A: Community and Commenting Guiding Principles
ScooNews has a thriving user community and encourages commenting on news stories and blog posts. We are dedicated to maintaining a respectful, engaging and informative conversation. Towards that end, we have basic ground rules for commenting to maintain a civil atmosphere. If you wish to participate in the community, we ask that you follow the ground rules below and the spirit of the community they seek to create.
(I) If your comments make this community a less civil and enjoyable place to be, you and your comments may be excluded from it.
ScooNews promotes a receptive, transparent and civil atmosphere for comments and users. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to voice their opinion regardless of identity, politics, ideology, religion or agreement with other community members, the author of the post or staff members as long as those opinions are respectful and constructively add to the conversation. However, this community does not tolerate direct or indirect attacks, name-calling or insults, nor does it tolerate intentional attempts to derail, hijack, troll or bait others into an emotional response. We reserve the right to remove these types of comments where warranted. Individuals who consistently or intentionally post these types of comments may lose their ability to comment and, if we deem necessary, be permanently excluded from the community.
(II) Be yourself, only yourself, and just one of yourself.
Every person’s opinion is valuable and unique. Pretending to be someone else removes that unique value from you or from others. Don’t misrepresent yourself or others, or spread misinformation. If you do, you will make the community a less enjoyable and valuable place to be and misrepresentation may be removed when we see it.
(III) Safe space.
We strongly believe that the ScooNews should be a safe space for individuals, groups and their ideas. As such, purposefully insulting and hostile language or personal threats are not welcome here. If you directly or indirectly threaten the physical or mental well-being of a member of this community, or an individual or group, you may be removed immediately. If a credible threat is made against an individual or group, not only may it be removed but it is likely that it will be reported to law enforcement agencies and we will cooperate with them to any extent requested. Personally identifiable information should never be posted to the ScooNews comments section for the privacy and protection of all community members. This includes, but is not limited to, full names, addresses, phone numbers, or email addresses. Any comments that contain this information may be deleted.[/accordion]
[accordion title=Q: I posted a comment. Why can’t I see it on the site?]A: Please be aware that not all comments may appear directly on the ScooNews site, but will still appear on your Facebook feed for you and your friends, unless you have unchecked the “also post on Facebook” box above the comment entry space.