We are nearing the two month point for this blog. Since embarking on this voyage on Sept. 29, our readership has steadily grown. With many new readers, and new participants in social media writ large, I thought it would be a good opportunity to reiterate our comment policy. That policy is available below. It also pops up any time you go to make a comment.
One of the most compelling aspects of social media is that it provides a forum for two-way communication, a great benefit for an organization like the Coast Guard that strives to maximize organizational transparency. To date we have received 198 comments, only eight of which have not been published. Of those, five were rejected because they did not relate to the topic of the post; two were not published because they were disrespectful to specific individuals or named employees; One was not published because it discussed specific details relating to an actual civil rights complaint. On several other occasions we made exceptions to our policy by editing submitted comments so that they could still be published, rather than rejecting them out right. In those cases, it was made clear that the moderator had edited the comment and why.
As I stated in an earlier post summarizing the first week of iCommandant: Our position as a public agency requires that I maintain a certain level of decorum on this public forum, thus some moderating is necessary. My goal is to keep this moderation transparent and as limited as possible to encourage dialogue and input.
Note: An upcoming post will highlight examples of how your comments have influenced the dialogue.
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iCommandant Comment Policy:
"All comments submitted are moderated and will be reviewed before posting. The Coast Guard retains the discretion to determine which comments it will post and which it will not. We expect all contributors to be respectful. We will not post comments that contain personal attacks of any kind; refer to Coast Guard or other employees by name; contain offensive terms that target specific ethnic or racial groups, or vulgar language. We will also not post comments that are spam, are clearly off topic or that promote services or products.
We will make our best effort to promptly post those comments that are consistent with the Comment Policy, but given the need to manage federal resources, moderating and posting of comments will occur only during regular business hours, Monday through Friday. Comments submitted outside of business hours will be read and posted as quickly as possible."
