In December we will be celebrating our 3rd anniversary of TheDomains.com.
To date we have generated over 2,200 posts which have drawn over 22,500 published comments.
Up until a few weeks ago I had deleted less than 20 comments (not counting spam).
As an attorney I’m a huge believer in free speech and I hate censoring people’s expressions no matter how much I may disagree with them or how ridiculous I many think they are.
At the end of the day I don’t want to be the comment police.
Up until now no such stated “rules” needed to be in place, as thedomains.com has always been a site where the members of the domain community have come to express their concerns and thoughts on the issues of the day. One of the things things I’m most proud of the blog it is has become a place where domainers, registrars, existing and new registries, parking companies, auction houses, attorneys, even trademark interests come to comment and talk about the industry that provides so many of our livelihoods.
However over the past couple of weeks there have been issues I needed to address with removal of comments, some by known and some by unknown parties.
So the time has come for a few general rules of conduct for participation on the blog.
None of these should come as any great news or shock as 99% of the 22,500+ comments have conformed to these general rules of conduct.
First of all your comments should be posted from a real email address. You certainly can pick any “name” that the comments will appear under but if you use a fake email address, your comments maybe deleted at anytime for any reason. We do not expect to verify every email address for every comment, however we are reserving the right to delete any comment coming from “fake email addresses” or non existing email address, period.
We also reserve the right to delete any comment which is derogatory, inflammatory, or personally attacks another commentator, at anytime for any reason.
We ask that your comments stay on the point of the blog and the subject the blog.
Lets be civil.
You know the domain industry is pretty small.
Professional full time domainers are measured at best in low thousands.
So we are a pretty close knit community where most people know each other at least by name or reputation.
Lets not rip each other apart in a personal way.
There are plenty of people from outside the industry that are lining up to do so.
Lets stick to the issues.
Lets debate issues, policies, cases, events, news and domaining.
Lets not turn on each other in a personal way, which is inappropriate, uncalled for and unwise.
Do not post your domains for sale.
Do not post what domains you have in auction, prices of your domains, email addresses or a URL to your domain auction lists or auctions.
I don’t do it.
I’m not going to allow you to do it.
Repeated violators of any of these policies will be put into the spam folder and no further comments from that email address will be published.
Speaking of spam filters, please note that Word Press has a very good spam filter system, but sometimes it places legitimate comments into the spam folder. While we typically check the spam filter at couple of times a day, it may take up to 24 hours to be manually approve your comment if it gets caught.
We receive up to 1,500 spam comments a single day (including all the page scrappers) so going through the spam filter is a time consuming task.
Anytime you time you place a link or an email address into a comment, 9 times out of 10 the comment will go into the spam cue of Word Press. There is no other way of keeping out those hundreds or thousands of messages a day that correctly get blocked from being published.
So if you comment contains a link to an article for example, its mot likely going to spam and will have to be manually approved.
Hopefully this clarifies what is acceptable and not acceptable conduct and interaction.
Finally thanks for all the participation over the 2 1/2 years.
22,500 comments who would have thought?
Looks these are fair rules that any blogger could/should follow in their own blog for improve the quality of discussions.
…
Thanks so much for all the time you spend simply to share, educate, discuss, …
Your blog is definitively one of the top/best place to get informed and discuss about domaining, it ‘s in my short list of favorites!
F-
Thanks, it means a lot coming from you.
Thanks for all the time you put into thedomains Mike. I’m sure you could help yourself more by spending your time on your domains.
I have only found this blog within the last couple of months, but it has become one of my favourites in that time.
Francois said it perfectly, “one of the top/best place to get informed and discuss about domaining”.
As a previous administrator on a development/domaining forum, i know only to well how much of a problem these things can be,so hopefully this gentle reminder of etiquette and conduct will nip this in the bud.
Appreciate your work Michael.
Thanks
This is the best blog in the domain industry. Thanks for all your efforts Mike.
