Posts, comments, privacy etc.
COMMENTS
The fewer the rules the better and this blog approaches comments in much the same way as other blogs – no ad hominem towards other commenters, no libel, porn or entirely off topic comments [the honourable exception being Dearieme], no advertising, especially linked self-advertising.
The comments facility doesn’t always do as it should but generally it allows you to go back and modify your own comment or delete it but later it only allows you to delete it.
The blog owner and co-authors reserve the right to summarily delete comments if they contravene the policy above but always with an explanation as to why. Similarly, demands by someone to delete someone else’s comment will be looked at but are ultimately our decision to take.
POSTING
There’s a one hour rule in effect here, i.e. for one hour after something is posted, errors can be corrected by authors and adjustments made – sometimes, even with preview, it needs to be seen on the front page for errors to come to light. Thereafter, the post generally stays as is, except for grammatical or punctuation errors. It’s very rare for a post to be deleted – I think the last time was in 2008 and it’s certainly not altered after that one hour following publication.
As for errors of fact – if these are pointed out and substantiated by readers, then the post will be altered even years after publication, with a note as to which text was changed, at whose behest, on which date and why.
COPYRIGHT
All reasonable effort is made to track down the owners of images and to embed images [or footnotes] with urls and this blog is more assiduous than many to that end. That is – we do make the effort. If the image was in widespread use, in the commons, in our own collection or was sent to us, that is a case by case scenario.
There is one category though – images on file before the blogs began in 2006, where these old images had no accreditation and are too old to track that down – these are more of a headache and the policy is case by case again – first thought is to accredit, second is to delete if there is a clear problem.
The notifier needs to prove it does belong to him/her. There also needs to be a reasonable time frame here – say 24 hours – although our policy is to act the moment we know of it and can get to the net.
Any attempt at extortion of money, tried on a few times in the past, is met with Arkell v Pressdram [scroll down to "Litigation".
EDITORIAL FREEDOM
This blog has James Higham as its webmaster, for want of a better term. There is almost total editorial freedom for each author, i.e. he/she can post on what he/she wants and also takes responsibility for what is written, including running the comments thread, except insofar as the law of the land holds the webmaster and host responsible. There is no political or philosophical line the blog itself takes although it does attract authors of a certain forthrightness, shall we say and with certain views.
Scheduling does exist in this way - if a topic is current,the author posts straight away, no matter what else was scheduled. For "set pieces" though, e.g. something on yachts or wine, authors generally save to draft and JH schedules, so as not to put everything out on the one day. It's a juggling act.
There's common sense here. If JH goes into "posts" in the dash and something's already gone up on the public issue of the day, then good. If he sees any posts in draft, these are scheduled over the next couple of days. Friday quiz is obviously scheduled on Friday. Dearieme goes up at 19:00 and so on. If the author wants it at a specified time, then he/she says and it's done, other posts are then rearranged around it.
PRIVACY & COOKIES
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) indicates that new cookie compliance rules came into force on 26th May, 2012. It indicates that "Implied consent is a valid form of consent and therefore Nourishing Obscurity would like readers/users to understand that using this site might result in cookies being used.
ADVERTISING
Except for Google Ad Sense [included more for the pretty pictures than anything else] and one or two ads for friends, this site no longer does advertising. Too many scams and disadvantageous offer spam has killed off the practice. If an advertiser is from an established firm, if this can be checked, if the product is appropriate for the blog to advertise, if the blog fits in with the firm’s strategy and it doesn’t contravene Google’s policy, then the rate asked would be at 2008 levels.
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/28/defamation_bill/
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James Higham
May 19th, 2011. Added to May 22nd, 2011. Modified August 3rd, 2011. Modified November 26th, 2011. Modified January 9th, 2012. Modified May 26th, 2012. Modified August 24th, 2012. Link added September 28th, 2012.
Don't hold back ...