Procedure
The ALRC welcomes your participation in its various online consultations. To ensure that your contributions meet legal requirements and the discussion stays on track, all comments posted to public blogs, forums and the website generally will be moderated by the ALRC before publication, according to the Protocols for Participation.
Comments that do not comply with the Protocols for Participation, below, may not be published.
If a username is deemed to be offensive, inflammatory or otherwise inapporpiate, the username and the comments will not be posted.
As a general rule, comments and posts will not be edited, particularly not for spelling or grammatical errors, nor for quality of thought or argument. Comments may be edited to protect the privacy of an individual or organisation and/or to protect from potential defamation, in which case a name or comment may be removed by the moderator and replaced with an ellipsis.
Users of the website should anticipate a delay between submission and publication of comments to allow for moderation. Publication of comments will not be immediate. The ALRC undertakes to moderate all comments within 1 hour of receipt, during work hours.
During moderation, comments are kept in a secure database accessed only by the ALRC and its appointed representatives.
Protocols for participation
The intent of the Protocols for Participation is to create a positive environment where people are able to publicly contribute their views to ALRC blogs, forums and websites, in the spirit of promoting respectful relationships, without fear of abuse or harassment or exposure to offensive or otherwise inappropriate content, and protecting the operators of the blogs, forums and websites from legal liability.
Commenting in ALRC forums and blogs is like having a conversation or speaking at a physical meeting, so normal social conventions apply. Help us to keep the conversation on topic by being polite, constructive and respectful of others.
By contributing to ALRC forums and blogs, you:
- give permission for your comments to be posted on the site and affirm that your comments represent your own work and do not infringe on the copyright of any other individual or organisation
- acknowledge that your comments will be subject to moderation by ALRC moderators before publication and therefore the publication of comments will not be immediate
- acknowledge and give permission for your comments to be used, without personal identification, by the ALRC for any purpose
- acknowledge all material on this site is subject to copyright. For more information, view the Copyright Notice.
When contributing your views to ALRC forums, blogs and websites, please ensure that you:
- do protect your personal privacy and that of others by not including personal information about yourself or others in your comments (such as names, email addresses, private addresses or phone numbers)
- only post material to the forum that is directly relevant to the issues being consulted on
- only represent your own views and do not impersonate or falsely represent any other person
- do not post material to the forum that infringes the intellectual property rights of others
The ALRC will not publish comments that:
- abuse, harass or threaten others; racially or religiously vilify others; incite, induce or aid violence, discrimination, harassment, victimisation or hatred towards others; are likely to offend, insult or humiliate others, particularly on the basis of their race, colour, descent, national origin, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation or any disability
- are defamatory or libellous
- use insulting, provocative or hateful language
- use obscene or offensive language
- infringes the intellectual property rights of others
- are multiple versions of the same view
- promote commercial interests
- include internet addresses, videos, or images (except in special circumstances, at the discretion of the ALRC)
- that include any email addresses
- promote personal professional interests
- are overtly party political (e.g. reference to candidates, fundraisers, support for political parties)
- incite, encourage or make reference to conduct that may constitute a criminal or civil offence or otherwise violate Australian law.
Comments that do not comply with these protocols will not be published.