Commenting policy

Paid subscribers will have access to our comments section. The comments on the site are not accessible to people who are not paid subscribers. (If you’d like to subscribe, click here.)

All subscribers are welcome to comment…except trolls, stalkers and people who aren’t who they say they are. Our goal is to create an open, transparent, and robust forum for the discussion of local issues. As such, we welcome comments from users of every race, sex, age, sexual orientation and religion. We will never delete or censor a comment based on the political or ideological affiliation of a user, or the perspectives they share.

However, comments that include racist, homophobic, or religiously intolerant language are prohibited and will be removed – as will comments containing ad hominem attacks.

Trolls – users who habitually post inflammatory content intended to stoke incivility – will be banned from commenting on the site. Stalkers – users who follow another user or users around the site or offline to provoke them, or who post personal details about another user or member of the community – will be banned from commenting on the site, as will people who post demonstrably false or potentially libelous information about other users.

Comments that contain language that could be interpreted as threatening or emotionally abusive will be removed from the site. Comments containing threats of physical violence will be removed from the site, and law enforcement may be made aware that such content was posted.

People who impersonate another user will have their comments removed from the site.

Comments should stay on-topic. Comments left beneath a story should address the story. If a user posts a comment that goes off on a tangent – particularly an inflammatory or unproductive tangent – that comment will be subject to removal.

Comments promoting commercial interests are strictly prohibited. Spam and other comments containing advertising, marketing or promotional messages will be deleted from the comments section. If you’d like to reach our users with a commercial message, please feel free to contact our sales director.