On one of our websites, we encourage people to add their own comments
and stories about the collection, and specific objects in the
collection.
From the start of the project I made it clear that any comments are
welcome, and that we should only edit or moderate content that could be
seen as liabless (and so get the council into trouble) or is obvious
soliciting spam, (and so reduce the publics perception of the site) -
this is the only reason we would edit or moderate content.
So if someone adds a comment saying the object or objects are rubbish or
boring, then that's what I'd allow to be posted to the site. My opinion
on this is that for every negative comment - justified or not - it will
cause more positive or questioning responses from people. So actually a
negative comment is more likely to generate debate and response than
someone saying they 'like it because it's gold' or similar.
I know Martin Bazley from the e-learning group has a lot of
knowledge/opinion on this, and hopefully he will add comment later, as
in a way most of what I know believe about user generated response and
content comes from discussions with him at the early stage of our
project.
Peter
Peter Davies
Outreach Officer (City Museums)
tel: 01227 475 203
email: [log in to unmask]
website: www.favourite-things.org.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Joe Cutting
Sent: 01 March 2007 10:33
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: User Generated Content for Museums - policies
Terry,
>>
I'm currently working on a project with a consortium of national museums
and one of the purposes of the project is to explore the potential of
user generated content on partner websites. The need to ensure correct
procedures and policies for the use and control of this content has
become very obvious.
>>
The Science Museum has been running a system to collect visitor comments
and display them since 2000. All comments are pre-moderated and
moderators work to a set of guidelines, but unfortunately I don't have a
copy of guidelines. I'm not entirely sure who's the best person to
contact regarding this but you might want to try Emma Hedderwick.
I did find this set of guidelines on the BBC "Have your say" news forums
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4176520.stm
And there are also these for the BBC "DNA" community sites
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/hub/HouseRules
When you do come up with your policy document it would be great if you
could put it up the web somewhere - this UGC thing isn't going to go
away. If your institution makes this difficult, I'm happy to put it up
on mine.
All the best
Joe
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