I seem to be behind the times myself. All of a sudden our news comments are getting held back and displayed once a member of staff has approved them. What are your thoughts?

Although I think that it is a nice idea so that the comments have a clean slate and are flame-free, I think that for new visitors [and old], the idea of deterence will override the overall concept of writing and posting your thoughts.

The discussion goes both ways; one could agree that comment moderating is not too great of an idea becuase it could act as a negative deterent, however another could argue that moderating is supposed to act as an Attention Sign - or else there really isn't a point in having a site policed.

Does that make any sense?

I'm currently under mod approval, and thats a pain for many reasons. One is that you don't have time to wait for the approval, and two is because otherwise your constantly waiting for it. Another is that you want to post when certain others are online, especially if its a response for them. It's more of a hassle than anything. So I'd say no. If I see something offensive or pathetic I just ignore it. If we let one rotten apple ruin the bunch, then its not fair. And plus if mods see it, and they normally do, they can just delete it.

Can't there be an "after the fact cleanup", in the same way that the Forums are moderated? That way, offensive comments will be deleted after only a short delay, and the threshold for putting in a comment is still low.

I don't know how much of a problem VTM has with offensive comments, how much work it would be to check-and-remove them, and how much that work would be compared to the work of moderating the comments before they are allowed.

I recently signed up to help keep an eye on the comments boards along with two others as you know Darren, but I guess we may be kinda redundant if the posts are now being viewed before they're allowed up.

The comments boards were a little out of control before (which is why myself and two others stepped up to mod them), but it wasn't anything that was so offensive it would've been damaging to have up. (unless Matthew deleted any posts before I saw them) I didn't have to delete anything when I first signed on - just posted a reminder for people to be nice and it solved the problem. In the past week I've only had to delete two posts and that was because they were pure spam.

I'm not sure its necessary personally. I kinda liked the fact that the comments boards are instant and not as strict as the forums have to be. Though maybe there was another reason for doing it?

This is part of a new thing that Patrick is working on that's only half-done so far. Eventually, all users who are registered at the forums will be able to post news comments just by being logged in with their forum accounts, and those comments won't be screened for approval. Only non-members' comments will, so hopefully, it will encourage people to register and become more active at the forums as well as other parts of the site.

Well that sounds like a good idea Matt. I had a feeling there was something behind it. I know when I post on the boards mine goes through instantly.

this seems like a good idea because with out the comment moderation then there will be fighting and madness and everyone who comes to this site and see what epople wrote they would just leave but the whole point of this site is to become friends and talk about Harry potter.

i do think it is a good idea in order to keep the site clean and appropriate for all ages, but i also agree that it may put off new posters and old ones (the old ones are too used to the way it was).