As is common on websites with a comments section, the user feedback on this site is moderated. Submitted comments may be held in a pending state until one of the site moderators takes a look at it and decides on whether or not to publish it for public viewing. In addition, published comments may later be deleted. We thought we should explain why some make the cut and others do not.
Let’s start with the least likely and most likely to get published.
The first and easiest comments to eliminate from contention to be published are the ones that are considered “Spam” or offensive. I don’t think I even need to go into the reasons for these. Only FortiGuard enjoys getting spam, and that’s to analyze its content for malware. Offensive comments have no place on our cookbook site.
The comments section for articles on the site are for feedback, requests for more content, or questions about the topic of the article or recipe. Comments can also enhance the article by answering questions or providing additional content that may be helpful to subsequent readers. The two principle criteria for making sure a comment is retained is to have it be on topic and have it be specific. A specific question about the topic of the article that you comment on in the best way to ensure that the comment will be addressed and no removed.
While we like comments that tell us how great an article or our site is, we also appreciate constructive criticism. The important word in the phrase being “constructive”. No writer is perfect and occasionally, readers see ways to improve our documentation. If you do see something like this, you are encouraged to let us know. We happily take any suggestions we can use to make ourselves look like we’re smarter and better writers than we actually are. But again, specifics help. It does nobody any good to say an article is horrible if there is no reason why it’s horrible. In a case like this, the comment is likely to be removed because it doesn’t help us improve the article and it doesn’t provide any new or usable information to subsequent readers. On the other hand, if someone comments that an article is incorrect and should instead be (fill in correct information here), that information is useful and actionable. It can be used to improve the article. You are likely to be thanked. But please, don’t use words like “horrible”. Writers have feelings too.
Sometimes, people wish to leave comments on the products themselves. These can be problematic if they are not relevant to the article itself. If the comment is something that can help users make use of the product, we will consider keeping it on a case by case basis. If the comment is constructive but not applicable to the documentation, it may be deleted but the feedback will be forwarded to the appropriate people.
The last broad category is comments that are off on a tangent or completely unrelated to the article. The information may well be useful, but if the subject is so far removed from the topic of the article, readers who would find the information useful will have no way to find it and it will likely be a distraction to readers who are interested in the topic of the article. Unless the comment somehow touches on something that would be useful to readers of the article, this sort of feedback will likely be removed. If you can, find a more appropriate article to make the comment.
As mentioned before, at times, comments may get removed. The two most likely causes for this are that the user’s feedback has been incorporated into the article itself and the comment will just confuse readers because it refers to an aspect of the article that is no longer there or the information in the comment is no longer relevant.
This is a corporate web site rather than a public forum. While we wish to be as fair and inclusive to everybody’s feedback as possible, we do have the final say on what appears on our site. Our primary objective is to promote the intent and purpose of the site, which is to provide useful information and knowledge regarding the use and maintenance of the discussed Fortinet products. If your comment was not published or later removed, chances are it didn’t or no longer furthered that agenda.
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