"Heated debate" banned by some bbc online forums
post it anyway | 14.05.2001 12:05
"as soon as anything gets too close to political barracking or heated debate, we may take steps to remove it"
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The Policy in Action
Any Conversations or Guide Entries that veer into heavy debate about the General Election (or local elections during the General Election period) may be removed by the Moderators. This doesn't mean that no UK political discussion is allowed, it simply means that as soon as anything gets too close to political barracking or heated debate, we may take steps to remove it from h2g2, asking instead that you continue your discussions in a more suitable area of BBC Online.
MAIN BEEB GUIDELINES re online stuff:
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Forums and message boards: Care must be taken to ensure that forums and message boards are vehicles for lively debate and not hi-jacked by organised campaigns of one particular group or party. This is not easy to achieve but we are more likely to succeed if:
Open ended message boards on political issues are avoided during the campaign. Hosts will be required to initiate topics with appropriate questions and to steer threads so as to encourage effective debate about the issues.
The topics are set by journalists and are based on the issues not personalities. Sites which do not usually engage in political issues should seek the advice of the Chief Political Adviser before doing so.
Poll type questions which attempt to quantify support for a party, politician, or policy issue should be avoided.
Pre-moderation or hourly postmoderation (e.g. in the case of Nations, the English Regions and Radio sites) will check that messages are not completely stacked in the direction of one party or another. The maximum time any message may be up before being checked on a
postmoderated board is one hour. But this should not be taken as the acceptable norm. It may be necessary to check more frequently.
All moderators and hosts should know how to use BBC Online’s escalation strategy where appropriate, to protect a postmoderated message board from e.g. nuisance or abuse. For example, they should know how to switch a board from postmoderation into premoderation,
at short notice. This will ensure that if necessary an organised campaign can be blocked.
Revised rules to effect this policy and make it transparent to all users, will be posted on all BBC message boards at the beginning of the election campaign.
Journalists and moderators will have to make fine judgements between remarks that constitute robust political debate and personal abuse. The rule of thumb should be if we would not broadcast it on radio or TV, it should not be online. Filters for taste and decency and personal abuse will operate as usual but they should not be relied on as a substitute for effective moderation.
Any live chat or online audio or video interviews by politicians should be subject to the same criteria on balance and fairness as applies to radio and TV interviews. The criteria are set out in these guidelines
post it anyway
Homepage:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/HouseRules-Election
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