A Commenter’s Rights

When you leave a comment on a comment, how often do you wonder what your rights are? Not too often, I’d guess. Over the years, it has become an accepted fact that content contributed to a website simply belongs to that website. If the website, or blog for today’s web, goes away then all of your contributions disappear along with it.

A real world analogy would be sending in letters or artwork to a magazine. There’s usually that disclaimer which says the publication can do whatever with your submission. And, of course, they can’t return anything to you. It belongs to the magazine now.

A different view

The landscape, however, is somewhat changing. It wasn’t too long ago that big media began to realize that they need to embrace their audiences. One dimensional publication became two dimensional and refocused around users, the people that consume and contribute. Leaving comments has become more than just simple responses. Many are very long and well thought out. They’ve essentially become blog posts left on others’ blogs.

Do comments need to solely belong to the blog on which it sits on? I’m not so sure it does. Comments are, in some way, the currency in which bloggers are paid for their posts. Bloggers want to encourage active discussions on their site. A way to encourage discussion is to give the participants more control of their contributions.

This blog post is largely inspired by Hank Williams’ blog post which asks, Who has comment copyright ownership? Hank makes the point that blog platforms and services such as Disqus should make this clear for both bloggers and the people who comment. I agree.

Rights and Control

So what are a commenter’s rights? I’m going to make an initial attempt to materialize what some rights should be.

a) The ability to edit and remove their comments
b) Access to all of their comments, even if it has been deleted on a blog
c) The right to use their own comments as blog posts. After all, a commenter is just a publisher not writing on his own website.
d) A life for the comment beyond a single blog. I want to take my comments with me, even if the blog shuts down.

This may seem threatening to the publisher, but it really isn’t. A commenter should have rights to what they post, but bloggers should still have control over content that appear on their blogs. Bloggers should still control:

a) Whether or not someone is allowed to comment on his blog
b) The deletion of a comment
c) The modification of a comment, as long as the original copy is still accessible and the edit is transparent

Ownership

All of this may result in some ambiguous notion of shared ownership between commenters and bloggers. This needs to be clarified somehow, preferably with the cooperation of all the companies and services doing things in this area.

Tool and Platform

I don’t want us to be hypocritical. We’ve heard the charges: our platform is proprietary and we store comments on our server. This is true. However, we’ve embraced openness from the start with our API and willingness to open up our platform to anyone to build on. We’ve spent some time thinking about where to go from here and we’ve come up with something that could be great. I won’t talk about it now, but I can say that it involves everyone playing nicely together, including our competitors.

Regarding ownership, I want to make it clear that Disqus does not want to own your comments, whether you are a blogger using Disqus or a reader commenting on this system.

We position ourselves as two things: a tool and a discussion platform. I call it a platform because people are using what we’ve built to create new tools for conversation. This excites us over here.

This platform is moving toward openness. I feel this will help us succeed as a company. Disqus began to solve problems of fragmentation and we don’t want to create further fragmentation by being closed. We will come out on top because our tools and products will be better, not because the platform is locked.

Moving forward

We have learned a lot in the recent months. The next major updates to Disqus will explicitly address a number of these issues right in the service itself, including a clarification of a commenter’s rights in our policy.

This is only a first draft to solicit some thoughts. Fred Wilson recognized it as a straw man proposal. He’s right. We want to generate discussion and ideas. What do you think? Whether you blog, comment, or both: what is important to you?

Daniel on May 30th 2008 in disqus

  • I'd add that the publisher should have a syndication option for the comments. In other words, the publisher should get a non-exclusive, free right to syndicate all the comments along with the original blog post. A conversation and the corresponding blog post should always be able to go hand in hand.
  • Excellent point and a good way of articulating it.
  • ooh, that's a good and necessary one. great suggstion andrew
  • Another question I have is: What is the social contract b/w people that comment on a blog post out of context and the original author?

    For example, *every* single comment on HN (or Digg or whatever)? Especially the ones that are ott flames in context?

    In lieu of the i/o plumbing that I'm sure is in the near future, do commentators owe the author at least a "heads up" that there's another convo happening, especially if there's serious criticism being leveled?
  • Agree, but your context is important to single out. "syndication along with the original post". I'm also interested in the rights to employ the comments for other uses. I'm thinking of a variety of aggregation and re-publishing models:
    - aggregation of comments into rating schemes or sentiment
    - culling comments together from multiple blogs/sites
    - zaget style "extraction from comments"
    - organizing posts by individual contributor, or other factors
    - repackaging comments into "SEO pages" (An increasing Yelp habit to improve their SE visibility

    Any added thoughts?
  • Great work on pulling this together. Bringing clarity to this issue can help prevent a lot of frustration down the road.

    I think the real world equivalent is more like ownership of ideas and comments made at conferences & cocktail receptions.

    Does the hotel hosting a conference retain rights to the content presented? Does the conference organizer? Or does the presenter of the session? Or the audience member who made it?

