should show the complete Buzz/Blog with that marked comment (I am very much complicating the whole system, by the way).
The person who has posted the comment/blog/buzz will have the option of modifying the comment/buzz/blog till 5 flags are done.
Content Censorship (Option 2)
If we stay with the same 1 Flag option, we can have 3 options. The Admin/Moderator
1) edits the Comment/Buzz/Blog.
2) bars a Blog/Buzz from further comments.
3) posts a comment that this Blog/Buzz/Comment is marked for removal.
Content Censorship (Option 3)
Another option can be that we introduce a system whereby people can actually bury a Buzz/Blog/Comment by voting FOR or AGAINST it. This way that particular Blog/Buzz/Comment will automatically go down in the system. This however has two defects.
1) the chronological order will be destroyed, as a latest buzz can be at the bottom of everything (may be on the last page of BuzzVines) and a whole lot of algorithms will be involved (which might be a bit too much for us to handle at the moment).
2) a bad comment, even if burried, would still be there at the bottom of all comments on a best Buzz.
If anyone has a better solution to the Option 3, please share.
In case of some very offensive or completely obscene post, the buzz/blog/comment may still have to be directly handled by Moderators/Admin and may have to be edited/deleted without the 5 flags criteria. But this will be very very occasionally and in extreme cases.
Share your thoughts on the above.
Admin @ BuzzVines
A) I like that comment moderation thing that you are doing nowadays. Do delete the comment following it though because it makes the next comment pretty meaningless. Like when you deleted Shazia Khan's comment, you didn't delete the one of PostMan telling her that it had been churlish or childish.
B) You should use the private messages option wisely to advise members to edit or moderate their comment.
C) Am also wondering how you will manage the five members' moderation policy because there should be a way of others knowing whether a comment has been flagged once or twice or thrice and so on. Do take a look at the youtubes videos- they have a thumbs up and down icon and this show and hide option for comments on the videos. I think that would be a far better option if you could somehow incorporate it.
After submitting a comment I received a message that my message was tagged as spam and I would not be able to post for a while
Fixed.
Same issue. Comment was posted 5 times in a row.
Admin @ BuzzVines
Thanks!
:(