WCF Reader's Comments Cleanup

Examples of poor comments

By Brian Potter
December 31, 2008 4:47 PM
Filed Under: Announcements

WCF is turning over a new leaf going into 2009 with the promise of cleaning up the reader's comments section. We have put together a new set of rules/guidelines and begin enforcing them immediately.

As with most blog comment systems, we realize there is no edit function. We do plan to add this, amongst others, but it is a large project so don't expect it any time soon. In the meantime we strongly recommend that you take a few seconds to carefully read over your comment before clicking the "add comment" button.

Here are guidelines that we lovingly poached from our friends at Jalopnik.com. They will be enforced with great enthusiasm:

Make your comments:

Meaningful - make your comment interesting. Stay on topic and avoid replies like "I agree" or "That car sucks". Nobody wants to read unsupported generalizations, complaining or criticism.
Respectful - show some dignity and avoid personal attacks or name calling.
Clear - make sure your comment is coherent and understandable. If English is a second language make sure you are very fluent. If not, you will be banned.

Grounds for immediate banishment:

personal attacks (name calling)
racism
profanity
sexually explicit language
caps lock on (indicates yelling)
SMS text typing or excessive abbreviations
excessively bad grammar and spelling
blind fanaticism or devotion to brands
off-topic or irrelevant
trolling - someone who posts controversial, inflammatory messages with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt the discussion.

Lastly, for those who are on board with us for a more enjoyable and productive community, we encourage you to use the "Report Abuse" button located in every comment. Although, all topics will be regularly monitored, we can't see everything all the time. So please feel free to report any comments which break the guidelines mentioned above by using the "Report Abuse" button.

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Comments

RussianMafia

December 31, 2008 5:17 PM

Good job WCF! Make sure the 2009 will be a troll free year :)

dmanero

December 31, 2008 5:36 PM

Love the rules, but having been on WCF for the past year or two I can tell you, you'll be busy with banishing people, half of them are racist, hurtful and much more. I can even think of a few people.

All the best with the upgrades.

NISMO

December 31, 2008 5:43 PM

#8 should keep you guys busy for sure! And #7...really? A bit subjective isn't it? Either way, kudos to WCF for taking the steps!

benz_man

December 31, 2008 5:46 PM

Good decision WCF. This should be entertaining...

Motor_Yakuza

December 31, 2008 5:59 PM

Oh God, what's next? the Cult of personality for WCF, there goes another site ware u wore almost free to tell your opinion,oh well, we will get tracking numbers very soon.To bad it was a good site.

desiathate

December 31, 2008 6:29 PM

I am scared.... this means i can no longer say "I L... BMWs." Still these are some good rules because i am sick of people who say never even think twice before saying the most silly things.still, I am just a little sad!

dmanero

December 31, 2008 6:31 PM

Motor_Yakuza. - lol there's a diffrence between expressing you opinion and expressing yourself by use of racist remarks and just being hurtful. Is it really nessessary to bash some for what they like and in return call them a fag or worse. There easier ways to hurt someone feelings but with out the use of hurtfull words.

Roger426

December 31, 2008 7:04 PM

This is great, maybe a tad excessive, but it was a needed adjustment.

Joe_Limon

December 31, 2008 7:31 PM

Great! I really like rule numbers 1 and 8. Good job WCF, see you in the new years.

designerr

December 31, 2008 7:31 PM

thanks so much WCF

Bremen_Koenigsegg

December 31, 2008 7:55 PM

Those rules look like an R8. Look, we're not journalists, we are car enthusiasts. So what if our spelling and grammar skills are lacking? This is the internet! I can safely say a large number of the people who frequent this site do not speak English as their primary language; do their opinions not matter? While I'd love to see comment pages free of |337-speak and grammatical mistakes, I am remain conscious of the fact that this is the interblag, where everybody gets their linguistic tolerances tested. And asking us not to suffer blind devotion to a single automaker (or group of same) is like asking a zebra to sport polka-dots instead of stripes. These rules make sense if this were a legitimate, super-professional news medium, but even you, WCF, have poorly constructed sentences and bad grammar at times. By rule #7, you ought to be IMMEDIATELY BANISHED. (Because the word "banned" is not sufficient, apparently.)

BrianWCF

December 31, 2008 9:16 PM

The rules aren't asking to be perfect. We all make mistakes as you so kindly pointed out. :D But the rules state, "excessive" spelling mistakes. If comments are difficult to read due to excessively poor grammar or spelling, the comment will be deleted. If a member is a repeat offender, that person will eventually be banned.

