Orbis is dedicated to publishing all comments submitted by its online readership and does not assume any responsibility for the contents or accuracy of comments submitted through the website. In order to facilitate the commenting process, spam will be deleted and the spammer's IP address may be permanently banned from posting.
A comment is classified as spam if it meets any of the following: -unintelligible -promoting a business, service, or product unrelated to the article -contains hyperlinks to substantially irrelevant websites -clearly is quoting another source verbatim without attribution -constitutes spam as determined by the website editor
Orbis will also remove comments that communicate serious threats of grave bodily or emotional harm and will notify the appropriate authorities of such threats.
Detailed Explanation from the Website Editor: A comment is classified as spam if it meets any of the following:
Unintelligible - Comments should generally be in English; if it’s a genuine comment in all other aspects, but not in English, I’ll probably post a translation within the original comment. Using numerous not widely-known/accepted acronyms without defining those acronyms also counts as unintelligible discourse. Finally, if your spelling and grammar are really off (to the point where it’s hard to tell what you’re saying), that is unfortunately (and rather literally) unintelligible.
Promoting a business, service, or product unrelated to the article - This is mostly for those Nigerian-style scams, and people trying to sell penile enhancement products. If promoting a business/service/product, it needs to be directly related to the article. For instance, an article on grocery stores doesn’t mean that a comment entirely about Dannon yogurt is relevant; for that same article, discussing the virtues of Kroger (should they have any) is acceptable.
Contains hyperlinks to substantially irrelevant websites - This is a problem for many commentators. Generally speaking, one hyperlink to just about any website on any subject matter that is tangentially related (even if remotely) is fine. If you’ve got a lot of hyperlinks in your comment, I’m going to get suspicious, and the more hyperlinks there are, the higher the standard that I’m going to apply as to whether it’s substantially irrelevant (read: unless it’s really compelling, try to stick to one hyperlink per comment). You’ll notice that there’s a field when you’re entering comments where you can enter “Reader’s Website.” If you do so, future online readers can click on your submitted name and it’ll take you to the website you submitted. I do often check hyperlinks to see where they end up; if my firewall is blocking it as a malicious website (meaning that the firewall thinks there is code or are applications that are going to try to mess with my registry files), I’m going to take a dim view of your hyperlink.
Clearly is quoting another source verbatim without attribution - Many commentators also run into a problem with this one. If I’m able to copy-and-paste a line from your comment into Google and get an exact match from a website where it seems unlikely that you were the author, that’s not a good sign. I realize that it’s fun and exciting to disseminate information you find (extremely) important, but do it in your own words or clearly cite that it’s coming from somewhere else (an acceptable use of hyperlinks). In addition, don’t falsely attribute quotes to sources (both within the text of your comment and when replying to other comments); saying the “The New York Times launched an investigation into whether Bush is really a Martian in disguise and reported, ‘Bush wears tinted contacts to hide his fiery orange Martian eyes’” is an example of falsely attributing quotes (although this one is funny and obviously false, so I would probably just let it be). If your privileged quoted information has arrived via secret email, you should state that so other commentators can judge the validity (and believability) of your information. It’s also nice if your entire comment isn’t just quotes from other sources, even if properly cited; I’ll usually let this one slide unless you start doing it repeatedly in other posts (see final criterion) and/or have really poor formatting skills (huge gaps of white space between paragraphs).
Constitutes spam as determined by the website editor - The nebulous category where draconian website editors can do whatever they please. That said, while I can be draconian, I generally look for a few things. If your email address and/or IP address have been blacklisted as a spammer’s address, that’s not good. I don’t compile these lists myself except for repeated spammers; if I can remember your IP address from my memory, it should be because you post amazingly brilliant and witty posts, not because I have to take a close look at your comment every single time you post. Your email address needs to be valid, and it needs to be permanent; those temporary and disposable email addresses aren’t going to cut it (and the domains are often blacklisted). If you feel a pressing need for anonymity, go ahead and create a Gmail/Yahoo/MSN email account to be used solely for Orbis posts. Similarly, your IP address shouldn’t be listed as a known proxy server. Nevertheless, fake email addresses and suspect IP addresses, in and of themselves, will not get your comment edited/deleted; it will cause me to further scrutinize your post.
Posting identical comments or nearly identical comments repeatedly is a big no-no (especially if they’re all coming from the same IP address) as is posting off-topic comments (not related to the article). Writing more than a word or two in ALL CAPS sets off the auto-spam filter on College Publisher so don’t do that (it’s more troublesome for me to go resurrect your comment); SCREAMING online can be an exhilarating and cathartic experience, but try to control yourself. It makes it harder for everyone else to read what you’re saying.
I don’t like racial or sexual epithets, and your comment will be deleted unless those epithets are the topic of the article. Repeatedly calling other commentators names and an overabundant use of obscene and naughty words is not advised.
Orbis will also remove comments that communicate serious threats of grave bodily or emotional harm and will notify the appropriate authorities of such threats - I shouldn’t really need to explain this one. Even if you’re joking, threatening harm to other commentators or to Orbis staff is not acceptable.
