Corporate report

DfT web chat moderation policy

Published 24 July 2012

© Crown copyright 2012

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/web-chat-moderation-policy/dft-web-chat-moderation-policy

All comments submitted during our web chats are pre-moderated.

‘Pre-moderation’ means that comments will not be published instantly. They will first be checked by the host and/or moderator.

Moderation is intended to ensure debate is fair and inclusive, and will not be used to suppress legitimate, reasoned debate about the issues under discussion.

We will try to respond to as many questions and comments during the web chat as the time will allow.

We will normally approve comments for publication as long as they:

  • respect other commenters and individuals – comments should not be malicious or offensive in nature and should not constitute a personal attack on a person’s character
  • do not incite hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality or sexuality or other personal characteristic
  • do not include swearing, hate-speech or obscenity
  • do not reveal personal details, such as private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details
  • do not break the law – this includes libel, condoning illegal activity and breaking copyright
  • are reasonably concise and do not constitute spamming of the channel
  • do not advertise commercial products and services – you can mention relevant products and services as long as they support your comment
  • do not impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or organisation
  • are in English as, unfortunately, we do not currently have the resource to moderate comments in other languages
  • are on-topic – please do not post messages that are unrelated to the topic of the web chat
  • are not party political in nature

We reserve the right to suspend comments and block participation at any time for any of the above.

We will try and respond to unanswered questions outside of the web chat via other methods if more time/information is required to provide a suitable response.

A transcript of all published comments will be published per web chat for historical purposes.

Back to top