Thanks, Jim
but, can we still put a link in the nickname? 🙂
It’s really a shame you have to even put in place ‘common sense’ rules, but with so many without ‘it’, it does have to be said, so as to keep this blog as the class act informative blog I’ve always considered it to be! ‘Keep on, keeping on’ Mike!
this is one of the most read domains news blog … why don’t add a forum?
Mike,
First of all, THANK YOU for the countless hours of volunteer time you have spent publishing your blog, which is a daily (if not hourly!) “must-read” for many people in the domain industry. I genuinely look forward to seeing what’s hot and happening on your blog, and I have learned a great deal over the years. Keep up the amazing work!
Second, I am really glad to see you revisiting the rules regarding comments on your blog. I used to comment on various stories that you had written, but I stopped several months ago after I noticed that every time I submitted a comment someone would just turn around and start attacking me or my employer, and not always in a professional manner. (It’s a good thing I have a thick skin.) I started to expect the “domainer pile on” and gave up trying to submit comments, even when I had some useful information to share that many of your readers would appreciate. I hope that by you reminding people of the rules, the quality of conversation on TheDomains.com will continue to improve as more people will feel comfortable sharing their ideas.
Onwards and upwards!
Scoop
Yes you can still have a link from your nickname, that is the preferred way to do it rather than to put a link in the post.
Bill
Agreed, welcome back and those days of piling on for unrelated topics are over.
I agree with many of the comments – Common Sense – Common Courtesy … why do we say it is common – when it appears it isn’t 🙁
Thank you for the work you put into TheDomains … you assist a LOT more than just the ones who leave comments 🙂
I am glad that you clarified the terms of being a participant on your blog. Although most would agree that there is an unwritten protocol or “etiquette” to being a respondent on a blog, it’s somewhat nebulous territory and the standards or protocol varies from blog to blog.
I personally am becoming somewhat disillusioned with being an active participant on Domain blogs. A good percentage of what I read on the Domain blogs is just regurgitated material taken from some previously published media news story and is redundant and of little insight or value. Even so, as a participant on a blog it’s been stimulating on the occasion when I have become engaged in intelligent dialog with my fellow peers and gotten opposing points of view on a topic rather than just the story itself.
Some of the Big Domain Bloggers have a Tyrannical approach to Blogging that by and large just becomes an online extension of their over inflated egos, It’s permissible for the Blogger to dish out all kinds of trite inanities and to ridicule and be offensive to his “Pigeons” from the safety of his Blog Throne or Kingdom, but the minute you disagree or have an opposing view you are Flamed by him and his Cadre of Blog Groupies who have only ONE VIEW and interest and that is of the Blogger or winning favor in the eyes of the Blogger. It also shows little in the way of character or contributes little in the way of intelligent value to the dialog when I often see the Blogger caving in to peer pressure and only supporting the view of his readers or followers. I see the value in questioning the questions themselves and having opposing view points, even at the risk of being abrasive (or humorous) sometimes, but I see little value in dialog that is most often written from an unintelligent, ill informed often envious viewpoint that is only written to support the Blogger. It just becomes a Big Circle Jerk.
Ultimately it is the Bloggers prerogative to institute whatever policies they want and to delete comments (at their own interpretation) but it is my decision whether I want to be an active participant in the dialog.
Oh, and Yes,
most certainly Thank You Sir for letting me post my comments on your blog.
😉
Dean
No problem
Here you are free to take a position directly opposed to mine without editing or deletion as long as you keep it civilized.
After all I’m wrong, many of the times and we are all here, including me to learn from each other.
Hey MBH,
what if I am covered from head to toe in thick matted black fur and I can only reach my computer keyboard by reaching out my lanky arm from between the narrow bars of my cage, can I still participate even if most people would deem me as being uncivilized?
Just kidding! thanks for being a Sport, keep up the Blogging!!
Ooops Typo!
I meant MHB.
