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#1 2006-01-11 22:35:03

ankar
Member
From: Larissa, Greece
Registered: 2005-10-02
Posts: 29
Website

Moderated down comments

I welcome the addition of the “moderated” status of comments in 4.0.3 but I suggest a different handling. Currently, moderated down comments are simply not displayed. It would be nice to have the possibility to move these comments automatically to a different page. This way, censorship is avoided but the mod-down comments do not interfer with the normal comments.

Use case:
1. The administrator checks the comments of a recently posted article which has title “Hi there”. There are 5 comments and she notices that comment No 4 does not apply to the blog policy rules.
2. The admin changes the status of the comment from “visible” to “mod-down” using the “Content->Comments” tab.
3. After the change is saved, comment No 4 is not displayed any more. Instead, the message “There are moderated down comments” is displayed at the bottom of the page. This message points to a different page which contains all the moderatad comments for the article “Hi there” (currently only one).

I have seen this kind of moderating in news sites. It would be nice to have this possibility in Textpattern too.

If this could be possible with a plugin, I have a good reason to start learning PHP :)

Last edited by ankar (2006-01-11 22:37:01)

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#2 2006-01-11 23:17:50

Sencer
Archived Developer
From: cgn, de
Registered: 2004-03-23
Posts: 1,803
Website

Re: Moderated down comments

Sounds like the perfect job for a plugin. I can’t see why this should be available in core.

Usually the only reason to remove comments from sight is… that you don’t want them on your site. If it’s ok to leave those comments on the site, why bother putting them on a seperate page?

> moderated down comments are simply not displayed.

You can’t “moderate down”. Given that visible and spam are clear, I think you are referring to “unmoderated”, which was meant to communicate “Here, you haven’t taken any action (visible or spam) on this comment yet, go ahead and do your moderater duties.” (We can argue about a better choice of words though, if unmoderated is conveying a different meaning to most people…)

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#3 2006-01-12 09:51:05

ankar
Member
From: Larissa, Greece
Registered: 2005-10-02
Posts: 29
Website

Re: Moderated down comments

> Sencer wrote:

> Sounds like the perfect job for a plugin. I can’t see why this should be available in core.

Ok. Sounds like perfect time to start learning PHP. Would be to complicated for someone with programming experience to write a plugin like this? I have already some ideas for the txp tags needed…

> Usually the only reason to remove comments from sight is… that you don’t want them on your site. If it’s ok to leave those comments on the site, why bother putting them on a seperate page?

a) I do not like censorship
b) This way it it will be possible for others to see why a comment is mod down
c) It could be even illegal to remove a comment in some cases, at least in my country (I know this sounds incredible)

> moderated down comments are simply not displayed.

> You can’t “moderate down”. Given that visible and spam are clear, I think you are referring to “unmoderated”, which was meant to communicate “Here, you haven’t taken any action (visible or spam) on this comment yet, go ahead and do your moderater duties.” (We can argue about a better choice of words though, if unmoderated is conveying a different meaning to most people…)

I see.

Thanks for your answer!

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#4 2006-01-12 10:10:35

Sencer
Archived Developer
From: cgn, de
Registered: 2004-03-23
Posts: 1,803
Website

Re: Moderated down comments

a) I do not like censorship

It’s not censorship, it’s an editorial decision what you publish on your own site. TVs and Newspapers get to choose what they publish and what not in much the same way. Censorship is what governments are doing when they are preventing and/or punishing the expression of certain things completely (i.e. for everybody, everywhere within their borders).

But if you prefer to not remove comments completely, an alternative might be to edit those comments and wrap them within a div with a class, that shows them in smaller font, dark-gray font on light-gray background. It should be relatively easy to write a plugin which allows you to make those modifications to a comment with the push of a button.

It could be even illegal to remove a comment in some cases, at least in my country (I know this sounds incredible)

Are you sure you are not confusing something? I can’t imagine it is possible that you can force other people to publish whatever you want…

Anyway, if you want to go with the idea of a seperate page, the easiest would be something that duplicates most of the function comments($atts) in taghandlers, and replaces the sql-query – depending on a url-parameter or something like that.

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#5 2006-01-12 14:59:49

ankar
Member
From: Larissa, Greece
Registered: 2005-10-02
Posts: 29
Website

Re: Moderated down comments

> Sencer wrote:

It’s not censorship, it’s an editorial decision what you publish on your own site. TVs and Newspapers get to choose what they publish and what not in much the same way. Censorship is what governments are doing when they are preventing and/or punishing the expression of certain things completely (i.e. for everybody, everywhere within their borders).

There is a small but important difference with TVs and Newspapers. I choose to have “open comments” in my blog. I review the comments after they are published. TVs, newspapers etc review everything before it is published, therefore they are free to do what they want. People who send an article in a newspaper know that it is quite possible it will not be published.
By allowing open and even anonynous comments I accept that the comment section of the articles belongs to the commentators too. I give them this power and it would not be fair to take it back. There are policy rules in my blog but it is not always easy to judge right. Therefore, it is in principle an editing decision but it can change quite easily to censorship. By moving mod down comments in a different page I respect the right I previously gave to someone, to express him self the way he wants. I also have the possibility to get feedbak from other users if I took the right decision. The only reason I have to remove a comment is when I see something illegal.

Thanks for the tips.

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