Chatbox on AudlemOnline

The chatbox system on AudlemOnline is designed to allow our readers to exchange questions, information and reasonable comment.

We have recently received a spate of malicious, incorrect or downright rude entries to the chatbox, which, in our opinion, go well beyond the bounds of reasonable comment or criticism.

Several of these messages turned out to be from spurious e-mail addresses, sometimes even pretending to be from somebody else. This seems to us to be entering the unacceptable areas of social media.

The editorial team have neither the time nor the expertise, to try to check these messages with their apparent authors. We would suggest that if you want to publish this sort of thing, then go and find another platform – it is not for AudlemOnline.

One option we have would be to close chatbox down altogether, but we still think that used sensibly it has a role to play that is worth preserving.

So we are going to adopt a new, stronger, chatbox strategy from here on in – if we are in any doubt about the source of the message, or we think that it is malicious or critical beyond a reasonable point, we will simply not publish it.

The Editors decision will be final.