We’re thrilled (THRILLED, we tell ya!) that so many Burning Blog readers have taken the time to stop by and leave their thoughts on our posts so far, and we definitely want to encourage you to keep doing it. It’s been a great launch and we hope you’re enjoying it! At the same time, now that we have a little time under our blogging belts together, we wanted to focus on the Burning Blog Comments pages for a moment and share a few thoughts about how they are managed.
First, if you haven’t yet, please read our Burning Blog Comments Policy. We run a relatively tight ship here, with some pretty firm standards for maintaining a civil and on-topic discussion, reserving the more free-form open conversation for the ePlaya. We really do want every reader to understand the Comment Policy and how we will uphold it, so we would encourage you to take a moment to look at it today.
We also wanted to point out a few more comments-related items:
1. Comments are moderated according to the Comments Policy by members of the Burning Man staff on a regular (but maybe not always daily) basis. You, as a user, are responsible for educating yourself on that policy before you post. Thing is, the blog is the result of the efforts of many people, and we currently do not have the resources nor any technological mechanism to send a private email every time we moderate out a comment that violates the Comment Policy — so if you don’t see your comment go up within a few days to a week, you can assume we have reviewed it and determined it falls outside our policy and it won’t be posted. If that happens to you, read the Policy, rethink it, and try your comment again.
If your comment appears but then disappears after you saw it, it’s because another user used the tools available to report that comment to the Mods and it was deemed to be violation of the policy in our review. We will not be able to send you a message when this happens either, but again, feel free to rephrase and post again. Our hope is that by holding a very high standard before we moderate anything through, such surprises shouldn’t happen because other users won’t have to report nasty comments – we’ll have already caught them.
2. The authors and contributors you are responding to in the comments are not necessarily the same people as the Burning Blog moderation team — so they may or may not make return visits to the entry to engage in the comments dialogue with readers over time. Thus, it’s okay to ask questions within your comment, but do keep in mind that it would be unreasonable to expect that every staff member/contributor will return repeatedly to each post to engage in a personal dialogue or answer every direct question that comes up – in fact, they may never see your comment at all. If your comment is more than a comment, and you really do feel you need a reply to a burning question, try a visit to the On The Playa section to find an email contact for the specific team that would know your answer, or try questions@burningman.com for general information.
3. HOLY CANNOLI, IT’S AUGUST! And that means we’ll be heading to the playa in just a few short days, and response times for moderation may take longer than usual; some posts may be made with comments closed during known blackouts for moderator availability. Don’t worry – we’ll be posting from the playa with even more fresh and tasty Preparation information, and more inside looks from the building of BRC — and we’ll do our best to stay on top of the comments queue during our transition to the desert. Just be advised that your comments may take several days or more to appear during the peak moments of August and September.
Thanks – again – for your contributions to the Burning Blog…the man burns in (gulp!) 26 days!