Moderation guidelines

Crikey is dedicated to providing independent and lively debate about Australian politics, media, business, culture and society. We welcome your participation in this discussion but we ask that you help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming.

We are committed to publishing comments quickly on our site in the interest of promoting a fast-paced and robust conversation. We ask our Crikey readers to behave responsibly.

In short, we ask that people “play the ball not the person”. In other words we encourage readers to engage in spirited discussion but not to use that opportunity to show an undue level of discourtesy to another reader. This includes deliberately antagonising other commenters, and general “trolling”.

Crikey reserves the right to choose which comments we deem to be appropriate to be posted and discussed. We do not guarantee that any comment submitted by any reader will appear or remain on the Crikey website. We reserve the right to close conversations that descend into inappropriate discussion. We reserve the right to edit or delete any comments submitted to the website, particularly those that are offensive, make personal attacks or could expose us to legal action. We reserve the right to block or ban a user from commenting if their comments are deemed offensive or defamatory, or incite harm, violence or attack a protected group. If you believe you have read an inappropriate or offensive comment please email us at support@crikey.com.au.

If you are in doubt about the “rules” of submitting a comment to Crikey, here are a few pointers:

• Please stay on topic.
• Gratuitous swearing is not encouraged. This ban extends to switching letters around to avoid the moderation filters, or otherwise invoking the words without spelling them out. Something like “f**k” is permissible if you’re quoting something, but not if it forms part of your own expression.
• Racist, homophobic, transphobic and generally bigoted comments are not permitted.
• Those wishing to vent hatred at public figures — for example, by comparing them in unpleasant terms to animals, insects or bodily waste, or (especially) by wishing death or injury upon them — are advised that there are plenty of radical websites out there which are better suited to such comments than this one.
• If you wish to complain about our comment moderation, please don’t do it in the comments. You’re welcome to email us with any feedback.

Furthermore, opinions expressed in comments published on Crikey should not in any way be interpreted as a reflection or endorsement of the Crikey editorial team. They are the opinion of the author of the comment and not the wider organisation.

Please help us to keep conversations on topic by debating the issues. We prefer not to have to edit or delete comments on our website, so please help us uphold this code of conduct so we don’t have to.