Redaction on Fredericksburg Wiki

The standard policy for the Fredericksburg Wiki is that users are not permitted to edit the comments of other users. However, we also specify criteria for what is acceptable in postings on FredWiki.

When a user posts comments which violate the standards for acceptable material, a FredWiki Administrator or Senior Editor may either delete the entire post or may redact material from the post, replacing it with a " |...REDACTED...| " insertion.

REDACTED

REDACTED means that some segment of text in a Comment, or occasionally on a page revision has been deleted from some previous revision and replaced with the wiki link to this page in the form of

'''|... ["REDACTED"] ...|''' which might appears as:

some text may contain |... REDACTED ...| which is not appropriate

THE ISSUE

A comment contains clearly inappropriate, inflammatory, personal attack, intended to be hateful, or such things discussed elsewhere, but the comment otherwise has reasonable content. FredWiki's ADMIN's, WatchDogs, and other seasoned, active editors want to keep FredWiki up to standard and prevent problems, but must conform to stated philosophy, procedures, etc.

WHAT ARE THE FACTORS TO CONSIDER

  • The comment remains on the system in previous revisions for the very curious or investigatory to find. We have REVERT.
  • Search engines will only see the top level pages - so explicit or profane material in comments that has been either deleted or redacted will not impact on FredWiki search factors (or automated filters/profanity checkers)
  • Seems a bit much to delete a lot of appropriate material in a comment just because of one word, phrase or sentence that reeks of inappropriateness.
  • How does the user know that their comment has been deleted or redacted, and why.
  • How does the viewer know about deletion actions, which users have had deletion actions, etc
  • Is the action taken appropriate to the transgression and reinforce corrective action.

GOAL OF THE POLICY

The Policy should punish only the actual transgression, identify it to viewers, and give the offender the opportunity to replace the REDACTs with appropriate text. By giving the benefit of doubt to the offender and clearly identifying the offensive portion, we hope to substantially reduce tempers, drawn out discussions, edit wars, etc. Further it should give our viewers some relevant information about the offenders - a bit of Scarlet Letter (:>).

Our Policy

ADMINS and other specified contributors are authorized to, and will, remove inappropriate material from a comment by replacing the deleted text with a REDACTED notice  '''|...["REDACTED"]...|''' . The redaction may include all of the comment except the date and the posting user's link. Further, they will place a message on the posting user's User Page documenting the action.

For example 1: a changed comment might appear as:

2009-07-31 00:00:02   |...REDACTED...| Bliggity Bloggity Cafe easily has the best sandwich in Buffalo I would bet money on this fact! Over the years I have never had a bad meal and the service was always great! Usually I order the Reuben it's to die for I love this place and the best thing is the owner Bliggity always remembers just how I like it! I bet |...REDACTED...| was rude to Bliggity whom works very hard to make the food just right and doesn't deserve this type of treatment from anyone! I love you Bliggity Bloggity!!! :~) —umptysquat

- or worse case

2009-07-31 00:00:02   |...REDACTED...| —umptysquat

And - UmptySquat's User Page entry:

2009-07-31 12:00:00   Your comment on Bliggity Bloggity Cafe was REDACTED to remove personal attacks on another user." -SeniorEditor

Discussions

Please refer to our Talk Page for comments and discussion !!!

Footnotes

1. borrowed and edited from a RocWiki disputed comment

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