User-Generated Content Moderation

Web communities can be a wonderful place and a haven. However, as with any community, it can also attract the wrong crowd who can spoil the fun for everyone else. To ensure a safe, high-quality, and enjoyable experience for all PoetrySoup members, we moderate user-generated content. As part of our moderation process, we delete user-generated content that does not adhere to our Terms and Conditions.

See also: About PoetrySoup | Privacy Statement | Terms and Conditions

Automated Monitoring Processes

PoetrySoup uses an automated moderation process to ensure poems, comments, blogs, forum posts and all user-generated posts do not contain specific derogatory terms. This automatic process is run every 5 minutes and deletes poems and comments that do not adhere to our Terms and Conditions. This automated process does not inform offenders of their deleted posts.

Poetry Forum

Only internal links are allowed on our Poetry Forum. Thus, you cannot post links to external websites or websites other than PoetrySoup.com. We run an automated process which removes external links every 5 minutes. 

Member Moderation

PoetrySoup relies heavily on loyal members to assist with the moderation process. For example, user-generated poems have a "report" link that members can use to make sure that PoetrySoup staff is aware of the inappropriate content. PoetrySoup then reviews the reported content to see if it indeed does violate our Terms and Conditions. We identify and remove offensive material, which keeps your website community safe and positive.

Multilingual Content Moderation

We currently do not provide content moderation for languages other than the English language.

Isn't Moderation a Violation of Free Speech

The US Constitution and first amendment protect people from the state or government censoring their opinions, faiths, etc. It does not include private institutions. The US Constitution is not meant to protect people from website admins who decide that you have violated their terms of use.

PoetrySoup is a privately held website/company and has the right to restrict content; like any other business. For instance, if you work for a soft drink company, they have the right to force you not to reveal their soft drink formula to another company. Simply put, private organizations such as newspapers, magazines, and websites may make their own rules about what they will or will not permit.