Dear readers:
This comment policy has been amended numerous times since we began in October 2012. We have tweaked it and added to it as commenters have continued to push the boundaries of civility and good taste – and, frankly, libel and slander.
Our goal is to provide a forum for information and a healthy exchange of ideas – constructive, informative, entertaining or all of the above. We pride ourselves in providing an online venue where intelligent, mature people can debate, suggest, converse and exchange ideas without wading through the muck found on many sites.
Because, as we enter campaign season, we are seeing an increase in slime showing up in the comments, we are redefining and tightening our policy and lowering our tolerance level.
We encourage:
- Adding information to the post. If you know something we don’t, please do share it!
- Updates. We don’t live in a static world. Updating info helps everyone.
- Opinions: Like, say, noses, everyone has one. Feel free to share yours, but please be respectful.
In a perfect world, the next set of items would not be necessary. Unfortunately, not everyone can play nice with others:
- This is something every child in the U.S. is being taught: Do not insult, bully, threaten or harass the writers or your fellow commenters. Continued violators will be banned.
- Offensive, inappropriate or annoying comments – basically, being a troll – may be deleted or subjected to distempering. Trolls will be banned.
- Character assassination by innuendo will not be tolerated and will result in a loss of comment privileges.
- Parenting, physical characteristics, children, marital relationships, interpersonal relationships — other than as they pertain to official duties or documented, proven illegalities — are not public business and will not be allowed and will result in a loss of comment privileges.
- Spam once, you are gone. This means junk comments, promotional copies or attachments.
- Sock puppets – alias accounts created by previously banned commenters or by commenters who are seeking third-party approval the easy way – will be banned.
- Racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic or otherwise offensive comments will be deleted. Continued violators will be banned.
- Creativity is a wonderful thing, but finding creative ways to try to avoid getting flagged for policy violations is not cool. Comments will be deleted.
- Please don’t include e-mail addresses, physical addresses, or phone numbers in your comments for the purpose of self-promotion, or for the purpose of harassing or publicly exposing the private data of others. Such comments will be redacted or removed.
- The game of trying to guess – or making assertions – about the identities of posters using screen names has gotten old and annoying, and it is most often wrong or unverifiable. Further, it is harmful to the discourse, and potentially libelous. We will no longer allow it. Comments that try to “out” another commenter will be disallowed, and the commenter will be placed on moderation.
- Language, folks. Keep it clean. People of all ages and sensitivities read this news site, and many are offended or should not be exposed to foul, vulgar or crass language.
We make mistakes. We want to fix them.
- We welcome alerts about typos, incorrect names, factual errors, and the like.
- We generally do not correct quoted text.
- Allegations of factual errors will be corrected at the editor’s discretion if verifiable documentation is available.
- Requests for credit or attribution may be honored at the editor’s discretion if verifiable documentation is submitted.
Send an email to News@NancyOnNorwalk.com if you think a comment is offensive or breaks the above rules.
We reserve the right to modify the rules. Continual violators will be banned from commenting.
Comments represent the opinion of the commenter and the commenter alone. NancyOnNorwalk and Chapman Hyperlocal Media Inc. take no responsibility for opinions or the veracity of statements made by commenters on this website.
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