    How can we help turn this straw man into cast iron?
  • I think that the key here is that one is verbal and the other is written. There seems to be an opinion that once pen is put to paper (even figuratively as in the case of blog comments) a whole different set of rules come into play.
  • Any recorded comment - whether spoken or written - is open to fair use. Digital media seems to be an amalgamation of both, given the written form and the fluidity of digital.

    However we proceed - universal code or not - I just want to know how each discussion forum (spoken, hard copy, or digital) will treat my contributions. With an upfront, well communicated policy, we can all decided whether or now we want to share our thoughts in that space or not.
  • i always thought of it as shared ownership but after reading this I think you are right. the commenter "owns" the comment and has the right to edit it, delete it, and take it with them wherever else they want it to go. The publisher/blogger owns the right to publish it for free on their service and to delete it if they choose.

    third party comment systems like yours and others makes this easier and that's a good thing.
  • I think any article on the internet should be able to be used by anyone.
  • Usually this is the case, but you should always remember to link back and give credit to the original author.
  • Once posted the content is under control of bog owners ! To many restrictions slow down the process
  • Sorry to be pedantic but if and when you do produce a policy on this, I think it would sound a lot better if you replaced all the 'he' and 'his' references with 'he/she' and 'his/her', or even 'they' and 'theirs'- it just struck me while reading this post that implying that all writers and commenters are male seems a bit dated.
  • It is probably dated. Using "he" for ambiguous pronouns was the
    grammar I was taught in school. Just sayin'. :)

    More formal writing is used in the actual policies.
  • Good stuff :)
  • One thing I can say clearly as a blog owner, is that I don't want my commenters to be able to modify their comments once they're posted (say, after the first 15 minutes to correct typos). I'd like the commenting system I use to allow me to enforce that, and it would keep me from using disqus on my blog instead of the standard wordpress commenting system if it didn't.
  • One thing that does not appear to have been mentioned - with respect to the right of a commenter to delete his own comment - is that once a comment has been made, other comments might be made on that comment. If the comment is then deleted, all the rest of the comments might be out of context and the conversation ruined. As a commenter, what about my right not to look like a retard if someone deletes a comment that I have commented on and then there's me, with some inane, out-of-context free-floating comment that doesn't make sense now?

    I don't think commenters should be able to edit or delete after a certain typo-edit period. The blogger and the other commenters have rights too.
  • I agree here. I dislike the idea of breaking a conversation. Isn't it better to give the commenter the ability to correct using another comment? Like a newspaper or magazine that runs a correction? Another option is some type of place-holder where that comment once existed to indicate the flow of conversation has been edited in some way.
  • Daniel, are you planning on getting the rest of the comment system companies (Intense Debate, SezWho, etc.) involved in this discussion? Its something that should be accepted across the board, rather than just by Disqus.

    We did something similar at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education with a Donor's Bill of Rights (http://www.case.org/Content/AboutCASE/Display.c...), which was endorsed by a group of folks.
  • I do hope to involve anyone to which this applies.
  • Something like this can only be affective if its accepted by all. I applaud you for taking the lead in this.

    I wonder if there is a larger bill of rights that should be discussed as there are more publisher addons than ever before.
  • >> I wonder if there is a larger bill of rights that should be discussed as there are more publisher addons than ever before.

    Great minds think alike, friend. We've been talking abut that larger case before this particular "commenter" issue came up. The concept is still early, but we want to get as many pertinent minds involved as possible. Maybe you'd be up to chat about this.
  • We should have a summit! But yes Lijit and I would love to expand the discussion.
  • Let's do it. Sorry I missed you in SF this weekend. I'm about to pass
    out because I only had 3 hours of sleep in the last couple days.
  • I have heard of at least one instance where a blogger got into trouble with authorities because of a comment posted on his blog. This the answer? Very probably.
  • can i invest ? :)
  • It would be interesting to see what type of boundaries and limitations Disqus has in store when it comes to "editing" the comments. This is a topic that needs to be thought about thoroughly. The statements prior seem promising. However, they will be promising based upon again the editing mechanism Disqus comes up with if they do choose to take this path.

    I'm glad Disqus is looking to the public for information and advice regarding a gray area. After all these are the people (bloggers/commenters) who will be using the tool.
  • Interesting conversation.

    I don't think the commenter should have the right to edit or delete their comments. That's like changing history...
  • I would have to disagree with this on one minor technicality. If this statement is true:...

    "c) The modification of a comment, as long as the original copy is still accessible and the edit is transparent"

    ...then the original comment would stay intact, right? So the history is still there after the comment is edited.

    Let's say hypothetically we're all eating around the dinner table and I blurt out "these mashed potatoes are horrible". Later I feel bad for saying the mashed potatoes are horrible so I fine tune my statement to say "these mashed potatoes taste different, they're not exactly like mom used to make".

