Linden Blog Moderation revisited

Torley I read your response to the previous posting asking about the blog moderation rules, and I was entirely disasatisfied with the response.

If you are an individual writing an individual blog, or even if you are a company writing a company blog for your happy band of customers, using those family room criteria for moderation of a blog might be justified.

If you are a company who relies upon the creativity and involvement of your customer base in order to have any product at all, and you have just announced to them that your blog will be a BETTER tool of communication, and then you start using family room-type moderation tactics... I think that's a big mistake.

You have sold us the idea that the blog and being able to comment on it will form a better communication method than the forums... but if you are deleting anything which is critical, how can that possibly be true?

I do not defend people who use blog comments to be unpleasant to other people, but how can there be any proper communication if you use this sort of criteria for moderation?

I am assuming that under the new rules, my criticisms of what Philip wrote in the Tao of Linden would be removed as negative?

I am unhappy about the forums being removed, but if that has to happen you have to make the alternatives credible. At present, I see no chance that they will be.
BWS
Cali

Hi Cali, just like many things, I've received opinions from all sorts of directions.

The counterpoint, here, is having a more comfortable atmosphere to comment in which results in BETTER communication.

If we're to use the "family room" analogy colorfully, consider a home where an abusive husband beats the wife and kids and yells at them. So, think of a commenter who berates others and scares them from voicing their opinions. Is that healthy? No. On the other hand, disagreements voiced respectively can give all involved something to gain.

Robert Scoble with the "family room" approach of course was previously blogging for Microsoft. He's not the only one who's done it, and we're amenable to change. The thing is, we haven't really even done it yet--nor have we posted Guidelines, so the process is being shaped, aided by comments like yours.

We're keeping our sights on other blogs we can learn from, like:

http://blogs.msdn.com/macmojo/default.aspx

Appropriately enough, I hope to blog more about our findings in the future.

It's ongoing!