Hello,
although I am not a frecuent reader of this blog as of yet and being a new participant in the domaining industry, I have to say that you are doing a good job by dedicating countless hours in order to provide us the newest about the domaining industry. I will definitely suscribe to this blog as it has proved to be one of the best of it´s kind.
Thank you and looking forward to success 🙂
Regards, Christoph
A fantastic blog maintained and updated by one of the great ones in the domain industry. Keep up the great work, Mike!
Reasonable. Logical. Needed.
Better to say than assume.
Dean
You screwed up my initials
Your banned permanently
NEW RULE
Mike
I enjoy reading the news tou put out and jump on your site a few times a day. Always learn something new. I appreciate all your hard work and dedication you do.
I did get tired of reading the comment section some.
Mike,
You are doing a great service to the industry. Thank you for your blog. Your rules are all reasonable and should be assumed by most commenters without stating them. I guess it is good to state them for the rest.
Now do you mind if I change the subject?
Michael Collins
Like I told you before “your blog came out at a perfect time and filled the void” most domainers were tired of the “forum” format at times too busy too much noise too much nonsense too many hidden agendas (mods/owners) and to many ads” although they also serve a need and have their followers, I get my “daily domainer’s fix” here…
I like the simplicity of your blog but I feel the strenght resides in your intuition to choose the themes/posts in addition the quality of the posters makes the difference( inc well known industry lawyers)
Congrats.
Domo.
I appreciate all your time and effort put in
to make this site super interesting, useful,
timely and essential…
~Patricia Kaehler – DomainBELL
I find that requiring the user to log in to your blog cuts the spam down to zero.
Em-Bee,
What about minor “flame” sarcastic Sdouglas responses when noobies and anonymous posters attack my tender emotions? lol
My basic major rule is: If I don’t know your handle, and I can tell your email address or website address is fake, you’re not making it onto my comment section.
I don’t understand why domainers take the time to make a comment, yet are too scared to reveal who they are. Are they in the business or not? Do they think their opinions will get them “blacklisted”? I’ve never seen that happen on a blog (one particular “living room forum” did gleefully “boot” members a few years ago, but they have a blog now that doesn’t delete comments good or bad. That’s nice to see.
None of us can grow if we can’t see the worst comments along with the best comments. This creates the symbiosis which provides the solid ground for which we lay for ourselves after considering both sides.
For what it’s worth, you’ve always been fair to my shenanigans. Thanks Em-Bee.
Stephen
Here is the issue about the commenting illustrated.
After my Mike Mann post about his 100K domains, and after my post about being on point and not ripping people personally, someone tried to post a comment about Mike Mann, his personal life, his personal issues etc.
I rejected the comment.
Mike Mann personal life was not a subject of the post nor is it something that someone should comment on by “attacking my tender emotions”
If you want to say Mike Mann has a crappy portfolio or an overpriced portfolio of domains (not my opinion) that’s your right.
But if you want to talk about the guys divorce or ex-wife or kids that’s way out of bounds.
Bill Sweetman from Tucows comment is also on the money.
Bill’s a smart guy and Elliot from Tucows can be tat times the domainers best friend.
In any event if Bill wants to talk about Mike Mann portfolio only to get shouted down about Tucows policies that doesn’t help anyone, doesnt’ lend to education among domainers and does nothing to move the industry forward, so from now on, in those 2 example such comments will not stand.
Hi Em-Bee,
I’m not sure, but I think you missed that in my last comment, I was talking about me responding to someone commenting negatively about me me and hurting “my tender emotions”. I didn’t mean to insinuate that was the case with you not posting a comment. (in other words, I wasn’t inferring you had “tender emotions”, I was referring to myself.
I know exactly what you’re talking about during the Mike Mann “attack invasion” of commenters. My blog got hit with some really bad ones, about his family life, wife, etc… that has no place on a domain blog. I think you’re doing everything right, I was just being silly about me making any sarcastic retorts “on topic”.
Hope I’m on topic!