Southwest Airlines’ Paula Berg just wrapped up a talk on the “Nuts About Southwest” blog, one of the really excellent examples of a company blog. Paula noted that she and three other members of the blog team moderate comments; she listed a number of criteria for comments that don’t make it, including specific customer service issues and politically incorrect meanderings.

Wisely, Southwest lists those criteria under its “User’s Guide.

That’s great, but I like the idea of putting these guidelines on the comment page itself, which is what GM does on its Fastlane blog. Many readers who opt to comment will never click to a discrete page containing your moderation policy, but it’s entirely likely they’ll see that policy if it appears right where they enter the comment. It can reduce the risk of somebody accusing you of censorship when their comment doesn’t appear and they don’t know why.