In some (rare) circumstances a discussion on Live! may be marked as moderated. Messages posted to a moderated discussion will not appear until approved by an editor or moderator and may be deleted without being displayed.

We try to keep discussions completely open and unmoderated, however in certain circumstances it may be necessary to screen messages before they appear. Examples include:

• Defamatory statements being posted on a regular basis. To avoid being sued, we might switch to moderated mode rather than shutting down the discussion completely.
• An article which is deemed likely to result in posts of questionable legality appearing.
• A persistent spam attack. A large number of older articles had their discussions locked during 2005 due to spam appearing - we would now switch to moderation instead (if they beat the spam filter!).