Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Normal transmission is about to be resumed.

Webdiary returns, in fighting trim for an interesting 2009.

... Webdiary and its moderators are off on a frolic, chilling, recharging, what you will.

We won't be publishing any new articles from 22 Dec through to the first week in January. Most editors are away / out of net contact, so comment publishing will also be intermittent. Have a good time doing other things (as we intend to) !

Webdiary is an open community site. With very limited exceptions set out in the Editorial Policy page, we publish every comment we receive that is coherent/comprehensible and not abusive to others. If you think the balance of the comments submitted has veered away from your position to the left, right, up or down, thensubmit some comments on the other side: what we won't do is start censoring comments simply to 'balance the debate'. We leave that up to you.

Similarly, unlike sites who moderate comments after first publication, we don't remove comments after they are published, unless a strong case is made out that they are abusive or against editorial policy and should not have been published. In the first ten months of 2006, we removed only two comments on those grounds. [Whereas the Guardian estimates that it removes up to 25% of all comments submitted to its Comment Is Free site after they are reported as offensive or unsuitable.] So, if you think a claim or reference in another comment is factually inaccurate, write in to say so (preferably with backing references to your view). We don't have time to fact-check everything, and anyway in many cases there are strong views and references on both sides of a dispute or debate.

Webdiary technical problems: It turns out that the database was deliberately suspended by our internet host (OnSmart) because of the load it was imposing on their server: they didn't, however, bother to tell us this until today (Tuesday). Unsurprisingly, we will be looking at moving to another hosting provider as soon as possible.

Webdiary apologises for the problems we are currently experiencing with comments.  Our tech team is currently working on a solution and we hope to have the problem fixed soon.

SQL DB repaired.

Details on how the comments box works, and what happens when we edit / moderate comments

We do not store details about you on this site unless you register to make comments. Any details you may supply in respect of payments, donations etc are not stored on this site or in any place accessible to the public.

If you register to make comments, your e-mail address is retained by us so that we can communicate with you in respect of site content. We will not supply that address to any other parties, and it is only available on this site to authorised editors. Your complete registration record is available to be viewed by you online at all times. No other personal data on you whatsoever is retained by us.

A reminder that we move to the new site over the next two days. Comments boxes have been progressively closed over today, so that we don't lose any content when we make the transfer. This site will be open to read, but not comment, until the new site opens. www.webdiary.com.au will take you to whichever site is the current one!  David Roffey, GM Webdiary

Update 7pm 13/12/05: All comment boxes now closed. See you on the new site!