Fairfax tightens up their comments policy

Fairfax have announced new moderation rules for comments. They are not to :

* contain offensive language (including use of symbols);

* include personal attacks of any kind (including mocking other readers, or abusing Fairfax journalists or contributors);

* are likely to offend or target any ethnic, racial, nationality or religious group;

* are homophobic, transphobic, sexist, offensive or obscene;

* contain spam or include links to other sites;

* are clearly off topic;

* impersonate an individual or organisation, are fraudulent, defamatory of any person, threatening or invasive of another’s privacy or otherwise illegal;

* are trolling or threatening;

* infringe on copyrights or trademarks;

* are self-promoting;

* violate the law or breach court-ordered suppressions or have the potential to breach future suppressions; or

* constitute a contempt of court or that contain details of cases and individuals before the courts;

* violate our terms and conditions for user generated content;

* are too long (we recommend no more than approximately 200 words);

*promote, advertise or solicit the sale of any goods or services

* just generally aren’t very nice.

Most of them look sensible but some are rather subjective.