Community Discussion Rules

Here are our rules for participating in discussions on the Community Idea Stations’ websites and social networking forums. If you break them, don't be surprised if we block or remove your comments.

First: Be cool. If you can't be polite, don't say it. We want discussion - not warfare. You can disagree, you can raise and discuss controversial topics. You can be blunt. We're not always going to agree with each other. Nonetheless, please try to disagree without being disagreeable. Specifically:

• No personal attacks or name calling. Focus your remarks on positions, not personalities. No personal insults, libel, defamation, comments about someone's mother, hate speech, comparisons to notorious dictators - you get the idea.
• No threats. Under no circumstances should you post anything that could be taken as threatening, harassing, bullying, obscene, pornographic, sexist or racist. These comments will be deleted.
• No obscenities --even if the word in question is often used in conversation. We're not going to list the words we object to; you know what they are.
• Do not "feed" the trolls. We encourage community members to report abuse by trolls. But we also ask that you not engage with trolls in the comment threads. Reacting to their provocations is exactly what they want. If we see you feeding a troll, we will remove both the troll's comments and your responses.

Another thing, comment like a pro:

• Anything you post should be your own work. You're welcome to link to relevant content and to quote limited amounts from other people's work with attribution and any associated copyright notice and consistent with "fair use" principles of copyright law. But that doesn't mean you can copy and paste wholesale.
• Stay on topic. Think of it this way -- if you hosted a book club meeting at your home, you wouldn't want someone to show up and insist on discussing reality TV shows.
• Rambling is the kiss of death. Keep your comments to 400 words or less. Generally, anything beyond a few paragraphs had better be very, very interesting to the larger community. We may edit for brevity, clarity and other purposes.
• Respect people's privacy. We love to learn about new and interesting individuals, but most people will not be happy to have their phone numbers or e-mail addresses published. Please do not share another's contact information through the Community Idea Stations's discussion threads or social networking features.
• No advertising or promotion. Feel free to share your ideas and experiences about religion, politics and relevant products or services you've discovered. But this is not a place for advertising, promotion, recruiting, campaigning, lobbying, soliciting or proselytizing. We understand that there can be a fine line between discussing and campaigning; please use your best judgment -- and we will use ours.
• Finally: You are solely responsible for the content you post. The Community Idea Stations are not responsible for the content posted by users. We do not and cannot review all user content posted on ideastations.org. However, we have the right (but not the obligation) to review, screen, delete, edit and/or move any content posted on ideastations.org.

If you need more information about our Community Discussion Rules, feel free to email us at webmaster@ideastations.org.