Promo/Dot/Comments

Procedures for managing open comments, discussed during IRC session during KDE-Promo Sprint 2011 May 7.

Anonymous and moderated comments

Dot stories are currently open to comments only from logged in/authorized users. Several people have suggested that anonymous comments might add value to the conversation. There has been some history of abuse, particularly personal attacks. The following provides information regarding open comment management.

UPDATE (5 June 2012) Anonymous comments are allowed. All comments are moderated before publishing, except those from trusted users (users with the role "KDE Contributor"). Several people are checking unpublished comments regularly.

Trial

During an IRC meeting at the KDE-Promo Sprint (2011 May 7), it was agreed that there would be a trial period for open comments. Stuart Jarvis will announce a one week trial when procedures have been established.

• Editors will record objectionable comments:
  • to allow monitoring of spam or troll comments
  • to distinguish between registered and unregistered users
  • by unpublishing comments (instructions below).
• The 1 week trial will be extended to 1 month, unless the open comments procedure is clearly unworkable.
• The trial may be stopped at any point if editors agree that it is not working.
• Open comments will be reviewed fully after 1 month.
  • Did open comments add to the value of the Dot?
  • Did the comment management process work?
• During the trial, editors will regularly and frequently check comments for spam and highly objectionable trolling (See KDE Code of Conduct - criticism is OK, even if it's harsh; personal attacks are not OK.)
  • An RSS feed is available for quick and easy review.
  • More complete comment listings provide additional context if necessary.
  • Editing comments is permissible.
• Objectionable comments should be unpublished rather than deleted to allow for later analysis.

UPDATE: The trial was overall successful. However, the new regimen generated complaints from developers and development team leaders. After some discussion, it was agreed to allow anonymous comments with moderation before rather than after publishing them.

RSS Feed

Simple feed for quick and easy comment review:

• http://dot.kde.org/comments/recent/rss.xml
• Feed includes comment title, author, date/time, comment body.
• It does not include information associating comments with Dot articles.
• Feed icon on dot.kde.org pages is a link to the RSS feed for the entire site - http://dot.kde.org/rss.xml

Unpublish comments

Comment listing with bulk operations:

• Sort order corresponds with RSS feed.
• http://dot.kde.org/admin/content/comment
• Unpublishing comments is preferable to deleting them. Unpublished comments remain available for later analysis that could be used to warn or ban offenders (based on IP address/hostname).
• Listing includes: comment title, author, story title, date/time, edit (link)

Unpublished (unapproved) comments

Unpublished comments by date&time:

• http://dot.kde.org/comments/recent/unapproved
• List is sorted by date&time, and includes IP address, username, comment title, Dot story title.

Unpublished comments by IP address:

• http://dot.kde.org/comments/recent/unapproved/hostname
• List is sorted by IP address, and includes username, comment title, Dot story title, date & time of comment.

Recent comments listing

Recent comments:

• http://dot.kde.org/comments/recent
• Clicking either comment title or story title links opens Dot story.
• Delete and edit options are available within a story; unpublish action is not available here.
• The Recent Comments listing includes comment title, story title, date&time.

Publish previously unpublished comments

Unpublished comments:

• http://dot.kde.org/admin/content/comment/approval
• This page offers the ability to publish comments that are presently unpublished or unapproved. This may be necessary if a comment is unpublished in error, or if an editor wants a second opinion.