I've suggested to other ONW committee members that we need to draw up some guidelines, and that we need to avoid anything that might constitute incitement to violence or hate speech. The google group guidelines are also a big help (thanks, Mel). It seems reasonable to ask ONW google group users to agree to keep to some basic guidelines, and if they persistently fail to do this, as a last resort one should remove them from the group, or delete their comments. The problem is finding someone with the time and the inclination to monitor this. To some extent interventions by members (such as Mel, and others) help the group to regulate itself, and may cause some people to think twice about what they write. But sometimes this may not be enough.
We are not alone in having this problem. This is what the Mail and Guardian say about the open forum on their website: "Comment on racism and other problems: We share your distress at many of the comments made on the open forum. Unfortunately, deleting such comments by any kind of automated system would, we believe, do damage to the speech of those brave souls who persist in holding coherent discussions amid the irrational fury that rages around them. We don't have the resources to edit out all the most extreme comments manually -- we are happy to observe that other forum participants usually respond appropriately to them, either with ridicule or by ignoring them. If we do notice offensive comments, or if our attention is called to them, we will delete them." Rob --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Observatory Neighbourhood watch" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/obsnw?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
