Are freedom of speech rights different than wp.org?

  • Unknown's avatar
    sergiozambrano · Member ·

    I just read that wordpress.com team honors freedom of speech rights, and don’t shut-down people as far as they don’t violate the terms of service.

    I’m sure in those terms of service say that WordPress.com has the last word when it comes to disagreements, so anyone reporting bugs or discussing his point of view about a feature request could be shut down in the forums.

    I’ve been blocked and systematically shut up in wp.org forums for the above reasons, so they either play with a different standard or the terms or service agreement of wp.com rule different, unlike wp.org which seem to rule over freedom of speech.

    Can you clarify?
    I might be not fully right, but I can’t be completely wrong.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    thesacredpath · Member ·

    For a statement from wordpress.com on freedom of speech, see here: http://en.wordpress.com/freedom-of-speech/ .

    This being a hosting service though, you also need to review the Terms of Service here and also the forum code of conduct.

    There is no real connection between wordpress.com and wordpress.org. WordPress.com is a commercial venture of Automattic. WordPress.org is a foundation that develops and supports the Open Source wordpress software. Yes, the founder of wordpress.ORG and the wordpress foundation is one of the head honchos at Automattic (Matt Mullenweg).

    I guess the above is a long way of saying that wordpress.ORG and wordpress.COM set their own rules as far as the forums and such.

    If you get seriously snarky, or you start tossing around profanity in posts here, or start flame-baiting people, you could get yourself at least a short timeout, and you could get banned for longer, or for good (see code of conduct). Staff are the ones that make that decision.

  • Unknown's avatar
    thesacredpath · Member ·

    I’ll also tag this for staff attention and hopefully someone will respond shortly.

  • staff-blorbo · Staff ·

    I think thesacredpath summed it up much better than I can.

    Freedom of Speech is supported throughout WordPress.com, but to keep the WordPress.com forums a family friendly place, we do have a barely restrictive and mostly common sense code of conduct.

    As long as you don’t break our terms of service, you can say whatever you want to on your WordPress.com blog.

    As long as you don’t break our forums code of conduct (and/or terms of service), you can say whatever you want to on our WordPress.com forums.

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