https://buyingforschools.blog.gov.uk/moderation-policy/
Moderation policy
We encourage and welcome open, lively debate, but the decision to publish comments received on our sites remains at our discretion.
The views expressed by any third parties are solely theirs and are not necessarily endorsed by the Department for Education (DfE). You must follow our guidelines when submitting comments.
We reserve the right to modify these guidelines at any time.
Moderation guidelines
We moderate all comments we receive.
This means that comments are not published instantly. They’re checked by moderators, Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:00. We aim to process comments as quickly as possible - and usually within 5 working days.
This is not about censoring your views. It’s to make sure that comments relate to the particular subject being discussed. Moderation will not be used to suppress legitimate, reasoned discussion.
About you
To contribute to this site you:
- need to be aged 16 or over, or have parental/guardian permission
- should be involved in buying at a school, Multi Academy Trust or local authority
- are not allowed to impersonate other people - either well-known people or other members of this site
What you post
We’ll normally approve comments for publication as long as they:
- are on-topic – do not post messages that are not related
- respect other people – comments should not be malicious or offensive in nature, and should not constitute a personal attack on a person’s character
- do not incite hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality or sexuality or any other personal characteristic
- do not reveal personal details, like private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details
- are reasonably concise, and do not constitute spamming of the site
- do not impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or organisation
- are not party-political in nature - this is a government website and comments used for party-political purposes can’t be published for propriety reasons
- do not include swearing, hate-speech or obscenity
- do not break the law – this includes libel, condoning illegal activity, and breaking copyright
- are in English – unfortunately, we do not currently have the resource to moderate comments in other languages
If your comment is a question or request for information that cannot be answered by the team who manage the blog, you may be advised to submit a question or freedom of information request via Contact DfE Department for Education - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) to ensure you receive an appropriate response.
Responding to comments
We read every comment and respond where and when we can. We make no commitment to respond to every individual comment.