Why do you moderate?
We moderate to help encourage free, open and civil discussion. We try to delete as little as possible though some content has to be removed, usually for legal reasons, sometimes for taste reasons and always with the aim of keeping the community running smoothly and minimising conflict.
How do you moderate?
Readers are allowed to publish comments directly, right across The Telegraph website. We don’t read the comments before they go live so that discussions here flow freely. Therefore we rely on readers to complain about anything that is offensive or inappropriate. You can report any content or behaviour that you feel is inappropriate by clicking on the “Report” buttons that appear alongside all comments, blog posts, discussions and on My Telegraph member profiles. This sends a message to our moderators who then investigate your complaint.
What do you remove?
The main types of content that we remove are:
a) Personal abuse. Criticising an argument is fine, attacking the person making it is not. In other words, you can say a person’s argument is idiotic but don’t call them an idiot.
b) Legal. Libellous comments, that is those that make defamatory claims about people, will be removed as soon as we become aware of them.
c) Racist, sexist and homophobic material and comments likely to incite religious hatred. This should be self-explanatory. Generalisations about entire groups of people are never sensible and, in some cases, may be illegal.
I’ve seen an instance of the above and you didn’t remove it. Why not?
Probably because we didn’t see it. As described above, we moderate by responding to complaints from readers so if you spot something that you think is inappropriate, please click on the “Report” buttons to send a message to our moderation team.
I complained about something and you didn’t remove it. Why not?
We welcome complaints and we give serious consideration to every one but that doesn’t mean we always agree. Many factors are involved in our decision. The words you use and the context in which the comment is made can affect our decision as much as the content itself. However, we accept that moderation is a subjective business.
Will you tell me why my comment was deleted? Will you tell me why the comment I complained about was not deleted?
We don’t enter into discussions about why individual comments were or were not deleted. There are many thousands of comments on this site every day and responding to every moderation query would be impractical. We have also found that discussions about the deletion of particular comments are seldom constructive.
What about my right to free speech?
We think we allow a far wider range of comments on Telegraph.co.uk than you will find on other newspaper websites. Free speech is an important value to us and we know that it is to you too. However, that doesn’t mean we can drop all restrictions. Some of these restrictions are there for legal reasons, others are there to stop the site becoming unpleasant. If you don’t like the restrictions we place on comments, there are other places online where you can comment without any moderation at all.
Do you delete comments that are critical of The Telegraph?
No. You’re welcome to criticise our arguments, point out oversights and suggest things that you think we haven’t considered. We know that our readers are very knowledgeable and that is something we value very highly. However, personal abuse – directed at our journalists, our readers or anyone else – is not tolerated and will be removed as soon as it is reported to us.
Why have you introduced “Report this user” buttons on members’ profiles? Will this mean that other users can get my account deleted if they disagree with me?
We have had problems in the past with a few individuals who are intent on derailing discussions, either by posting spam or by being aggressive towards other users. As well as reporting this kind of behaviour by clicking on “Report” buttons next to comments and blog posts, you can now report users directly. We felt this would be an easier system for reporting unsuitable behaviour more generally so that you no longer have to sift through someone’s content in order to contact us.
Complaints about users are dealt with in the same way as complaints about content. Each one is considered on its own merits and moderators will investigate the behaviour of the person concerned before they take any action. Simply complaining about a user does not mean that their account is automatically deleted.
Why haven’t you banned so-and-so?
We ban some accounts outright. Spammers and people who are obviously impersonating another user will have their accounts deleted as soon as they are brought to our attention. We are more lenient with users that we believe are commenting in good faith, though we will delete unacceptable material.
How can I contact moderators?
The easiest way to do this is by clicking on the “Report” buttons that appear next to all comments, blog posts and discussions as well as on My Telegraph member profiles. If you have more general moderation questions you can email moderators@telegraph.co.uk. Please note that we do not enter into discussion about individual moderation decisions for the reasons explained above.