NowPublic Flaming Policy

Over the course of the past month, the Editorial staff at NowPublic
has been reviewing and moving towards developing policies pertaining to
Flaming and Abusive postings on our site. By next week we will be
posting this policy here in the Newsroom as well as informing our users
of its presence via email.

Thank you to everyone who has brought incidents of Flaming and Abuse
to our attention, and thanks to all of our users who treat each other
with respect and use the site under compliance with our Terms of Use.

Stay Tuned!

Our Flaming Policy is now live on the site. Please take a moment to read and comment on it. I look forward to hearing what our users have to say:

Here's the link.

Wow, that's probably the most comprehensive description of flaming I've ever read on the web. I don't get involved very much here but is flaming that big of a problem at NowPublic? Wouldn't it have been easier to shorten it to something like:

"We reserve the rights to edit/remove flame, trollish comments."

How did I get here? From the email just sent.

Great question. Since removing a user from a user-generated-content site is kind of a big deal, we wanted to be sure that the ground rules were as clear as possible, so we have something to point to in the (ultimately inevitable) event of "what if...?".

For most of us, "Don't be a punk" is more than sufficient; for everyone else, there's the flaming policy!

To answer your other question, no, flaming isn't a super-huge problem, but we are all about making sure it doesn't become one: flaming makes the comments fields too hot for most to thrive in.

I like your style, NowPublic.

what about passive aggressive attacks on a person's story by editors who are flaunting their personal biases by attacking the person's story? i just had three of these in one hour tonight. i have tried to be rational and communicative with the editors, but, hey, i'm posting my stories here about flickr specifically because the people who are in control at flickr are not willing to communicate and have done inappropriate things. Jordan and Kaitlin seem to appreciate what i'm trying to do, but i have since gotten slammed (passively) by two other editors and had another item marked as spam rather casually instead of working with me to find the best solution.

i am particularly concerned about the two editors who have a strong bias against whatever they determine is "Radical" or a "Liberal" because that's the way they treated me via the language use. Such as forking out memes intended to "down" my credibility, instead of discussing actual points inside the proper context.

i came here to make some things NOW PUBLIC because where i was previously has become viciously hostile and has demonstrated massive bias against anyone who questions their authority. i LOVED flickr. Now they have created a war and it is driven by the control of information. So, what do you do? You publish that information as wide and as far as possible.

Now i fear i'm going to get the same treatment here. People who have personal biases are going to assume i'm "one of those people" that they hate and do whatever they can to squash me out of NowPublic.com.

i agree with the statement that this is a very complete policy. But... (and we all have butts) i have been through policies at flickr, too. The fear is that staff abuse them and redefine them as they see fit. What kind of steps are taken to ensure that does not happen here? (can you tell i am desperate to find a reliable online community of rational people run by people who wont take advantage of their position when they feel the urge?)

i wont go on and on. i tend to do that.

Like all tools, the flagging tool has its limitations... in this case, I think the wrong bit was used on some of your stuff, from what I hear. The learning curve is steep, since we don't have a Matrix-like training environment.The flagging tool is meant more as a set of bonsai scissors, and not a chainsaw, but there is a learning curve! When I started out (as a Guest Editor, before weaseling my way in here fulltime), I made several mistakes with flagging, some of which I was able to fix; some, sadly, I wasn't.

it is important to have a policy on flaming in India a person was booed for abusive coment on the net because it waqs considered as thing of public domain.

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I tend to call these guys troll's but of course your right there is differing pigeon boxes.

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]

n Internet user typically generates a flame response to other posts or users posting on a site, and such a response is usually not constructive, does not clarify a discussion, and does not persuade others. Sometimes, flamers attempt to assert their authority, or establish a position of superiority over other users. Other times, a flamer is simply an individual who believes he or she carries the only valid opinion. This leads him or her to personally attack those who disagree. In some cases, flamers wish to upset and offend other members of the forum, in which case they can be called "trolls". Most often however, flamers are angry or insulting messages transmitted by people who have strong feelings about a subject.

Flamebait is a message posted to a public Internet discussion group, such as a forum, newsgroup or mailing list, with the intent of provoking an angry response (a "flame") or argument over a topic the troll often has no real interest in.

I am glad something is being done to clean out those that dabble in outlandish child like practices on Nowpublic.com of which is but one problem concerning those that do not respect what Nowpublic is really all about. We also have the spammer that seeming are making nowpublic look like an advertising site today. But that's another story of which I know logical must be being reviewed at this moment as well.