It should also be mentioned that a member's posting history will be taken into consideration before being banned. One infraction within a history of dozens of quality comments will be judged less harshly.

wjaprep

January 2, 2009 10:58 PM

Yeh, I like some of the rules, like 1,2,8, and 10 but, I honestly cannot spell to save my life, and profanity is a part of everyday life for some people, also I think that all of this is protected by Freedom of Speach for those of us in the US, I also disagree with the rule about people who dont speak english well, as long as they can get their point across, who cares how baddly its spelt? Also, I use txt spelling 90% of the time im online, which is kinda wht txt spelling is ment to be used for other than cell phones, but... what can we do but sit and watch as this will soon turn into something catastrophic as most things to when people are told what to do...

Aesthetics

December 31, 2008 8:01 PM

SMS text typing

hahahaha kill them if possible!!

Tuner_Mad

December 31, 2008 8:37 PM

Yay, thanks WCF. At least we now know the edit button is coming... sometime. ;)

Bilal-Barhum

December 31, 2008 8:56 PM

ok thats good but also the site must be Meaningful , where is the Meaningful in Showing the Babies of each car show , please is there any Meaningful in that , we are a car Fans not Body or girls Fans .

Iconic

December 31, 2008 9:03 PM

I thought cars and hot girls went together like peanut butter and jelly?

The new rules are great, but I have to admit it was pretty entertaining reading some of the crazier posts.

BrianWCF

December 31, 2008 9:29 PM

Bilal, our audience as a whole determines what they want to see. It is our job to anticipate and provide it. Due to varying cultural differences around the globe, content depicting women in sexually suggestive themes can be viewed either favorably or unfavorably. Given the nature of WCF content with consideration to the overall demographics of WCF's audience, we have determined the said material allowable. In fact its always the most popular content ahead of spy photos.

tsiebrand

December 31, 2008 9:16 PM

I agree with the new rules although I agree with iconic, it was entertaining reading some of the posts. But what about foreign people? some of them will really have some trouble with #7!! Will they be banned?

BrianWCF

December 31, 2008 9:23 PM

Comments must be coherent and understandable regardless of where someone is from. This is an English language site and must function as one with a basic level of communication.

Andres2007

December 31, 2008 10:04 PM

I would also go after those guys who don't know better than to attack cars by their origin. "Japanese cars always suck," "it's not good because it's American" and so on. That kind of stuff is not only not meaningful, it's full of generalizations and it is very offensive.

BrianWCF

December 31, 2008 10:24 PM

Thanks Andres2007, yes we did covered this one in number 8 - blind fanaticism or devotion to brands.

Edited by user on January 26, 2009 at 2:16 PM

Andres2007

January 1, 2009 10:04 PM

Thanks! Good to know that ;)

Some cars, especially American cars, are bashed badly because of their nationality, even if they are really good cars. That's really uncomfortable and, truly, it discourages people who like the car to express their positive assessments.

muellr

December 31, 2008 11:54 PM

al right then, censorship for a picture happy car blog, just make sure your info is straightened before you guys proof read and censor, putting up posts a day later or never cause then we r close to the Chinese government that makes sure that the Chinese don't access inappropriate information .

BabyMilo

January 1, 2009 12:27 AM

i like the new rules, i think some of them were needed but some other ones are abit extreme.. like the txting language some of us (or i atleast do) visit wcf on our phone and only hav a T9 keypad makes it very teadious writing with proper grammer. Plus isnt it abit racist banning people if thy dont have perfect english?? But overall well done. :)

mustang5507

January 1, 2009 3:39 AM

Thank you! That was the first step to regaining a formerly loyal reader.

mortz

January 1, 2009 3:54 AM

its about time there was a clean up.

PotatoEater

January 1, 2009 6:30 AM

me no speakee enlis but me like cars they go vroom vroom fast fast. But this rule "blind fanaticism or devotion to brands" will sooner get me banned I suspect.

Meeshka

January 1, 2009 8:27 AM

Very interesting, are people people with bad grammar be banned? lol

Decypha

January 1, 2009 9:06 AM

If you find somebody's comment funny would you be allowed to reply with just a "LOL"?

Happy New Year to everybody out there!

Geefiasco

January 1, 2009 12:21 PM

Hmmm, ok.

bakrione

January 1, 2009 12:59 PM

its only a car website lol

wjaprep

January 2, 2009 11:06 PM

Should we all run off to Autoblog...?

davethepetrolhead

January 1, 2009 1:21 PM

Good decision WCF but i think some regular visitors to the site are really going to struggle with the guidelines. Especially number 10.

burana800

January 1, 2009 2:59 PM

Great! I especially love the rule #8! Ill throw the first stone.. Im a huge Merc fan but those BMWs and Audis arent that bad after all.. :-)

xLumino

January 1, 2009 3:30 PM

Very sad to see, some people laught about this important facts WCF mentioned. These are rules wich makes sence, 'cause some people steal the fun we have to comment a topic. They simply think it's necessary to reply on everything. Maybe not all the news are interesting for all, but why all want to comment it then? Just let the topic be topic and search for the next one. If you have a real opinion to that, then reply on it, but then with the rules given by the webmasters or the team!