    The "history" of my first comment is still there, so it's not changed totally. Having said that I think when it comes to "rights" as the term is used so loosely I would err on the side of giving the content creator the ultimate right to delete or edit the comment in any way they wish. After all, first comes the content and the commentary comes as a result of the content. Let's not get that part twisted.
  • agreed!
  • whatever chartreuse says guys...goes!

    I think chartreuse would be the right next hire for disqus as conversation evangelist. not joking.
  • Howard Lindzon. Best. Financial. Adviser. Ever. :)
  • David Gibbons
    Chartreuse hits the nail on the head. Why would you allow anyone to change history?

    The initial assumption here is incorrect; comments are not blog posts. Never will be. I certainly agree that *some* comments can stand alone and that those could be re-posted on blogs though I would caution bloggers that you don't win too many friends when you seek to control a productive discussion by hijacking it onto your blog. 'nuff said on that topic. It's certainly a comment author's right to republish their comment and "blog this comment" is a feature disqus should probably consider adding.

    A comment is a part of a conversation. Altering a comment alters the conversation. The conversation does not 'belong' to the person that left the comment. Allowing users to remove or edit their part of a discussion will take you on a short-trip to moderator hell in a vibrant community (I learned this the hard way.) I personally believe the best implementation allows comments to be edited (for typo's etc.) only within a limited window of time (say, 10 min's) and thereafter, edits are disabled.

    I was a fan of disqus but honestly, with this post, you've lost my trust. Disqus has an obvious bias for controlling comment content and that bias dents your credibility in this discussion; please reconsider your position on this issue.
  • I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. I read this comment and I agree with what you said.

    >> I personally believe the best implementation allows comments to be edited (for typo's etc.) only within a limited window of time (say, 10 min's) and thereafter, edits are disabled.

    Yes, there should be (and are, with Disqus) limits around editing.

    >> Disqus has an obvious bias for controlling comment content and that bias dents your credibility in this discussion

    Did you read the blog post? I'm not being snarky as it's a serious question. It was stated repeatedly that we don't need to control the content to achieve our goals for the service.

    >> please reconsider your position on this issue

    What position? We never stated a position. I wrote about some thoughts I had to provoke an interesting discussion on where this could head.
  • speaking to Fred's point re ownership, to lawyer it up, you're suggesting that the commenter retains copyright in the comment and grants the publisher/blogger a license to utilize the comment on the blog (as opposed to being a granted a license to commercialize the comments in some other way).

    With regard to efliv, I think that a 'either 'publish in entirety or delete' choice to publisher's is extreme. What is nefarious in editing for brevity or grammer or spelling (if indicated).

    Technological Question: how can the commenter edit the comment once its been published on someone else's blog? How can they access it if the blogger shuts down?
  • re: questions

    Editing is entirely up to the capabilities of the blogging software, and the discretion of the blogger. Most of the big packages (eg, wordpress) provide this capability.

    If the blog is shut down, comments go away. There are a couple of work arounds -- one is to use a third party service like Disqus which will (hopefully) be around for a long time. Another is to keep a backup of your own comments ... which is a pretty tedious prospect.
  • A third party, intermediary platform such as Disqus.

    I know that sounds convenient for us, but hey, I believe in what we do.
  • The very fact that print publications feel the need to explicitly state the disclaimer that anything you write to them becomes their property implies, to me, that the default position is that the author of those comments (or letters to the editor) actually maintains ownership over the contents. The fact that it has become so commonplace for publishers to require that correspondents surrender their claims, does not change the legality.

    Is there anybody in this discussion who actually has any expertise in the legalities in this matter? Not that what is legal really changes what *ought* to be, but it helps to set a foundation from which we can derive the appropriate deltas to get to where people *want* to be.

    Back to the current train of thought, I think the person who wishes to maintain close ownership of his comments will actually post them on his own property (i.e., blog) and then link back to them. The person who jumps into the fray on somebody else's property (the blog hosting the comments) is agreeing to whatever terms that host has established for the ownership of such content.

    The technology ought to allow both approaches to be treated as first-order participants in the conversation.
  • Yes, that's the way to do it now. Just post to your own blog.

    But some don't maintain a blog or would like to directly participant
    in the discussion on the blog. I'm not a lawyer and I'd like to hear
    more about the legalities.
  • I like the idea of a blog being common ground between the blogger and the commenter. I agree that commenters should generally have the full capability to edit and delete their comments, but I think it's key that the creator of the blog have final say on how the blog operates.

    It seems like there's two things that are needed to get traction --

    First is a simple way for the blogger to signal to commenters what the policies are for the blog, something similar to the Creative Commons icons that quickly and clearly conveys a mix of capabilities and responsibilities.

    Second is to continue promoting this discussion. It seems like a no brainer for the majority of people who participate in online communities, but I hadn't really *thought* about it until I ran across this discussion.

    I'm glad Disqus is raising the issue. :)
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