Comments are now closed on this post,  if you wish to discuss these changes please e-mail lol@swt.org.uk

Dear bloggers,

As part of our aim to establish this blog as a place dedicated to wildlife and conservation, we’ve been giving careful thought to how we can best manage our blog.  We have decided to make a few changes which we hope will improve the experience for everyone using the blog, as well as allowing our staff to concentrate enough of their efforts on our important work to conserve Scotland’s wildlife for the future.  By making some alterations to the way the blog operates and with your help, we hope to reduce staff time currently taken up with moderation and see our blog focus on wildlife.

Aiming to make sure this blog remains a wildlife-focused blog and not a general discussion forum, we’ve decided to trial the following new system:

1)       Comments can now only be made within 48 hours of a blog post being added.  After this time, discussion on a particular blog post will close.

2)      It will no longer be possible to comment on comments made by others.  This facility is not one usually combined with a traditional blog and has been one of the reasons for some of the difficulties we have faced as we tried to develop our blog.  We’d like to encourage people to comment on blog posts to share their knowledge and enthusiasm on that subject, rather than have their own discussions with one another.

3)      In order to ensure we meet our other conservation objectives and keep our own blog posts relevant to wildlife and of the highest quality, we may be reducing how often we post.  Like any blog, we will still try to blog as often as possible, but we cannot guarantee this will be on a daily basis.

We hope you will understand and will bear with us as we continue the process of making our blog the best possible experience for everyone.