Community Guidelines

Community Guidelines

Whether you’re new to Gizmodo Australia or a seasoned old-timer, here’s a handy reference on how to be an amazing commenter. It really boils down to this: Make a positive contribution to the community.

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What To Avoid

At Gizmodo Australia, we’ve renewed our commitment to fostering a thriving, fun and helpful community with a zero tolerance policy surrounding name-calling, personal attacks and threats (be they aimed at either readers or authors). We also have little patience for trolls and fanatical ‘fanboyism’.

We actively moderate comments and this involves removing inappropriate comments from the site. You as a user also have the responsibility to behave appropriately and the ability to flag inappropriate comments for review by our team.

On a case-by-case basis, repeat offenders may be banned either permanently or for a temporary period of time at the discretion of our editorial team.

This is your site. If you want something covered, contact us with a tip. If you don’t like something, drop a (respectful) comment into the story.

Personal Attacks

It’s quite alright to disagree with a post, content, or opinion—but there’s no reason to make it personal. No one’s asking you to write responses that begin with “dear sir, I beg your pardon, but my thoughts differ from yours,” but there’s also no need to write things like “you f-ing idiot, you’re wrong.”

Automatic Comment Approval

After creating a new commenting account, you’ll need to have a few comments manually approved by the editors before they appear on the site. After you’ve proved yourself a positive contribution to the community, your comments will be automatically approved. This is a privilege, not a right. For instance, being regularly down-voted by the community could affect your status. If you feel you’re being unfairly targeted, please contact us so we can investigate.

Multiple Comment Accounts

Using more than one site account as a ‘sockpuppet’ to vote on your own comments (or leave comments) is against the spirit of the community. If you feel you’re being unfairly targeted, please contact us so we can investigate.

Bullying

If you feel you’re being unfairly targeted, please contact us so we can investigate.

Accusations of Editorial Bias

Just because your favourite product, game or service wasn’t praised or awarded, we must be biased, right? False. It’s OK to disagree. All we ask is that you articulate your reasons for having a different opinion constructively and contribute to a lively but positive debate.

Yes, Gizmodo Australia features ads. But it’s not an editor’s role to look at the money side of the company, so they don’t. Their job is to build a community that has a productive discussion about technology, game culture and productivity. That’s where you come in.

Trolling

There are some people who get a kick out of baiting angry responses by writing some utter nonsense or playing the devil’s advocate to an extreme. Sometimes it’s unintentional and innocent, but we’ll begin to toss you out if we notice that it’s a pattern.

Obnoxious Corrections

We’re human—most of us at least—and we make mistakes. Sometimes grammatical, sometimes we can’t do maths. It’s OK to call it out. Just don’t insult our education or mothers while doing so.

Your Fast Track To Getting Moderated…Or Banned

  • “F-You [Author’s Name Here]” style comments. (Don’t like the author? Don’t click the story. Easy, right?)
  • Spam or malicious links
  • Revealing personal information (such as addresses, phone numbers, etc) of others
  • Graphic or disgusting descriptions about how the author makes you feel in your pants. No one wants to read that
  • Do not post threatening, harassing, defamatory, or libelous material.
  • Do not offer to sell or buy any product or service.
  • Do not post material that infringes copyright or any other intellectual property interest.
  • Do not post information that you know to be confidential or sensitive or otherwise in breach of the law.
  • Portraying any person in a negative light based on their age, colour, gender, national origin, physical or mental disability, race, religion or sexual preference
  • If you post racist, sexist, transphobic or otherwise bigoted comments, you will be banned

Action We Can Take

We have the right, but not the obligation, to take any of the following actions in our sole discretion at any time and for any reason without giving you any prior notice:

  • Restrict, suspend or terminate your access to all or any part of our Services;
  • Change, suspend or discontinue all or any part of our Services;
  • Refuse, move or remove any material that you submit to our sites for any reason;
  • Refuse, move, or remove any content that is available on our sites;
  • Deactivate or delete your accounts and all related information and files in your account;
  • Establish general practices and limits concerning use of our sites

Comment Removal Requests

It is our policy not to delete comment accounts in the vast majority of circumstances. So please note that once you post a comment to one of our sites, it becomes part of the public conversation. Our policy is that we will not remove a user’s comments unless we deem them to be in violation of the above Community Guidelines or our Terms of Use.

If you don’t want comments you make on this site to be linked directly to you, it is advisable that you use a username that does not identify you. We cannot remove your comments simply because you have a change of heart about making them. We will protect your contact information as described in our Privacy Policy.