I'm not happy about all the rules too, but it's the choice of WCF and not the users. For example the must of the perfect english. I'm from Germany and my english can be better I know. But as long as you understand me I hope for not banning me ;)

I wish you luck for the changes and hope this board will be more interesting and constructive with the help of every user!

rcup

January 1, 2009 6:54 PM

good job wcf keep it up =D

XtremeMaC01

January 1, 2009 9:49 PM

Brian thank you for the clarification. though I think u guys are taking this banning thing too seriously. There is no such banning thing on 10ths of forums that i visit, maybe only jalopnik. and level of sincerity is kept intact. I'd like to believe that visitors of WCF have reached a level where everyone respects one another. if that's not the case then a warning system would be very beneficial. I mean full ban? devotion to brands? yes I agree if there is bashing, flaming or disrespectfull comments, a user should be given a warning.. that's really harsh for a typo or misspelling or ppl (people) - loling all the time. This, imho (in my honest opinion) - in the long run would really decrease the number of comments on the site even to extinction. whats wrong with abbriviations? People who visit this site are member of many forums and its not like everyone has endless time at their hand. simple abbriviations that save time shouldn't be a problem. i didn't know some and some googleing really increases your abbriviation knowledge..

I just think that u guys will spend lots of hours editing banning etc... and I really don't want to grow away from WCF just because of the comments. That'd be very sad. Edit function will be lovely!!

Siavash77

January 2, 2009 2:49 AM

It's a very good decision to clean up the comments but I believe that the following rule is discriminatory, "If English is a second language make sure you are very fluent. If not, you will be banned." This rule implies that opinions from those who arent fluent in english are of less value and expressing them is punishable by abandonment. This article seems to be written with much anger with a lecturing tone.

wjaprep

January 2, 2009 8:42 AM

Great, so now all the comments will be boring, so much for freedom of speech huh?

3pointedstar

January 2, 2009 11:10 AM

Good to see this. Been reading WCF for the last year. Only felt I wanted to join since reading the new rules as some the replies and posts where completely out of order. PS note to BrianWCF I'm dyslexic so just go easy on the spelling errors;)

afterace2

January 2, 2009 1:22 PM

Good point, so much for the freedom of speach. I think You are overreacting a little bit WCF.

alessandro

January 2, 2009 4:53 PM

#8 - like it. So if someone dare say that something looks like an R8 or not looks like one will be banished. So sad, its only ruler we had. "lol" = Am I excluded?

lucifa

January 3, 2009 9:55 AM

i'd think you could almost say that "looks like an R8" is an exception - it's become something of a running joke on wcf, so i don't think anyone should be banned for saying it - old and tired, maybe, but not offensive.

WildMaverick1200

January 4, 2009 1:46 AM

No saying "this car sucks"? then I'll just have to assume that Chrysler doesn't exist....

xray

January 4, 2009 6:53 PM

''this car sucks''- on plain, i don't have to argue with it, but if its explained, i don't see the reason to bann it or anything. And if someone says that he loves audis (i do;)), i don't see anything wrong with that either. And the non-good-english; one comment that is not good english but you can understand what he said(like potatoeater) shouldn't be banned. About the abbrevations - if it is REALLY excessive, you should bann it, but if lol is used once or twice in it... and the caps lock on? i don't see what is wrong with that. i used it right there- and it probably isn't bad is it? And some people accidentaly turn it on, and don't know how to turn it off(like mah grandma) it is also used to express some other things so i think that you should enforce the rules, but not as harsh as it was originally planed.

mps

January 5, 2009 10:18 AM

Well this is a load of cr.. Damn, almost said it! Banish me! I almost did a caps lock there also, dang. This is the INTERNET (oh no!). People who come online should be ready for the insults/bad grammar/incoherency whether they did/didn't ask for it. It's downright comical how people get upset over someones comment on some webpage they tend to visit. A bunch of letters on your screen hurt your feelings? Get a life, I say. Or maybe, just maybe, ignore them? You should've just given the ignore option to everyone, so that they can pick for themselves who they want/don't want to read from. But no, lets complicate things a bit and make everyone dull.

Now WCF will be like a league of old brittish fa....s (there I go again) sitting, drinking their tea, commenting most politely on the topic of discussion. God forbid anyone gets offended! Good thing you also added the edit button along with these restrictions. Cheers.

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