I ain't afraid of no troll

Previously published in AdNews 30/08/11

"Crap", "Sh*t", "Seen it before", "He's a xxxx...". Sound familiar?

This is a recent selection of comments which have been made on the AdNews website, in comment threads beneath news stories, new work and blog posts.

They won't, however, sound familiar because they were never published. We've always taken community moderation seriously, and delete scores of comments like this on a daily basis.

In a bid to formalise what we've always strived to achieve and in response to feedback we've had from our readers we're making a point of laying out some basic community standards.

It's an issue some of the regular AdNews columnists have tackled in recent issues. Here's what some of them had to say:

"So why is that that failing within our industry is such a taboo? Perhaps it's because we're paralysed by the fear that we'll be publicly berated for our failures by spineless anonymous commentators on industry blogs?"

- Mat Baxter, chief executive of UM

"I can't think of a single profession where this kind of attitude and behaviour is more entrenched. Except maybe for the mafia, if The Sopranos is anything to go by. But at least on The Sopranos they kept the character, and literal, assassinations to themselves."

- John Mescall, executive creative director, Smart

Mat Baxter and John Mescall have eloquently expressed what lots of people in the marcomms industry are thinking. There's nothing wrong with a bit of banter and constructive criticism. We welcome debate and dissent and aim to create a welcoming space that focuses on intelligent discussion. But personal attacks are out of the question.

At present, we pre-moderate our comments as quickly as possible, but users are now required to submit an email address when commenting.

By leaving your email address, our site editors can filter out persistent trolling, mindless abuse, irrelevant off-topic comments, or obviously commercial and spam-like posts.

It doesn't mean you need to share your real name with the wider community. Anonymity is fine as long as you respect the standards of the community. And your identity will never be publicly or privately shared. We don't out people.

Our troll logo (pictured) is a symbol of our community standards. Feel free to copy the image and post it on your own blog or website if you feel the same.

AdNews community standards - eight simple guidelines:

1. Personal attacks, persistent trolling and mindless abuse will not be tolerated.

2. We will consider removing any content that others might find extremely offensive or threatening.

3. We reserve the right to intervene or terminate conversations which descend into inflamatory rows based on ingrained partisanship. For example, agency competitors.

4. We do not tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia or other forms of hate speech.

5. We will remove any content that is potentially libellous or defamatory, or material posted in potential breach of copyright.

6. We will remove any posts that are obviously commercial, spam-like, or persistent propaganda.

7. We understand that some conversations can be wide-ranging, but keep it relevant.

8. We allow and positively encourage robust debate and criticism of the articles we publish, but will not allow misrepresentation of AdNews and our journalists to be published on our website.